Teaching and Learning strategies for Flipped Learning in Christian education

ABSTRACT

Christian education at the university level often employs the traditional method of lecture presentation. This time-honored education style is very good at delivering the lecturer’s knowledge to listeners. However, it is weak when it comes to checking the students’ attitudes. Questions such as: • how focused on the subject matter each student may be, • how students themselves interpret the biblical text at hand, • whether they accept the text as written or presented, • how well they understand the content of the lectures, and the like cannot be determined (much less addressed) when the instructor utilizes traditional lectures alone. To overcome this weakness, Flipped Learning has been gaining popularity recently, not only in specifically Christian education processes but in general education contexts as well. Flipped Learning requires students to do so called pre-self-study before the class period. This pre-self -study can involve watching video clips (usually 15-20 minutes), reading the textbook, and so on. Since students learn the basic content of the lecture ahead of time through their own study, classroom time can incorporate much more interactive styles of instruction than traditional lecture. Flipped Learning classes can focus on comprehension, assimilation, and application, rather than the mere transmission of data. Thus the Flipped Learning method is a counterpoint to the traditional lecture style. This paper evaluates the most effective means of teaching Old Testament Theology in the context of university-level Christian education. It compares and contrasts traditional lecture style methods and the Flipped Learning style, and also considers the educational meaning and value of Flipped Learning in Christian education overall. To achieve these ends, this paper describes the application of Flipped Learning to an Old Testament Theology course, both in syllabus design and in classroom management. The result of this research shows: 1) A “Flipped Learning course” needs a teaching strategy that encourages students to actually and diligently do their pre-study, because when the students do their pre-study, they are better able to participate in and focus on the classroom session learning objectives, than they would with a traditional lecture alone. 2) Students’ satisfaction with the course is increased, and their ability to cogitate upon the content is expanded, because of the various interactive lecture strategies employed in Flipped Learning. 3) Flipped Learning techniques need to be applied more frequently in Christian education overall, because students exposed to these methods have demonstrated both an increased knowledge, and a greater understanding, of the Bible. Such benefits were honed through their asking and answering questions of one another during classroom sessions. It is also worth noting that in this way, students preparing for pastoral ministry gain experience in fielding questions similar to those their congregations will pose. Future Christian leaders benefit greatly from learning to “ask the Bible questions” themselves…and learning to find the answers on their own. Their Bible professors won’t always be available to answer the questions for them! This research could be used as a basic resource for learning how to operate an applied Flipped Learning course in the field of Christian education. Follow-up study will be essential since it is notoriously difficult to “objectify” the teaching of theology—how does one translate a student’s understanding of theology into course grade numbers? How do you quantify the learning outcomes, or measure the degree to which a student has improved by the end of the course? Such further issues should prove fruitful fields for exploration and discussion.