Flipping the Classroom to Enhance Flexibility and Enrich Public Policy Curriculum
PPMN90056 Business and Government is an elective subject in the Master of Public Policy and Management (MPPM). The subject develops students’ analytical capacities for recognising different theoretical, normative and practical dimensions of business-government relationships. Students are given the tools to address real-world policy and regulatory concerns in these relationships.
The growing popularity of the MPPM has not escaped this elective, which, in recent years, has attracted more students, including a sizeable increase in the international enrolments. In light of these changes, Dr Kate Macdonald, Associate Professor in Public Policy and the subject coordinator for Business and Government, wanted to build a flexible learning environment where students, based on their prior knowledge and experiences, could choose how to engage with the subject’s foundational content. Many MPPM students commence their studies with significant professional experience in public policy, while others are relatively unfamiliar with real-world policy problems. At the same time, the program’s international cohort brings diverse policy and thematic experiences that are often contextually very different from the experiences of domestic students. Dr Macdonald saw this as an excellent opportunity to enrich the curriculum by harnessing this experiential and contextual diversity.
To provide flexibility in student engagement and offer diverse content, Dr Macdonald moved key content and direct instruction online. This allowed students to choose from a wider range of case studies and tailor their learning based on their prior experiences in public policy. Enabling flexibility through online resources and an individual learning space aligned closely with the flipped learning framework, which combines flexibility and active learning culture (FLN 2014). It gives students choice in how and when they engage with content before class, while maximising opportunities to extend their theoretical knowledge through peer-to-peer and student-to-teacher interactions in a physical classroom (Seery 2015). Ultimately, it minimises the need for face-to-face teaching to be solely dedicated to knowledge transmission.
In Business and Government, the flipped learning approach replaced three-hour seminars delivered weekly over a period of eight weeks, which included both delivery of content and interactive activities. Now, the subject consists of shorter seminars, almost exclusively dedicated to active learning, maximising the opportunity for students to put their theoretical knowledge into practice. These shorter, more condensed seminars follow directly from weekly online modules. The modules afford students the flexibility to engage in direct instruction at any time and place, while also offering a great resource for review and revision. Having these modules in place ensures that each student can find their own personalised way through the subject content in preparation for the seminars and when working on their assignments.
Dr Macdonald brought this to fruition in collaboration with her research assistant Dr Antonia Settle, who helped update the subject content. They enlisted the help of Dr Elena Balcaite, ATI’s Teaching Specialist, in making curriculum changes and designing and implementing the online learning environment. The Faculty’s eTeaching team also offered timely assistance in the construction of the online module, while Dr Heath Pickering, Lecturer in Public Policy, joined Dr Macdonald in the classroom to facilitate the seminars and provide guidance to students. Dr Settle was also involved in the delivery of the redesigned subject; she conducted student consultations and provided additional assessment support.
In the video below, Drs Kate Macdonald, Heath Pickering and Elena Balcaite discuss the redesign of Business and Government, noting key practical and pedagogical principles that informed the updates to the subject. They also reflect on how students received these changes.
Following the intentional content principle of flipped learning model, Drs Macdonald and Settle worked on presenting each subject’s topic in a clear narrative to offer students a sequential path through each module, while also allowing the flexibility of finding alternatives paths through the material.
Dr Balcaite made suggestions and supported implementation of interactive features to accompany online instructions and tasks. These interactive features included H5Ps, Padlets and Canvas Discussions, and were purposefully integrated to support the overall narrative of the modules and student engagement.
Padlets, in particular, offered opportunities for peer-to-peer learning. Many Padlet activities were designed to gather examples of business-government relationships. As a result, each week students presented a diverse range of examples, both from different policy domains but also unique cases from their home countries. This was a great example of how the cohort’s diversity was leveraged to create an internationalised curriculum. The module material gave helpful context and structure for students to see the value in these peer-to-peer learning opportunities, while the Padlet afforded a simple way for the teaching staff to implement and manage them. This included teaching staff commenting on students’ contributions in the seminars to promote engagement and support the connection between the online and physical learning spaces.
The overall approach taken in the design of the modules aimed to support purposeful student-to-content interaction, where students knew why they were engaging with different pieces of content and how that was relevant for the seminar activities and their assessment tasks. For example, all required readings were embedded in the modules and presented with associated questions, which students had to reflect on either in the discussion forums or in class.
Discussion forums were an important feature of the subject’s online component, incentivising students’ timely completion of the modules. To have this effect, all discussion forums were graded and collectively formed a piece of assessment weighted at fifteen percent of the overall mark. Associate Professor Kate Macdonald and her teaching assistant Dr Heath Pickering were pleasantly surprised by students’ positive response to the discussion forums, which had a 100 percent participation rate and ensured that students came to class prepared.
Flipped learning was a new approach to both students and teachers. Dr Pickering reflects that, at first, students came to the seminars expecting a lecture and it took some explaining and practice for them to fully appreciate and get on board with the flipped classroom model. Picking up on these teething problems early on was the key to students ultimately embracing the new way of doing things. One of the core features of flipped learning approach is a proactive role of the teacher in providing students with feedback and being attentive to their needs. Drs Macdonald and Pickering exemplified this core component of flipped learning in their responsiveness to students’ needs and adaptability even during a busy semester.
In response to students’ feedback, they added overview videos and made other small tweaks to the modules, diversifying the content and strengthening the relationship between the online learning environment and the seminars. The teaching team’s investment in the flipped learning approach and their overall agility were what made the redesign of the subject work so well. Students actively engaged with the interactive features of the modules, came to class prepared and participated in active learning in the seminars. The flexibility built into the subject’s design and the opportunities to learn from peers were particularly valued by the first cohort of students to experience the flipped classroom approach in Business and Government.
References
Flipped Learning Network (2014). Definition of Flipped Learning.
Seery, M. K. (2015). The Flipped Classroom: Rationale and Approaches for Higher Education. The AHEAD Journal. 2.