Well, there was an international conference called EuroCALL at the end of August, and I presented our Flipped Learning × Knowledge-Constructive Jigsaw Method support system there!! I am happy to be able to show this as a concrete system, which is one of the outcomes of our KAKENHI project. This is a joint project with Prof. Yasunami and Prof. Goda from Kumamoto University, Prof. Hata from Otemae University, and Prof. Matsukawa from Tohoku University.

Yamada,M., Goda, Y., Matsukawa, H., Hata, K. & Yasunami, S. (in printing). Flip-J: Development of the system for flipped jigsaw supported language learning, Proceedings of EuroCALL 2016

For those who have tried flipped learning, you may know that there is a major concern that students will not complete their pre-class assignments, and you might have experienced that it does not go well. It is important to increase engagement in learning, and I thought about whether we could combine it with the Knowledge-Constructive Jigsaw Method, which is being actively promoted by Prof. Nahomi Miyake and her student, Prof. Masukawa of Shizuoka University. While this KAKENHI project focuses on language learning, some students are working hard on basic vocabulary and listening skills for qualification exams like TOEIC or TOEFL, and I believe these are things that can basically be done outside of class. Rather, I think that a class where the teacher encourages output in the target language and provides feedback to students is more effective because input and output are linked.

However, even when using the Knowledge-Constructive Jigsaw Method, it must be designed carefully. Even with a proper design, there are students who do not complete the assignments. When that happens, it has a strong negative impact on the activities of the expert groups and jigsaw groups, and the teacher faces a heavy burden, such as having to reorganize groups at the beginning of class. Also, for students, those who have properly completed their pre-class assignments would want to study in a group with others who have also done so, and being in a group with those who have not will lower the quality of the group’s learning outcomes. This will likely affect the class satisfaction of students who have properly completed their pre-class assignments and are attending class diligently.

Also, while teachers often use materials they have prepared themselves, we now live in a world where high-quality educational content is available for free on platforms like YouTube, which can also be considered excellent materials for listening to authentic foreign languages.

The Flipped Learning × Knowledge-Constructive Jigsaw Method support system “Flip-J” was designed and developed with the idea of supporting teachers by wrapping all of these elements together. It was developed as a Moodle plugin. Currently, it works on Moodle 2.9.X.

Teachers create what is called a class scenario, which includes the flow of a single class, assignments, the number of groups, the number of teams contained within a group, and the setting of deadlines for pre-class assignments. Teachers can also register materials they have created (PDF, mp3, mp4) or URLs from YouTube and Voice of America into the material database (for YouTube only, you can specify the start time of the part you want students to watch (due to YouTube specifications, the end time cannot be specified)).

Expert group assignments are made randomly by pressing the automatic setting button. The expert and jigsaw groups, as well as the teams for discussion within each group, are automatically generated upon the submission of pre-class assignments. Teachers only need to manually assign students who have not submitted their work at the beginning of the face-to-face class. The interface is also easy to use, allowing for member changes via drag-and-drop or the creation of new teams. I am personally impressed by the user-friendly interface. Of course, if a teacher feels that the automatically formed groups or teams are not suitable, they can be edited manually.

For students, content is arranged in an arrow-like flow so they can understand the progression of this type of class, and assignment deadlines are displayed so they know what to do and by when. We used the Moodle forum plugin for discussions, but during formative evaluation, it was highly unpopular with both students and teachers and was deemed unusable, so in the next version, it will be possible to conduct text chats within Flip-J. Including this discussion, it can be used for pre-class learning, or you can choose not to use the chat and instead conduct it face-to-face while having students submit assignments via Flip-J. It is possible to use it in a fully online format or a blended format with face-to-face classes.

Also, once a class scenario is created, it can be reused. In language-related subjects, there are many cases where multiple teachers conduct classes that do not differ significantly in content. Also, I think there are many cases where you conduct a class with the same design in the following year. It is tough to set everything up from scratch, right? In that case, after selecting your course, pressing the button to duplicate a scenario will take you to a screen where you can choose the scenario you want to duplicate. The scenario you want to duplicate will be copied, and you can then re-configure the details.

At EuroCALL, I presented the formative evaluation of the prototype version, but at this year’s Japan Society for Educational Technology National Conference at Osaka University, Prof. Hata from Otemae University will report on the development of the next version, for which we have made improvements such as the chat function. It will be from 9:00 AM on September 18th, so I would be happy if those who are interested could listen.

Development of a Flipped Classroom Support System Incorporating the Knowledge-Constructive Jigsaw Method
Kojiro Hata, Masaaki Yamada, Yoshiko Goda, Hideya Matsukawa, Seisuke Yasunami

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