by Martha Partridge and Agnieszka Tarnowska
Introduction
At the very beginning of the 2022 pre-sessional course, a colleague I had not previously worked with – Agnieszka Tarnowska – shared an idea for encouraging students to engage with reflection. She used Flipgrid – a free video-sharing platform – as a space in which students could record reflective videos throughout the course, to which the teacher would respond with written comments (read her explanation below. This had worked very effectively with her class last year, she explained, with her students choosing to regularly use it of their own accord. My own attempts at incorporating Flipgrid had consistently been far less successful; I was impressed, and curious.
It made sense to offer an extra space for students to speak – the vast majority on this course were in their home country studying online. Not only would speaking skills clearly be needed when they arrived in Bristol in September, but many of them specify speaking as an area they want to improve. Yet it can be hard to ensure this happens within the online classroom, particularly if all students share an L1. What’s more, since the move to online teaching due to the Covid pandemic, lower student interaction and engagement has become an issue (Aljahromi, 2020), covered in this post by Cathy Faulkner and Fiona Hartley more extensively. I hoped that Flipgrid may provide a low-stakes space in which students could not only practice speaking skills, but also develop their ability to reflect.
This post begins with Agnieszka’s explanation of her own experience of using Flipgrid on the pre-sessional course at UoB. I then explain the way I implemented it in my class this year, and the results of two surveys distributed to my students asking about their reactions to Flipgrid. I compare these results to some of the existing literature, before making some recommendations and posing some remaining questions.
Aga’s experience
I did my first pre-sessional course at the University of Bristol in 2020. As much I could see the value of students’ written reflections, I felt my students would have benefited more from more activities aimed at improving their speaking. That’s why, in week 1 of the 6-week pre-sessional course in 2021, I set up a group on Flipgrid and in the following couple of weeks on Mondays I set a task for those whose Learning Development Goal (LDG) was to improve their speaking. The students were asked to talk about their LDGs or the difference between spoken and written language. Starting from week 3, the students were given freedom as to the content of their talks on Flipgrid. I didn’t set any tasks, and just told them if they wanted to evidence their speaking progress, my expectation was to see them speak.
A surprising thing happened – students started posting videos in which they covered topics related to their academic programme and in week 5 of the course a student uploaded the first narrated power point presentation. Acting on the feedback I’d given him in the previous weeks, he decided to incorporate visuals in his presentation to be better able to convey his ideas. As he reported in his portfolio reflection, the fear of speaking he initially had was overridden by his desire to produce output on a topic he was passionate about. I was really pleased with this outcome because not only did using Flipgrid prior to week 6 help the student to boost his speaking confidence, but it also stood him in good stead for the final presentation.
I think that by providing our students with a space where they can record talks or presentations, we are giving them a useful tool that will address their need to practise speaking, experiment with visuals and create opportunities for interactive communication thanks to the comment feature.
The case study
The context for this small case-study is a class of 12 students on the 6-week online pre-sessional course at the University of Bristol in 2022. All students were from China and going on to study an MSc in Accounting and Finance, or Accounting, Finance and Management. The teaching was shared between two teachers, both of whom used Flipgrid for different reflective purposes over the course. As a result, the students were given the opportunity to record a reflective video two to three times a week.
Flipgrid was introduced to the students in Week 2 of the course as a space to share their reflections on their work during the week. This came with a guarantee that the relevant teacher would view and respond to their post with another video. Flipgrid was most frequently (though not exclusively) used on Tuesdays and Fridays of the course, following group tasks that the students had been engaged with on those days.
When the idea was first introduced, I posted a sample video in which I reflected on the class we had just had. This was out of my comfort zone, but I thought it would be a useful way to kick-start the process. It could also contribute to the sense of trust within the class, which I thought in turn could be conducive to meaningful reflection. I did not prepare for the video, so my speech was unrehearsed and I forgot what I wanted to say halfway through. I thought this might remind students that the aim in this context was reflection and communication, not accuracy.
Up-take
In weeks 2, 3 and 5, students were asked to record their reflective video immediately after class. In each of these weeks, exactly half of the students did so. However, in Week 4 students had time to complete their reflective videos in class, which resulted in all of them submitting. Just as Maggie Boswell (2022) argues in her post for reflective ‘interludes’ to immediately follow learning moments, the varied engagement with Flipgrid in my class seems to underline the need for reflection to be built into class time.
Follow-up
I responded to each student’s reflective video with my own video. This reply was intended as a form of feedback, applying the definition of feedback as: ‘all dialogue to support learning in both formal and informal situations’ (Askew and Lodge 2000, p.1). In my comments, I aimed to reflect back what the students had told me in their videos (“It sounds like you…”), ask further questions, and suggest resources. Due to the informal nature of Flipgrid videos, I hoped that my video replies may support the social-affective dimension of the feedback process (Carless & Yang, 2013). The students could see and hear me just as I could see and hear them, and I wondered if this could reduce the hierarchical nature of the teacher-student relationship.
To understand the students’ reactions to using Flipgrid, a survey was distributed in Week 4, to which 10 out of 12 students responded. Results showed that Flipgrid videos featured in the top two preferred modes of feedback (from a total of six) for half of the participating students. This was on par with ‘written feedback on a shared document’, while the most popular choice was ‘written feedback on Onenote’. In contrast, Flipgrid videos appeared in the two least preferred modes of feedback for just two students. Overall, students seemed to have reacted to Flipgrid fairly positively.
A follow-up survey was distributed in week 5, asking for more detailed information on the students’ opinions. 11 students responded, and the results shown in Figure 1 indicate that students felt very positive about using Flipgrid for reflection. They not only saw it as an opportunity to practice speaking, but as a tool to enable dialogue with their peers and teachers. Affective factors such as nervousness about sharing the video appear to have affected just under 50% of this class. In contrast, most did want others to see their video, suggesting again that they saw it as a mode of communication rather than a private record.
The students’ answers to open-ended questions provide further insight into what they valued about Flipgrid, represented in Figure 2. Most students identified speaking practice as a main benefit, such as: “It can help me develop the speaking skills and can give me the experience of face-face conversation.” Several comments mention similar ideas about this conversational element, specifically with the teacher: “A way to improve my speaking skills and also an access to communicate with my teachers.” It also seems they found it a useful tool for reflection specifically, highlighted by these comments: “By recording my spoken English through Flipgrid, I have a great sense of accomplishment to see how much I have improved” and “I just think it is very quick for me to express my reflection by using Flipgrid, which does not like writing.”
Interestingly, only one student provided a negative comment: “It can only record 2 min, and writing can contain more information. By the way, I don’t know how to reply a reply, so maybe it’s not a ‘conversation’.” This points to two useful considerations for teachers: the limit set on length of video, and the explanation provided on the functionalities of Flipgrid. In terms of the latter, I did not think of doing this despite encouraging students to reply to me and each other. As for the former, perhaps I could have negotiated the time limit with students to a greater extent (see further comments in Recommendations, below).
Other studies
I have not conducted an extensive literature review on the use of Flipgrid for reflection, but my students’ comments do seem to be corroborated by two studies I have read. Firstly, Stoszkowski and Collins (2021) used Flipgrid to facilitate student discussion on an online sports coaching course. Thematic analysis of student comments indicated that they felt more confident in their communication skills as a result of the Flipgrid discussions (ibid). The authenticity of seeing and hearing each other made them feel part of a ‘community of learners’ (ibid., p.10), and the convenience and accessibility of the platform helped to sustain student engagement. Similarly, Edwards and Lane (2021) found that their Japanese undergraduate learners responded positively, overall, to Flipgrid, and identified increased communication with peers as the main advantage. The main disadvantages were identified as embarrassment about sharing their videos with peers, and challenges with technical issues (ibid).
These studies reflect my own students’ comments regarding the value of Flipgrid for developing communication skills. In particular, the benefit of conversational participants being both visible and audible was highlighted by my students as well as those in the study by Stoszkowski and Collins (2021). What’s more, the potential for embarrassment about sharing their videos was indicated by some of my students as well as some in the study by Edwards and Lane (2021), so this would be a worthwhile consideration for implementation in future. An important difference is that these studies explore student-student communication on Flipgrid, whereas my students seemed to value the opportunity to speak to the teacher far more than interaction with their peers. This is reflected in their comments, as well as their use of Flipgrid; barely any of them responded to each other’s videos despite being encouraged to. The reasons for this would be interesting to research further.
Recommendations
Clearly, the ideas here are based on a very small sample of students, within a limited context, over a short period of time. However, the students’ participation and comments are encouraging, and suggest Flipgrid can be a useful tool for engaging students in dialogic reflective practice. Similarly to Aga’s experience in 2021, it seems Flipgrid also provides a valuable space in which students can develop their speaking skills and confidence.
Based only on the limited experience described above, these are my recommendations if you want to use reflective videos in your own classes.
- Put yourself in the students’ shoes by sharing your own reflective video with them when you introduce the concept to them. I feel this could be helpful in breaking down the initial barrier they may have at first.
- Restrict the time you invest in this. Despite all the positives, these videos shouldn’t take over. I set all videos to a maximum of two minutes; partly to avoid adding to my own and my students’ existing workloads. I also hoped to encourage selectivity and prioritisation – two skills they will need on their Masters. On a practical level, the teacher could respond to students’ videos during extended student-lead activities when the teacher’s presence is not needed.
Remaining questions
Students were invited to reply to me each time I left a feedback video. Three students did this a couple of times over the course. They were also encouraged to watch each other’s reflective videos and replies; up-take was similarly minimal. I would be interested in anyone’s ideas as to why this may have been, and how to further encourage it.
Lastly, could Flipgrid reflective videos have a place in the face-to-face classroom? I think they could, at least for some individuals. While some would prefer writing reflections, some would find it easier to reflect through speaking. I also feel there may be some face-saving effect of recording a reflection on a device, compared to sharing it with someone in person. What do you think?
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Agnieszka for the original idea and to my partner teacher Zenna Marshall for experimenting with Flipgrid with me.
Thank you for the contributions and participation of class 6.10 on the Pre-sessional course 2022, including (with permission):
Li Jiaze
Binbin
Jizhong Li
Jinglei Guan
Fengrong Gao
Cai Ying
Even
Stella
Chen Yuwei
Junwei LU
References
Aljahromi, D., 2020, December. Towards the Provision of Effective Interaction in Post Covid-19 E-Learning Contexts: Enhancing E-interactions on the LMS‘s Discussion Boards. In 2020 Sixth International Conference on e-Learning (econf) (pp. 98-103). IEEE.
Askew, S. and Lodge, C., 2004. Gifts, ping-pong and loops–linking feedback and learning. In Feedback for learning (pp. 13-30). Routledge.
Boswell, M., 2022. Reflection “interludes” – Scaffolding reflective practice and creating mutually involved “trusted circle” events. Teaching & Learning Network: Centre for Academic Language & Development, [blog] 18 July. Available at: https://teachingandlearningnetwork.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2022/07/14/reflection-interludes-scaffolding-reflective-practice-and-creating-mutually-involved-trusted-circle-events/ [Accessed 23rd August 2022].
Edwards, C.R. and Lane, P.N., 2021. Facilitating student interaction: The role of Flipgrid in blended language classrooms. Computer Assisted Language Learning Electronic Journal, 22(2), pp.26-39.
Faulkner, C. and Hartley, F. (2022). Uncovering the classroom silence. Teaching & Learning Network: Centre for Academic Language & Development, [blog] 1 July. Available at: https://teachingandlearningnetwork.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2022/07/01/uncovering-the-classroom-silence/ [Accessed 24th August 2022].
Stoszkowski, J. and Collins, D., 2021. A realist evaluation of the use of Flipgrid to facilitate collaborative online learning and reflection in sport coaching. Sport, Education and Society, pp.1-16.
Yang, M. and Carless, D., 2013. The feedback triangle and the enhancement of dialogic feedback processes. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(3), pp.285-297.
Hi Martha! I wanted to reply to your query regarding low student uptake with Flipgrid tasks as this is one of the questions that I tried to address during my master’s dissertation. The tasks I set were related to practising for EAP speaking exams, so not for reflection, and one of the follow up tasks was to watch other videos and ask each other questions based on their response (emulating part 3 of the speaking exams we were practising). Not many students engaged with this part, however in the post-study interview I discovered that they had indeed watched each other’s videos, as well as the feedback videos that I had left, which was an excellent way for them to develop sustainable feedback practices, developing their ability to self assess through their exposure to a range of samples. They were motivated to watch the videos to see how other people tackled the task and how I had evaluated the responses and use this information to improve their own performance, perhaps students did not feel motivated to watch other reflections as they did not see how it would benefit them? Was there a clear purpose to watching and responding to the videos? Perhaps if they were set a task such as a “find someone who…” to encourage them to listen to a range of videos in search of specific things (if this were for the speaking exams, something like “find someone who uses transition signals well to structure their talk”) could such a task be applied to video reflections? I suppose I would think about what you want the students to gain from watching each other’s videos and go from there!