AN EXAMPLE OF IMPLEMENTING THE PARTIALLY FLIPPED LEARNING APPROACH IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach that started in secondary education, specifically in the classrooms of two high school chemistry teachers. Currently, this approach is an area of innovation that is leading to the increased active learning in STEM disciplines. The flipped classroom is based on inverting instruction; briefly speaking, flipping involves moving content knowledge acquisition outside the class and knowledge construction and problem solving are moved into the classroom. This is key in the context of engineering education when teaching to large groups of students, where class time is used to cover content and students are left learning and applying the material on their own. This work describes the design and implementation of several flipped units in an Environmental Technology module within an Engineering Course, during the 2017-18 year which can be described as an initial approximation towards the flipped classroom environment. The goals of partially flipping the module were to foster students' self-learning process and to improve their team work skills. Examples of the flipped topics include air pollution dispersion models, water pollution, Ecodesign, waste treatment, noise pollution, etc. The evaluation of the classroom flip was conducted by a satisfaction survey carried out at the end of the semester and by assessing the worksheets of the designed activities. The survey answers showed that students responded positively to the flipping approach and that they expressed their willingness to extend the flipping process to other topics of the module.