Steve Griffiths

I am pleased to report on the first peer-reviewed research investigating video learning using the lightboard. I have been eagerly awaiting this research ever since I made my first lightboard video.

Firstly to clarify, the lightboard is a large glass board on which the instructor writes and draws whilst they teach, facing the camera. The board is filled with light by LED strip edge lighting. This makes the instructors’ writing “pop out” against the black backdrop. The lightboard is referred to by a number of names including forward board, learning glass, and in this study a transparent whiteboard.

In 2016, a study identified that video styles in which the instructor writes and draws in real time is more beneficial for student learning than static images. The study also found that learning is enhanced when the instructors’ hand is visible. My blog post on this paper can be found here.

This present study compares a video where the instructor teaches on a traditional whiteboard with a video where the instructor uses a transparent whiteboard. The study measured student learning in a posttest immediately after the video or after a delay of 7 days. The study also evaluated students’ perceptions of the video styles.

An example of the transparent lightboard

The results were that the students who viewed the transparent whiteboard video performed significantly better in the immediate posttest than the students who viewed the traditional whiteboard video. The authors proposed that the transparent whiteboard was more effective for student learning for two reasons. Firstly, there is educed occlusion with the transparent board. With a traditional whiteboard, the instructor frequently occludes text and drawings as he is writing. This obstruction prevents the instructor from cueing to the relevant information at the time that they are verbally explaining the content. The second reason the authors proposed for the improved learning with the transparent board was increased social cues. Having the instructor face the students and make eye contact increases the social cues and student engagement.
Students’ preferences were also evaluated using a survey. Students who viewed the transparent whiteboard video reported a greater rapport with the instructor and student engagement was significantly higher.
A second experiment measured whether the improved learning was preserved over a one-week duration. The learning improvement was not significantly better than the whiteboard. However, the authors acknowledged that the students were not incentivised to remember the information. The authors recommend that further research should be conducted in authentic setting where students are incentivised to remember the video content.

This first study is very encouraging for the use of the lightboard. Especially in subject areas like STEM where there are significant amounts of complex spatial representations.

For further information on how to make a lightboard or make lightboard videos, check out this post.

Fiorella, L., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). Effects of observing the instructor draw diagrams on learning from multimedia messages. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(4), 528.

Just like all teachers, at the beginning of the year, I check out the available data on my new students regarding their grades last year. I then promptly forget this information due to the frenetic pace of the first few weeks of term. I then get to know my students in my in-class flipped mastery classroom and make my own evaluation of my students. I think that I am able to predict those students who will get As in my subject because they demonstrate grit, and agency and are progressing through the course well. So, I was surprised the other day when I went back to the data and found that a good number of students that I thought would get As actually got Cs last year.

I naturally reflected on what was going on here. I think the explanation is that the students respond well to a flipped learning classroom and my students had not previously experienced it. So what is it about flipped learning that is most likely to benefit these students? I think there are a number of reasons why my students respond favourably to flipped learning.

Active, student-centred learning:

In Alison King’s (1993) seminal work “from Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side” she says that students are not empty vessels filled passively by an instructor lecturing content but instead, understanding is actively constructed (King, 1993). Flipped learning increases the amount of time students spend engaged in active learning because the teacher is not the “sage on the stage” but the “guide on the side”.

Prince (2004) defined active learning as “any instructional method that engages students in the learning process…….Active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing”. Active learning has been found to increase student performance (Freeman, et.al., 2014). Flipped learning is a pedagogy that facilitates students to engage in active learning (Abeysekera and Dawson, 2015).

Flipped learning emphasizes student-centred, active learning in the group space through a variety of rich, meaningful learning experiences that explore concepts in greater depth and complexity and support the students’ construction of knowledge (Bergmann and Samms, 2012; Talbert, 2017).

Differentiation:

Flipped learning allows all students to work at their own pace. In the individual space, they can pause and rewind the video as often as they like, they can take a little longer to take better notes and they can go back and re-watch the videos later.

The role of the teacher in the flipped classroom also allows differentiated instruction and support for every student every day. By interacting with every student, in every class, the teacher can tailor their support to the individual student, if and when they need it. In a traditional classroom, it is often the best students that get the most attention from the teacher because they are asking and answering the questions. Whereas, in a flipped classroom, the students that struggle the most get the most help. “We think that this may be the single most important reason students thrive in the flipped model” (Bergmann & Sams, 2012, p.23).

Relationships:

Jo Boaler (2002) says that interactions between students and the teacher and between students are an essential part of a student’s learning and development. The interactions between students and the teacher in a flipped classroom are more frequent than the traditional classroom model (Bergmann and Samms, 2012). “Flipping allows us to build better relationships with our students” (Bergmann and Samms, 2012).

The reasons I think that my students respond well to the flipped classroom are because of the increased active, student-centred, learning, the differentiated instruction and the rich relationships. Perhaps there are other reasons as well. All I know is that many of my students show significant improvement in their grades in the flipped classroom.

Post script to this post is that the first assessment has now been graded and it has confirmed my suspicions that students are performing better this year in a flipped classroom.

Please join me @ FlipCon NZ or FlipCon Australia where I will be running a Cohort and presenting a break-out, I’d love you to come and say Hi – www.flipconaus.com

References:

Abeysekera, L., & Dawson, P. (2015). Motivation and cognitive load in the flipped classroom: Definition, rationale and a call for research. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(1), 1-14. 10.1080/07294360.2014.934336

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. International Society for Technology in Education.

Boaler, J. (2002). Learning from teaching: Exploring the relationship between reform curriculum and equity. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 33(4), 239-258.

Freeman, S., Eddy, S.L., McDonough, M., Smith, M.K., Okorafor, N., Jordt, H., and Wenderoth, M.P., (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 111 (23), 8410-8415.

King, A. (1993). From sage on the stage to guide on the side. College teaching, 41(1), 30-35.

Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(3), 223-231. 10.1002/j.2168-9830.2004.tb00809.x

Talbert, R. (2017). Flipped Learning: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Does the lightboard improve learning? The first empirical research.

Why do my students’ grades improve with flipped learning?

Active, student-centred learning:

Differentiation:

Relationships: