Creating a positive learning environment in the online classroom with Flipgrid

Juan-Carlos Casañ-Núñez

doi:10.4995/eurocall.2021.15347

Authors

Juan-Carlos Casañ-Núñez Universitat de València https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6918-9604

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4995/eurocall.2021.15347

Keywords:

Flipgrid, warm-up activity, Covid-19, online classroom, emotions

Abstract

The pandemic has made more clear than ever that health issues impact education and that schools play a key role in supporting the wellbeing of learners. As emotion and cognition are interconnected, educators should use educational strategies that generate positive emotions so that learning is associated with pleasure. The aim of this study was to investigate if a warm-up activity with Flipgrid could contribute to creating a positive learning environment in the online classroom in Covid-19 time. Flipgrid is a free platform that allows video-based asynchronous discussion. It fosters educator-student contact, cooperation among learners, active-learning techniques and student engagement. A total of 37 MA students participated in the study. Informants were selected by non-probabilistic sampling. The data collection strategies were observation during the Flipgrid warm-up activity, a Moodle survey, and the institution student satisfaction survey. Students’ engagement was high and participants’ attitude on their responses was mostly positive or neutral. The warmer was highly rated in terms of creating a positive learning environment by the participants, and informants wrote positive remarks about their experience using the platform. The results suggest that a warm-up activity with Flipgrid is an effective educational strategy to generate positive emotions during the pandemic. Finally, the limitations of the study are addressed, and some directions for future research are proposed.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Araujo, F.J.D.O., de Lima, L.S.A., Cidade, P.I.M., Nobre, C.B., & Neto, M.L.R. (2020). Impact of Sars-Cov-2 and its reverberation in global higher education and mental health. Psychiatry Research 288(112977). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112977

Baños (2020, May 8). How to deal with the psychological impact of Covid-19 (Office of the Principal, Interviewer). University of Valencia. https://www.uv.es/uvweb/uv-news/en/news/how-deal-psychological-impact-covid-19-1285973304159/Novetat.html?id=1286128538251&plantilla=UV_Noticies/Page/TPGDetaillNews

Bartlett, M. (2018). Using Flipgrid to increase students' connectedness in an online class. eLearn, 9(12). https://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=3236703 https://doi.org/10.1145/3302261.3236703

Bueno i Torrens, D. (2021). Neurociencia para educadores [Neuroscience for educators] (7th ed.). Octaedro.

Craig, M. (2020). Engaging Flipgrid : Three levels of Immersion. In E. Alqurashi (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Fostering Student Engagement With Instructional Technology in Higher Education (185-210). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-0119-1.ch011

Dörnyei, Z. (2003) Questionnaires in second language research: Construction, administration, and processing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associations.

Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press.

Holbeck, R., & Hartman, J. (2018). Efficient strategies for maximizing online student satisfaction: Applying technologies to increase cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Journal of Educators Online, 15(3), 91-95. https://doi.org/10.9743/jeo.2018.15.3.6

Johnson, M., & Skarphol, M. (2018). The effects of digital portfolios and Flipgrid on student engagement and communication in a connected learning secondary visual arts classroom (Master's thesis). St. Catherine University repository. https://sophia.stkate.edu/maed/270.

Kafka, A. (2020, March 12). Shock, fear, and fatalism: As Coronavirus prompts colleges to close, students grapple with uncertainty. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Shock-FearFatalism-As/248240

Kaufmann, R., & Vallade, J. I. (2020). Exploring connections in the online learning environment: student perceptions of rapport, climate, and loneliness. Interactive Learning Environments, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1749670

King, J., & Ng, S. K-Y (2018). Teacher emotions and the emotional labour of second language teaching. In Sarah Mercer & Achilleas Kostoulas (Eds.), Language teacher psychology (pp. 141-157). Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/MERCER9450

Krashen, S. (2013). Second language acquisition: Theory, applications, and some conjectures. Cambridge University Press.

Lowenthal, P., & Moore, R. (2020). Exploring Student Perceptions of Flipgrid in Online Courses. Online Learning, 24(4), pp. 28-41. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i4.2335

McLain, T. R. (2018). Integration of the video response app Flipgrid in the business writing classroom. International Journal of Educational Technology and Learning, 4(2), 68-75. https://doi.org/10.20448/2003.42.68.75

Phirangee, K., & Hewitt, J. (2016). Loving this dialogue !!!!: Expressing emotion through the strategic manipulation of limited nonverbal cues in online learning environments. In S. Tettegah & M. McCreery (Eds.), Emotions, Technology, and Learning (pp. 69-85). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800649-8.00010-9

Saçak, B., & Kavun, N. (2019). Rethinking Flipgrid and VoiceThread in the context of online collaborative learning theory. In E. Alqurashi (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Fostering Student Engagement with Instructional Technology in Higher Education (211-228). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-0119-1.ch012

Shao, K., Pekrun, R., & Nicholson, L. J. (2019). Emotions in classroom language learning: What can we learn from achievement emotion research? System, 86, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.102121

Shoichet, C. E. (2020, March 13). Why the impact of Coronavirus could be particularly bad on college campuses. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/07/health/universities-coronavirus-impact/index.html.

Storbeck, J., & Maswood, R. (2015). Happiness increases verbal and spatial working memory capacity where sadness does not: Emotion, working memory and executive control, Cognition and Emotion, 30(5), pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1034091

Strauss, V. (2020, April 6). Schools of more than 90 percent of the world's students closed during this pandemic. This graphic shows how fast it happened. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/06/schools-more-than-90-percent-worlds-students-closed-during-this-pandemic-this-graphic-shows-how-fast-it-happened/

Tambini, A., Rimmele, U., Phelps, E. A., & Davachi, L. (2017). Emotional brain states carry over and enhance future memory formation. Nature Neuroscience, 20(2), 271-278. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4468

Tyng, C.M., Amin, H.U., Saad, M.N.M., & Malik, A.S. (2017). The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(1454), pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454

UNESCO (2020, April 30). Prioritize health and well-being now and when schools reopen. https://en.unesco.org/news/prioritize-health-and-well-being-now-and-when-schools-reopen