Flip teaching vs collaborative learning to deal with heterogeneity in large groups of students

Abstract

High school students start their first year at the university with very different levels of knowledge and skills. Chemistry and Technical Drawing are two appropriate examples to study this complex situation. Due to the flexible high school academic curricula and the lack of strict requirements to enter university degrees in the case of, for example, engineering degrees, it is possible for a student to access withoutstudying Chemistry or Technical Drawing in the last years of high school. The challenge of teachingheterogeneous and large groups has been addressed using different methodologies. In particular, this work has compared two methodologies that can be named as the “classical” and “innovative” approaches. The first one tries to level the students before the standard lessons, applying a flip teachingtechnique. The second one face heterogeneity, not as problem, but as an opportunity: collaborative learning using working teams tries to level the students through interactions between them. The results of both methodologies have been measured using different external controls: tests, chronological development of activities, continuous assessment questionnaires or final tests. An important conclusion is that both methodologies have a clear impact in the motivation of the students, however this motivation does not well translate into final improvements of the students’ marks in the subjects. Flip teaching videos must be done according to the learning objectives and students need to get used to watchingvideos to prepare the lessons because, in general, it is something new for them. Collaborative learning produces synergy that contributes to the learning process, but interactions between students and teachers must be encouraged. Finally, the authors suggest a critical reflection of the optionality of some subjects in the last years of high school and the possibility to access some degrees without having essential knowledge of some subjects.