When the flipped classroom disappoints: engaging students with asynchronous learning

The challenge Moving teaching online meant designing synchronous and asynchronous activities that would allow as many students as possible easy access to learning. A lot of educational support was available from the start of this emergency pivot, and much of the early advice recommended asynchronous teaching (Brown University, 2020) as a form of flipped classroom, or even encouraged refusal to do synchronous teaching altogether (BarrettFox, 2020). What we all quickly realised was that it takes more time to teach online than it does in a standard classroom. Interactions flow less naturally, creating longer pauses between contributions; moving between breakout rooms and the main room can be messy; late arrivals and technical difficulties cause interruptions; not to mention student reluctance to participate or unmute/turn on the camera. It also takes more time to build rapport online, especially in the context of learning development sessions, which lack continuity across a semester or academic year. As a result, I found myself not being able to deliver the same amount of instruction and interaction as I was used to. The most logical solution to this problem was to draw on my experience of subject teaching and introduce the flipped classroom (Mazur, 1997; Talbert, 2017).