Flipped learning approach in Sri Lankan classroom for teaching citizenship education

Abstract

Life Competencies and Citizenship Education (Civics) is taught to Sri Lankan students from grade 6 to 11. The subject covers lessons on society, social relationships, law, governance and so on which provide important and essential knowledge for an individual to become a social being. Despite the importance of the subject it can be identified as one of the least popular and least preferred subjects among Sri Lankan school students: initial observations and the discussions which were done with teachers who teach civics and with the students who learn the subject proved that majority of the students do not find it interesting to learn the subject. This action research was carried out to find whether flipped learning in combination with peer instruction model can be successfully adopted to improve students’ interest in learning Civics. Flipped learning is a student-centered pedagogical approach that encourages students to get first exposure to the learning materials prior to the class in order to focus on the processing part of the learning in the classroom. Peer Instruction model too is a similar kind of an approach that focus more on prior assignments like quizzes. Though these pedagogical approaches are successfully used by many education professionals throughout the world it is hardly being used in Sri Lankan context. So, intervention was done introducing flipped learning approach together with peer instruction model to a series of Civic lessons. Data were collected using semi structured questionnaire and observations before and after the intervention. The results showed that students have found the new way of teaching interesting and attractive. Most importantly every student in the study group commented on the new way of teaching in a positive manner. It was found that the students who were reluctant to learn Civics showed significant interest in learning the subject being inspired by the intervention. The results prove that Flipped learning and Peer Instruction model can be successfully used in Sri Lankan context to teach Civics by delivering lessons successfully while arousing students’ interest for learning. The study recommends more research based on flipped learning in order to identify whether it can be effectively used to diversify teaching learning atmospheres in order to strengthen live interactions between teachers and students inside Sri Lankan classrooms.