Rethinking Accountability, Feedback, and Formative Assessment

A common concern instructors have about flipped learning is the issue of accountability. They worry that if students do not interact at all with content before class, they will be unprepared to engage in collaborative activities in class. Indeed, holding students accountable for completing work before class is even more important when instructors flip their classes. Instructors also need to ensure that they continue to assess students’ learning progress and provide feedback. In this chapter, we discuss key ideas related to accountability by exploring its relationship to motivation. We also consider the role of the instructor in designing assignments and increasing students’ motivation and discuss the nature of formative assessment and feedback within flipped learning. Finally, we provide one example of an online polling program to show how instructors can gather formative assessment on students’ learning progress in a fun way.