Today, in the early 21st century, flipping classrooms is becoming an increasingly popular method of enhancing a teacher’s effectiveness. There are countless studies supporting the flipped classroom, and there are great success stories from teachers and students across the nation. In using this method, students watch pre-recorded lectures and demonstrations at home for homework, and can see them as many times as they need. The teacher can then use class time for activities, projects, and individual attention, actively helping students master the skills needed in the class. Traditionally, students would practice what they learned in class for homework. Flipping classrooms addresses the student’s need for help with their work—help that they might not be able to get at home.

Flipping a classroom can be challenging for teachers, as the teacher needs to make or find all of the videos needed to appropriately cover the topic, integrate the information in the videos with activities and assignments in class, make sure the students actually watched the videos, etc. Accommodations also need to be made for students who do not have access to the required technology at home.

The Flipped Classroom model, is in many ways, a type of blended learning environment. When thinking of blending, it follows to ask what components are coming together to be blended. In blended learning, students have both a computer mediated class online, in addition to a traditional building, where students and teachers go for the class to take place. Flipped classes combine the actual class in a building, with instruction which has been prerecorded and can be played back on demand, with no specification as to whether the video is on the internet, DVD, or any other medium. One of the main differences is that with blended learning, it is common that the mediation of the course is done with computer technology. Mediation can include videos on demand, but it also keeps track of various metrics and statistics. The teacher can make use of many of the benefits of a flipped classroom, and also use technology where appropriate to assess student learning and monitor student progress. However, in a strictly flipped classroom, the students’ learning is monitored and assessed by the teacher in the classroom by hand. In the end, a flipped class is a specific kind of a blended class, but many times, the terms are used interchangeably.

Blended learning, in the broader sense, can afford the teacher of a flipped class the opportunity to teach for mastery of a topic, using computer technology to mediate and track students as they master topics at many different speeds. Blended learning can also help mediate project based learning, in a situation where a classroom could have many different projects being pursued by students all at once. Blended learning can also help mediate other inductive learning methods, such as Just-in-Time learning, case studies, or problem based learning. In doing this, the teacher answers the inevitable question, "Why do I need to know this?" before the student can even ask the question. By using these models, the student of the flipped classroom both successfully completes their projects, and masters the content.

The teaching for mastery model is intended to allow a student to progress through the course only as fast as they can master the content.  It also allows gifted students the opportunity to progress through the course very fast; staying challenged and engaged.  This is where the need for a blended class model really shows itself, but an inductive, blended learning environment, which teaches for mastery is currently a very difficult thing to effectively implement in a high school setting. Niamh Moore and Mary Gilmartin of Teaching for Better Learning (2010) argued:

By comprising a significant online element to complement the face-to-face component of particular modules, the learning environment becomes more flexible in terms of the timing and pace of learning as well as the approaches adopted…While the online component allows students to access the necessary content, the reduced numbers of face-to-face lectures result in the students being forced to investigate topics themselves or with their peers, rather than depending on the lecturer to provide all the answers in class. (Moore, Gilmartin, 2010)

Good progress is made by the flipped model to spread the teacher’s abilities and effectiveness out. The teacher can repeat what they explain and demonstrate in their video as many times as a student needs by simply replaying it. The quality of a lecture can be raised by providing more meaningful demonstrations, regardless of how complicated they are to set up. This is because they only have to be performed once for the video instead of over and over again for each class. Students can still see the meaningful demonstration if they are absent from class. They also don’t have to leave a topic they don’t yet understand, just so that they can see a new meaningful demonstration that will only happen once.

The flipped model, however, only works to provide these opportunities to students who take responsibility over their own learning. Students have been assigned homework for ages that provide self-paced instruction that they can review as much as they want, such as reading a chapter in a book. Teachers attempt to make sure students are truthful about doing their reading homework by giving quizzes as class starts, but it’s very easy for students to guess on answers and simply claim they don’t remember the details. Using videos and technology instead of textbooks makes it a little bit more fun and easy for the students to complete their homework assignments, but students could still be tempted to pretend they did their homework and received their instruction. The student’s desire to simply get the assignment done with as little effort as possible is still there, and it can only be assumed that it will always be.

An inductive, blended learning environment, which teaches for mastery in a high school setting is a challenge to implement today, in the early 21st century. A recent study published in Education and Training (in 2014) attests to this difficulty as it illustrates the process, methodology and findings as blended learning was implemented in a school in Australia. While the researchers were well versed in blended learning, the forms it can take, and their experiment was in theory well planned, in practice the use of blended learning did not reach its whole potential. While students had access to three online options for learning, a majority of students preferred the face-to-face style of learning, as the online options were not as instructional as lecture. (Wong, Tatnall, Burgess, 2014). Can a learning management system designed for this purpose, finally solve this problem and make blended learning, specifically the flipped classroom, more effective than ever?

Blended learning got its start a long time ago, but the term "blended learning" has only been around since the beginning of the 21st century. For centuries educators have been trying to incorporate the technology of the age to make education more effective. For example, toward the end of the 20th century, teachers started showing videos on televisions with VCRs for special lessons. Recently, with the development of tools on the Internet and its vast reach into many, if not most homes today, one type of blended learning has become increasingly popular. This is known as the flipped classroom. From Before You Flip, Consider This, (2012) teachers Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams speak to the need for innovative teaching methods in the classroom.

Talking at our students for 30 to 50 minutes each day was not the best use of class time. We concluded that students needed us most when they were wrestling to understand a difficult concept or problem. This wrestling match often happened at home when we were unavailable to help students as they constructed their understanding. We reasoned that the best use of class time centered on engaging students in enriching activities and hands-on experiences. (Bergmann & Sams, 2012)

Blended learning has the potential to solve many issues currently facing education. One of these issues is the fact that moving through the curriculum at one pace, is likely not optimal or appropriate for every student in the class. Some students may get bored because the pace is too slow for them, when they could be learning much more. Other students may fall so far behind that they actually have to drop their enrollment from the class and try again after another semester or year passes, only to start over from the beginning of the class and spend their time on topics they already know. This doesn’t have to be the case, and blended learning can help.

Mastery learning models attempt to work with the students pace of learning, and inductive learning models allow students to seek out the information they need, when they realize they need it. In her paper written for the Center for Collaborative Research in Education, Margaret Riel (1998) argued for this inquiry-based method, claiming that in traditional classrooms, "students retrieve the information, but are unable to use it to solve problems or understand relationships". Therefore, instead of having a student listen to a lecture and wondering why this knowledge is needed, and only paying attention because the information will be on the test, the student actually tries to figure something out, or perform a task for use in a project, and recognizes the need for more information before it is provided to them. It is a very effective way of engaging the student in the information they are learning because they are invested in it. However, providing inductive learning can be challenging for classes doing projects where the students are working at their own pace, mastering concepts as they go. Inductive learning relies on the student’s need for information, and unless they all miraculously need it at the same time, that information would need to be provided individually at many different times. Therefore, a blended learning system utilizing accessible technology could provide information on an as-needed basis to students as they are completing a project.

Many teachers would be willing to try blended learning, or the flipped classroom, but it can be a daunting task on which to embark. There are currently some pitfalls and drawbacks identified in the practical application of the flipped class as well as blended learning as a whole. For example, the difficulty of either making videos that will be viewed by students, or finding videos already made that suit the exact needs of your class, are challenging enough. The teacher also needs to set everything up in the technology realm, most likely on the internet, to provide the videos to the students, keep track of what they do, check for understanding, make sure the student knows where they are in the curriculum, and that they know what comes next when they are done (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). If teachers are going to make blended learning effective, they are going to need effective tools that are designed for this purpose.

The purpose of this project was to develop a working model of a web-based learning management system that solves many of the problems and potential pitfalls currently associated with blended learning and learning for mastery. More specifically, the website should be a good model to help teachers who want to implement an inductive, blended learning environment, which teaches for mastery. The website was initially designed and implemented based around the needs of a woodshop class, but was also designed to be adaptable for use by any class willing to adopt the classroom structures and learning styles it supports.

The website is a user friendly learning management system, which allows students to choose a project they want to complete, and directs them down the path of completion of that project, providing the necessary learning content needed for that project as needed, along the way. Teachers are able to easily edit content of lessons, all in one large table view, line by line. These lines are dynamic in the order they are presented to the students, so that rows in the table which ask questions can check for understanding before potentially moving forward to another row in the lesson table, or potentially sending the student back to an appropriate place, or row, in the lesson if they don’t understand.

Teachers are able to easily adjust the timing of which different learning or assessment opportunities arise. Teachers are able to easily set prerequisite lessons that students must complete in order to access certain lessons or other content. Teachers (or teams of teachers) are able to compose the online coursework with various types of multimedia and assessment tools. Teachers are also able to build in checkpoints in lessons that stop a student from proceeding until their teacher verifies that they should continue. The website has functionality specifically for teachers, including tools they need, to easily track and manage what each student is working on at any given time, or to see that a student is at a checkpoint and needs the teachers attention.

It is intended that full implementation of this website will make possible a classroom environment that allows students to engage in work they are interested in, and allow the teacher to be as confident as possible that students are engaged, and genuinely paying attention to content, and not simply going along for the ride while daydreaming in an environment that could potentially lend itself to under-achieving. This website addresses the fact that many students try to get the work done without learning anything because it is quicker or easier. This website employs various strategies to make learning of the material the quickest and easiest way for the students to get their work done, and discourage students from taking the approach of guessing until so-called "mastery" is achieved.

Blended learning can afford the teacher of a flipped class the opportunity to teach for mastery of a topic, using computer technology to mediate and track students as they master topics at many different speeds, and manage the just in time learning needed for the students to successfully complete projects, and master content. Teachers need to set everything up on the internet to provide the videos to the students, keep track of what they do, check for understanding, make sure the student knows where they are in the curriculum, that they know what comes next when they are done, etc. If teachers are going to make blended learning effective, they are going to need effective tools that are designed for this purpose. This project is a design of a learning management system website that enables teachers to implement a project-based, just in time, blended learning environment, which teaches for mastery.

The theoretical rationale that this project falls under is cognitivism. Cognitivism, as discussed by Kaya Yilmaz (2011) in The Cognitive Perspective on Learning: Its Theoretical Underpinnings and Implications for Classroom Practices, is a theory of learning that claims knowledge is gained through the discovery of meaning in experiences. Recognizing, analyzing, reflecting, and applying, are all actions taken by the learner to discover meaning behind observations and experiences, which generate human knowledge, as that is how synapsis in the brain are formed and strengthened (Yilmaz, 2011).

In order to achieve cognitivist learning, the student needs an experience upon which he or she can discover meaning. This is the intention of just in time learning. When a student is trying to achieve something, they don’t need to ask why they need to know what they are learning. They know why, and they are learning it just in time to apply that knowledge in completing the project or meaningful task at hand. This is also why project based learning is cognitivist. In completing the project, there will be a necessity to learn through recognizing, analyzing, and applying.

The aim in the development of this website is to achieve an easy, effective tool for creating the learning environment which differentiates instruction to engage all learners, upon which cognitive learning is achieved.

The objectives of this project are an overview of the actual components that need to be built so they can come together and form the intended learning management system.

• A log-in system that allows the student’s actions to be tracked and monitored.

• Functionality to organize content in menus under different curriculums

• An interface to custom build and edit lessons with uploaded media.

• Ensure integrity of student success with online lessons.

Although many definitions of the following terms exist, these are the definitions as understood by the author, and used in this paper.

Flipped Class: An instructional method which reverses the roles of class time and homework time, in which students watch videos of lectures for homework and work problems or otherwise make use of their knowledge during class time.

Blended Learning: Any instructional method in which the class is managed in part by the use of computer technology.

Inductive Learning: Any teaching and learning strategy which provides reasons for needing to know information before it is presented. This includes Project Based Learning, Problem Based Learning, Just in Time Teaching, Inquiry Based Learning, Case Studies, and Discovery Learning.

An inductive, blended learning environment, which teaches for mastery, allowing students to choose and pursue different projects all at the same time, is a very difficult thing to implement effectively in a high school setting.

Blended learning can afford the teacher of a flipped class the opportunity to teach for mastery of a topic, using computer technology to mediate and track students as they master topics at many different speeds, and manage the learning needed for the students to successfully complete projects, and master content. Teachers need to set everything up on the internet to provide the videos to the students, keep track of what they do, check for understanding, make sure the student knows where they are in the curriculum, and that they know what comes next when they are done. If teachers are going to make blended learning effective, they are going to need effective tools that are designed for this purpose. This project is an example of a blended learning management system website meant to meet this need. The website will be initially designed and implemented based around the needs of a woodshop class, but will be designed to be adaptable for use by any class willing to adopt the classroom structures and learning styles it supports.