Flipping the classroom compared to the lecture method: students’ and lecturer’s perceptions

Abstract

The current mode of delivery of engineering education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) is the lecture, which has been shown by research not to be particularly effective for promoting deep learning. We argue that an alternative method of delivering curriculum may be needed in order to improve student learning. Underpinned by a developmental perspective of cooperative learning model, we present students’ and their lecturers’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the inverted classroom method of delivering instruction compared to the lecture method in a thirdyear hydrology course in civil engineering at CPUT. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for understanding the phenomena under investigation. Findings showed that ‘inverting’ or ‘flipping’ and moving the lecture to the homework domain, and saving application and one-on-one or group work for the classroom experience, makes the inverted classroom method more productive than the lecture method.