Implementing a flipped-classroom approach for metacognitive gains to prepare mathematics student-teachers for the 21st century

Abstract

There is a constant need to rethink education strategies as the role and nature of education are constantly changing due to the swift advancement of technology in the 21st century. My experience as a high school mathematics teacher led me to this investigation since I have witnessed the need for reflective teachers who can critically evaluate their practice and support and guide students in their deeper learning of mathematical content. Therefore, the construct of metacognition and how teachers can acquire this vital skill became an area of interest. South Africa urgently needs self-directed, self-regulated 21st century teachers with good metacognitive skills. Therefore, higher education institutions are required to design and evaluate strategies that support students in this regard. For this investigation, the perusal of the literature set out to investigate which features of the flipped-classroom approach (FCA) have the potential to support students in developing metacognitive skills. Since the literature concurs that the flipped classroom has the potential to support these skills, this approach was used to deliver a specific mathematics module within the first year of the BEd programme offered by the North-West University (NWU - Potchefstroom Campus). Therefore, implementing an FCA and investigating how it should be designed for metacognitive gains was central to this study. From the literature it became apparent that the FCA can be designed and implemented in different ways and that there is no one way to do it. This initial implementation of the FCA provides an ideal opportunity to investigate how this approach should be designed to foster metacognition and consequently the self-directed learning (SDL) of mathematics student-teachers. The primary aim was to determine how an FCA should be designed to foster metacognition within mathematics student-teachers. The secondary aim was to suggest guidelines for an FCA implementation to promote metacognition at this higher education institution. The study was guided by a constructivist-interpretivist paradigm whereby the researcher’s role was to understand and interpret the participants’ experiences. In this qualitative study, a design-based research (DBR) case study was employed to investigate participants’ experiences of how the FCA to teaching and learning of a specific mathematics module in the BEd programme supported the development of student-teachers’ metacognitive skills. Directing the investigation and, as suggested for DBR, the research questions have emerged from the identified problem for the need for metacognitive skills and how higher education institutes can foster their development as an important 21st century skill. The main findings of the investigation emphasise that an understanding of the changed roles of both the lecturers and students in an FCA is crucial for metacognitive gains. Course content, the

scaffolding of both in-class and out-of-class learning, and the online environment can hinder or support metacognitive skills development in an FCA to teach and learn mathematics. An FCA needs to be meticulously planned and should incorporate explicit metacognitive teaching strategies for maximum metacognitive gains that play a crucial role in21st century learning.