Video-based learning in higher education: the flipped or the hands-on classroom?

Nowadays Higher Education is adopting new ways of teaching such as ways of Video-Based Learning (VBL) with the aim of moving away from the traditional classrooms. The interest in VBL has increased as a result of new forms of online education, most prominently in the case of Massive Open Online Courses. VBL has unique features that make it an effective Technology-Enhanced Learning approach. Furthermore it seems to support a rich and powerful model to improve learning outcomes as well as learner satisfaction, but it is necessary to choose an appropriate instructional approach when designing VBL environments. One of the latest methods that use video as a tool for learning is Flipped Classrooms – or inverted classrooms- and, in many cases, it is showed that the result of introducing videos in a learning design eventually converges in this type of methodology. To explore this context, this research presents a case study that uses a combination of the VBL and Project-Based Learning methodologies. The classes are face-to-face but there are no lessons: the students develop small projects in labs. A set of teaching explanations are recorded in videos provided together with the descriptions of the projects. The objective of this research is to study the behaviour and satisfaction of the students using the videos, their utility as well as the position of the professors. Participants were the students of the course “Wireless sensor networks” that took place in April to June of 2014. This was designed as an optional subject in the 3rd and 4th year of the Bachelor Degrees in Computer Engineering, Electronic Engineering and Audio-visual Systems Engineering. Two professors were in charge of the course, one of them acting as a coordinator and other as a teaching assistant. The study was conducted using a mixed methodology and used five instruments to gather data: two surveys (students, teachers), an interview (teachers), an observation protocol and two types of system log files (course delivery platform and video server). The gathered qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed and triangulated. One of the main results is that students interacted with the course content mainly during class hours, despite the fact that they had the opportunity to watch the videos before the sessions. Hence the flipped classroom was not present though it was the expected situation. Students used videos as support material within class while they were working on the projects at their pace. On the one hand, the incorporation of videos in class allowed students to enjoy a great flexibility to access the professors’ explanation. The advantage of this flexibility questions the use of oral teacher presentations in class because of the latter are governed by schedule, meaning that the students cannot access to this explanation beyond the class in the moments when their application is more significant. These conclusions are somehow in line with claims by other researchers saying that the role of presence-based learning may be re-thought, standard lectures do not take advantage of having the students personally present in the class. However, the use of video allows access to content “on demand”. Moreover, the use of videos has helped students to become more autonomous. In a learning design based on the student as in our case, the flexibility and autonomy that provide videos -used as support material during classes- help students to have more control over their own learning process and, therefore, the role of the teacher as facilitator is reaffirmed. Contrary to common belief, the use of video-based learning may not only converge in the use of flipped classroom methodology. It is also possible to use the videos in a hands-on class as a support tool that encourages a more autonomous, flexible and significant learning. The application of a flipped or a hands-on classroom approach depends on diverse aspects, including the nature of the course (with practical or theoretical orientations), the behaviour emerging from the students (depending on their needs and preferences, time constraints, etc.) and the design of the activities proposed by the teachers (strongly requiring students to watch videos in a certain timeframe, e.g. previously to the class, or offering flexibility). Future research considering variations of these parameters will help to understand the benefits and limitations of both approaches and to what extent they may coexists in VBL.