IJIET, e-ISSN 2548-8430, p-ISSN 2548-8422, Vol. 1, No.

2, July 2017

International Journal of Indonesian Education and Teaching

http://e-journal.usd.ac.id/index.php/IJIET
Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

FOSTERING LEARNING AUTONOMY THROUGH

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF FLIPPED LEARNING
IN LANGUAGE TEACHING MEDIA COURSE

Mega Wulandari
English Language Education Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
[email protected]
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/ijiet.2017.010209
received 29 May 2017; revised 13 June 2017; accepted 3 July 2017

Abstract
Dealing with millennial generations, it is essential that educators adjust the
educational paradigm in order to adapt to the needs of students in the digital age
as it is today. This research studied about the implementation of flipped classroom
learning model in Language Teaching Media (LTM) to foster fifth semester
students’ learning autonomy in English Teacher Education Study Program, Sanata
Dharma University. Through the implementation of flipped classroom using
Learning Management System (LMS), it is expected to model innovative teaching
strategies, such as flipped classrooms, in an effort to prepare preservice teachers
for 21st century education. Findings from this research indicated positive
perception towards flipped classroom in fostering learning autonomy in terms of
planning, classroom engagement and self-evaluation.

Keywords: flipped classroom, Moodle, Language Teaching Media

Introduction
The integration of technology in higher education provides an opportunity
to transform traditional pedagogy in order to achieve the needs of the millennial
generation. Millennial are those born in 1982-2002 and make technology a part of
their everyday lives (Wilson & Gerber, 2008). In teachers training program at the
university level, a learning model that focuses on the use of this technology can
equip preservice teachers with the pedagogical skills and strategies they will need
to address the next generation—the generation that will become their future
students.
Preservice teachers should be introduced to innovative learning models that
integrate traditional learning with technology. One of the learning models that
offer novelty and pedagogical innovation is flipped learning or flipped classroom.
In the flipped classroom, the presentation of the material is given not in the
classroom, but outside the classroom by means of learning management system
(LMS) platform or educational website. Learning materials in form of video, pdf
files, presentation files, online quizzes or other forms of digital content are
uploaded on LMS and accessible to students without time and space boundaries.
Flipped learning exchanges a process that traditionally represents the portion of

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teacher teaching into a portion of student learning independently before face-to-

face meetings take place (Flipped Learning Network, 2013). With that concept,
students can adjust to the learning ability of each individual to grasp better
understanding of the content knowledge. The availability of material in form of
video gives students the freedom to stop or repeat the material anytime in areas
they still consider hard to understand. Then, when students attend the classroom
meetings, students are expected to participate in the activities of implementing the
material they have watched or read before (Tucker, 2012). This learning model
not only provides an opportunity for students to have responsibility for their own
learning, but also gives more time in the classroom to explore the materials more
broadly and deeply.
The preservice teacher students were the target audience for this model as it
was decided that they would benefit most from hands-on experience of the
innovative teaching strategy. The students taking this course are in their third year
of teachers training program and have either recently decided to be teachers. One
of the most effective ways to teach preservice students how to engage their
students is by engaging them through their own coursework (Vaughan, 2014). It is
essential not only to provide students with a rich experience in the teacher
development program, but also to make university teachers in the faculty of
teacher training remain aware of the changing nature of education and prepare
students accordingly.
In response to that, Sanata Dharma University (USD) has made various
attempts to continuously improve the quality of learning. Therefore, through the
Center for Development and Learning Quality Assurance, USD develops Exelsa,
which is an internet-based platform based on Moodle as a digital learning
resource, for its academic community which can be accessed through
http://exelsa2012.usd.ac.id/. Lecturers and students can establish synchronous or
asynchronous computer-mediated communication through Exelsa. Lecturers can
present teaching materials and tasks online, while students can easily access and
review teaching materials through Exelsa independently. So, it is expected that
they can self-regulate their own learning process and foster their autonomous
learning skills.
Being an autonomous learner means the students have the capacity to
manage their own learning process, started from choosing the most suitable
learning method, selecting the media that can give them better understanding, and
conducting self-evaluation method to measure whether the learning process meets
the goals they have set previously. This way, learners are able to develop not only
knowledge but also other skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and even
personal skills such as responsibility, honesty, and integrity. Through the
integration of technology, it is expected to produce autonomous learners that are
able to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning process. The purpose of this
study is to investigate how this learning model is implemented and perceived. The
facts mentioned above raise awareness and necessity in conducting a research by
utilizing Exelsa in the Language Teaching Media (LTM) course as the initial step
to achieve what is aspired by Sanata Dharma University: shaping independent
academic community who are capable of becoming agents of change in the future.

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Theory
Flipped Classroom is a learning model that reverses traditional methods,
where materials are usually given in class and students do homework assignments.
The Flipped Classroom concept includes active learning, student engagement, and
podcasting (Vaughan, 2014). In the flipped classroom, the material is given in
advance through the instructional videos that students must watch in their homes.
In contrast, classroom learning sessions are used for group discussions and work
on assignments (Flipped Learning Network, 2013).

Figure 1. The difference between traditional classroom and flipped classroom

Several researches that examine the effect of flipped classroom on student

achievement have been conducted. Benefits such as increased student
engagement, increased feedback between teacher-students and among students, as
well as the degree of student independence have been documented in several
literatures (Goodwin & Miller, 2013; Roehl, Reddy, & Shannon, 2013;
Sadhaghiani, 2012). Although the benefits have been widely studied, not many
have applied to teacher training programs since most of the application of flipped
classrooms is done in the field of science (Sadaghiani, 2012). Meanwhile,
providing innovative and creative learning models should be the foundation of
teacher training programs, because optimal learning is done by having a hands-on
experience. This can be seen in Dale’s Cone of Experience (Dale, 1946) which
describes how learning process can affect the level of students’ understanding. At
Dale’s Cone of Experience, the model of a real experience gets the largest share in
contributing to a person’s level of understanding.

Figure 2. Dale’s Cone of Experience

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However, despite having many advantages, flipped classroom requires

careful preparation in order to run optimally. Flipping the classroom involves
much more than adding technology and out-of-class video activities to your
lessons; it requires both teachers and students to “flip” the way they
fundamentally view education (Webb, Doman, Pusey, 2014). Teachers should
certainly invest time to provide learning with interesting, quality, and
comprehensible digital content. While students, on the other hand, should have
access to a reliable internet connection and a high level of learning autonomy.
In the teacher training program, it is essential to encourage students to be
autonomous. Before encouraging their future students to be autonomous learners,
they have to become one themselves. Subsequently, they can be facilitator for
their students, not to feed them knowledge but to help providing supportive
learning environment. As Thanasoulas (2000) said, this can be done by
performing some activities such as asking them to write learning diaries where
they can set and evaluate their goals, make portfolio where teachers can give
feedbacks to motivate the students, encourage students to use technology to enrich
their knowledge, and some activities that require students to discuss and perform
critical thinking. If it is done continuously, the attitude of autonomous learner will
be eventually developed. The autonomous learning skill need to be trained, so that
they can become individuals who always develop, improve, and renew their
knowledge throughout their lives.
Brookfield (2009) emphasizes that independent students take responsibility
for their own learning processes cognitively, metacognitively, and affectively.
Furthermore, Nunan (1996) reveals that independent learners refer to students
who are self-motivated, responsible, and actively able to enrich themselves with
any knowledge related to the learning process being undertaken. The ability to be
responsible for the learning process is manifested in the student’s ability to plan,
monitor and evaluate him (Brookfield, 2009).
Departing from the definition of autonomous learning, it can be concluded
that autonomous learning is the willingness of students to conduct learning
activities that rest on the activities (planning, monitoring, evaluating) driven by
the force within themselves in an effort to achieve goals that are considered
valuable and useful. With the flipped classroom model, it is expected to encourage
and train students who are preservice teachers to become independent learners.

Method
This investigation was a survey study set in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. English
language classes at the university where the research was undertaken were held in
the English Language Education Study Program (ELESP), a department within
the Faculty of Education and Teachers Training. All enrolled students were
required to take 4 year-long English language courses as part of their requirements
to gain an S.Pd. (BA in Education), so they were considered as preservice teachers
or teacher candidates. This research employed questionnaire instrument to answer
two problem formulations:

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1) What is the student’s perception of the implementation of flipped

learning model?
2) To what extent flipped learning is able to foster students’ autonomous
learning skills?

The questionnaire was developed using Google Form which consists of 2

parts, that is close-ended and open-ended. The questionnaire was embedded on
Exelsa. The survey was conducted at the end of the 2016/2017 fall semester to 50
respondents from 2 Language Teaching Media (LTM) classes (Class A and E) in
the Sanata Dharma University. Respondents were students of class of 2012-2014,
aged 19-29 years and consist of 76% women and 24% men. In addition to the
survey, discussion forum notes, reflections, and observations were reviewed and
coded according to the categories of planning, engagement and self-evaluation.
This method was applied to increase validity of the data and avoid bias (Maxwell,
2005).

Figure 3. Demographic chart of the research participants

Figure 4. Demographic data of research participants

The final report describes the results of a numerical survey (from close-
ended questions) and descriptive (from open-ended questions) to flipped learning
implementation in LTM course and students’ perceptions of flipped classroom
learning model.

Findings and Discussion

The survey results show positive perceptions of students that can be seen
from how students plan lessons, engage in the classroom, and evaluate learning
independently.
Autonomous learning starts from the planning stage where students prepare
themselves before they enter into the learning process. According to Grieve

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(2003) autonomous learning is a personal attribute, the psychological readiness of

a person in controlling or responsible in the learning process. Thus, a person who
is independently ready can identify his needs and the purpose of why he should
learn something. In the learning autonomy, the individual learns about his own
interests, makes plans and takes action. They also think about the processes they
will undergo, solutions to problems and strategies for developing their abilities.
The researcher, who in this case also acts as a teacher, uploads instructional
materials in form of videos, assigned readings, individual quizzes and
presentations to be previewed by students before the actual face-to-face meetings
take place. This strategy is applied so that students attend the class with their
prepared minds and ready to apply the knowledge they have gained from the
uploaded materials. This meant that every chapter covered for LTM course would
be “at-home” activity and every class that students attended face-to-face would be
an active learning experience. Therefore, discussion and collaboration on projects
would take up the bulk of classroom time. By flipping the entire semester, the
model would truly be executed and the students would have a rich lesson in
experimenting with innovative teaching. The following is the result of the
questionnaire on planning stage.

Figure 5. The result of the questionnaire in the planning stage

The bar chart above shows that the majority of respondents (16% strongly
agree and 72% agree) stated that with flipped classroom model, they can identify
their learning needs, they can set the place and time to complete a task, and they
can preview the materials. The Moodle-based materials help the teacher to
provide students with sufficient information on the importance of learning a
material to be taught. The information provided by the teacher is accessible to
students and it can encourage them to make sense of what they will learn. This is
supported by the results of their open-ended questionnaire:

S135- “[…] I try to read the material before the class begins, and that really
helps me to understand the material better.”
S127-“Flipped classroom helps me to learn individually before I start
learning in the class. I can read several references about certain topics. It
helps me to prepare and have background knowledge first.”

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Nevertheless, there are still a small number of students (10% neutral, and
2% disagree) who say that flipped classroom has no effect on their learning plans.
It can be caused by some factors such as the choice of learning methods or
internet facilities.

S132- “I don’t have internet connection at home. I usually come to class

earlier to read or watch the videos posted by the teacher before the class
started.”
S125- “I prefer listening to my lecturer rather than reading a material posted
on Exelsa. Maybe that’s just my choice.”

In addition to students’ awareness of learning needs, autonomous learning

can also be seen from how students regulate themselves in terms of time and
place. With flipped classroom, learning materials can be accessed without time
and space restrictions. Students can access the material uploaded into Exelsa from
anywhere as long as they are connected to the internet network, such as in the
student hall, Self-Access Center, or in their respective homes. From the data
above, 96% of respondents agreed that they can structure their time and place of
study independently. Meanwhile, only 4% said they disagreed. It shows that
flipped learning provides flexibility for students to be able to access learning
materials at the time and place that is most convenient for them. This can be seen
from the student comments below:

S146- “[...] using Exelsa is really helpful for us because we can be

independent learners anywhere and anytime. We know what to do when the
lecturer gave us an assignment. I can review all the material from my
boarding house or SAC.”
S003-“This course gave me an easy access to recall the last material that we
have learned by using Exelsa. So that, when I want to learn more about it
outside the class, I can open it easily.”

Autonomous learning can also be seen from how they will complete the
tasks. An autonomous learner can plan goals, design the right time and place to
complete a task, and plan the steps to be undertaken. There are 88% of
respondents said they can do planning for task completion. In the LTM course,
there are several projects that they need to complete either individually or in
groups. Projects cover the creation of media, both technical and conventional.
Once, they have completed a media, the next stage is to do a teaching simulation.
The simulation is essential to evaluate whether the media they have created can be
effectively implemented in the classroom. Some videos and journal articles are
uploaded into Exelsa to guide them in the task completion, and all students can do
and get it done well.

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Figure 6. Screenshot of LTM Moodle-based material on Exelsa

The actual challenge of a teacher was to engage students in authentic and

meaningful activities. Teachers’ role includes providing activities that deepen
their understanding of both content and pedagogy knowledge, such as discussions,
presentations, and teaching simulations. Using flipped learning, in-class activities
can also provide a space for teachers to clarify misconceptions encountered by
students in “at-home” activities. Here is the result of the survey about student
engagement.

Figure 7. The chart of students’ engagement in class

On the chart above, it was shown that 72% of students stated that they were
able to be actively involved in group discussions. It can be said that a majority of
students felt that the flipped classrooms were helpful, and they agreed that the
additional time spent in class working on problem-solving activities greatly
enhanced their understanding of the concepts, for instance when they learned
about presentation media. The teacher gave students some choices of presentation
media, such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Prezi. After studying the two, students
then come to the classroom by preparing arguments for their choice. They explain
the advantages and disadvantages of each media and determine the best. The
discussion was very well executed, since every student had understood the
concept of each media by reviewing some references before coming to class. This
is a major advantage of using the flipped classroom.
Through the process of self-paced learning they had done prior to class,
misconceptions were sometimes inevitable. Teachers should emphasize that

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asking questions in class was essential in the learning process to avoid

misconceptions. From the chart, it was displayed that 64% of participants asked
questions when encountering difficulties in their understanding of the materials.
Based on the observation, the questions were expressed in class discussion forums
as well as in group discussion forums. In the flipped classroom, they asked more
questions about what was “allowed and not allowed”. This activity illustrates the
increased depth in the outcome occurred when students understand and reflect on
the content prior to class.
Besides aiming to provide opportunities for students to understand teaching
materials prior to face-to-face meetings, the flipped classroom also aims to allow
more time to explore broader references to the varied of language teaching media.
In the course, students were expected to know myriad choices of language
teaching media. In one in-class meeting, the teacher cannot explain all types and
functions of the teaching media, instead expecting students to explore by
themselves. Based on the data, 60% of students explore other references outside
the class. For example when the students were assigned to create an explainer
video, it can be created using different types of applications such as Windows
Movie Maker, Powtoon, or Stopmotion. They will discuss their choice with their
teammates in order to get their project done.

S127- “[...] When we are assigned to make an explainer video, I try to

browse software mastery lessons on YouTube. I am very enthusiastic in
producing media in this class.”
S114- “[...] We had a problem when creating an explainer video. We
couldn’t make the voiceover sounds perfectly. So, we browsed how to edit
and produce perfect voiceover for our video from YouTube videos. We’re
very happy because we finally made it!”

As explained above, the students searched for more information through

YouTube videos to solve problems they encountered in the process of completing
certain project. It sharpened the students’ critical and creative thinking skills they
might need as future teachers. It will also increase their digital literacy skill,
because in the attempts of finding the best references, they would try to find the
most reliable sources.

Figure 8. Explainer video created by LTM students

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Another essential aspect in the coursework is evaluation. Evaluation is one

of the important components and stages that must be taken by students to know
the effectiveness of the learning they have been through. Essentially, evaluation is
a systematic and continuous process to determine the quality (value and meaning)
of the learning process. Self-evaluation can be done in-class or out-class. For
example, after watching the videos, students were also given different
opportunities to show that they understood the content of the video either by
responding to the video with an oral or written comment, creating their own video
response, participating in an Exelsa forum discussion on the topic, or by
answering questions on a handout or online quiz. The survey showed that flipped
classroom, which was presented in the Moodle-based platform called Exelsa, gave
them opportunity to be autonomous learners by performing self-evaluation. The
following chart is the result of the survey.

Figure 9. The chart of self-evaluation

Evaluation can be done by monitoring comments / feedback given on the

post task, and also by comparing with the work of others. From the bar chart
above, it shows that 80% of students regularly monitor the results of their scores
obtained through the scoring record feature on Exelsa. 68% of respondents
accessed Exelsa to see if there were any comments or feedbacks they received for
the work they uploaded on Exelsa. In additions, 60% of respondents said they
compared the results of their classmates’ postings to evaluate whether they had
performed to achieve the desired results. Furthermore, 66% of respondents also
read feedbacks on their classmates’ products to see whether they were in
accordance with the criteria specified. By learning from others, they can gain
more meaningful knowledge and try to avoid pitfalls on the next project. Despite
this, some suggestions were also given by the students related to feature of Exelsa.

S011-“I personally think that Exelsa is already decent enough for us to

support our learning. However, it would be great if there is a kind of mobile
application that we can install . So, we can get direct notification when
somebody’s giving us comments on our postings.”
S025-“The communication between the lecturers and the students will be
better if Exelsa has online chatting. So, when students wanted to ask
something, we can directly reach our lecturer.”

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S021-“[...]This course also fosters my independent learning through self-

evaluation and also by comparing my work with my classmates’ works. It
makes me develop myself much because I have to find my own learning
style that suits me best.”

By conducting independent evaluation, students are expected to be able to

boost their motivation to complete tasks more optimally and also develop
themselves professionally as future teachers. By being autonomous learners who
set their own goals, they can also explore things as they desire, because they also
develop their own curiosity and eagerness to learn. Moreover, they can manage
the most suitable learning method or media for them so their learning will be more
effective.

Conclusions
The flipped classroom model constructed on the Exelsa platform has
contributed to learning process in the Language Teaching Media course especially
in fostering their autonomous learning skill. That includes instructional
preparation, active learning engagement in the classroom, as well as the
opportunity to evaluate independently. In additions, the flipped classroom
learning model can train students’ ability to be independent so they can be
individuals who always develop, improve, and renew their knowledge throughout
their lives.
Though findings from this research indicated positive perception towards
flipped classroom in fostering learning autonomy in the coursework in terms of
planning, classroom engagement and self-evaluation, several drawbacks from the
research were also noted. The survey in this course did not serve as sufficient
evidence to detail students’ attitudes towards the flipped model in the EFL
context. The researchers of this study suggest carefully defining the measurement
of the data, and putting these constructs into definite SPSS measurement in order
to ensure validity. The survey results presented in this study were not analyzed for
such factors, which would have otherwise increased the reliability of the survey
results.

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