Student Appreciation of the Flipped Classroom Despite Adaptation Challenges: A Three-Year Survey

Flipped class and remote learning have grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid advancement of digital tools. We evaluated this innovative method's effectiveness for both students and teachers in an engineering sciences course. In a flipped class, traditional lectures are replaced with pre-prepared multimedia resources, which students must read through in advance. The students must arrive prepared before participating in class tutorial sessions, which have increased in duration due to the removal of conventional lectures. The multimedia resources include an online course created with the editorial channel Scenari and shared on the Moodle platform, incorporating texts, videos, and unevaluated exercises, along with documents and pre-filled handouts that encourage note-taking. Moodle tests are used to assess student comprehension and allow teachers to monitor their progress. The self-learning time is flexible and integrated into student's schedules to support their preparation. This approach aims to enhance knowledge acquisition through online courses compared to conventional lectures, where students struggle to stay focused. The in-class sessions are interactive workshops led by the teacher, promoting peer support, student engagement, and active participation. The flipped classroom transforms the teacher-centered model into a student-centered approach. Teachers practicing the flipped approach develop new competencies, including various pedagogy strategies, designing multimedia resources, remotely supervising different course stages to monitor student progress, and facilitating workshops. A survey of student appreciation, containing closed and open-ended questions over several years, allowed us to gain insights into students' perception and learning preferences. Based on 182 collected comments, a sentiment analysis revealed that most students valued the flipped class, which helped them to achieve the expected skills. However, about 20% felt destabilized by the removal of traditional lectures and struggled to keep up with the required pace of work. Therefore, the teacher should consider the workload and ensure that students feel integrated into a collective learning environment.