Using H5P in flipped classroom

Under the circumstance of the pandemic, the traditional way of teaching has been interrupted and most students have to acquire new knowledge at home. Therefore, the concept of blended learning, or flipped classroom, has gained popularity again among teachers and has been put into practice by many schools and institutions.

So what is a flipped classroom?

The concept of the flipped classroom reverses the way of traditional teaching, where students first learn new things within a classroom and then finish homework or assignment at home.

Instead, students first learn the course material with the assistance of recorded lecture videos and at home, and then they deepen their understanding through discussion with other students and feedback from their tutors in class. The biggest difference here is that students are given more autonomy to learn what they think is important and creatively apply their comprehension through group discussion.

Source from: Pixabay (click here)

For teachers, one challenge here is how to build effective connections between studies at home and in the classroom. This involves how to make the material more interactive and how to design practices online to check students' understanding. So today, I am going to introduce H5P as a tool that helps overcome this challenge.

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Functions of H5P

In H5P, teachers can feel free to choose a great range of practices and interactive patterns that can be embedded into their online teaching. They can find answers to designing almost every activity from the simplest blank filling and multiple choices to the creative ones such as designing an interactive video or even organising a virtual tour!

(Screenshot from H5P: different types of activities)

(Screenshot from H5P: an interactive video example)

(Screenshot from H5P: a virtual tour example)

More importantly, H5P can be integrated into different online teaching platforms. Teachers can insert different elements into their online courses based on their needs and make these lessons more interactive!

                                       (Screenshot from H5P: H5P Integrations)

Teaching reading skills using H5P

In a traditional reading lesson, it can be boring when providing students with black-and-white printed material, asking them to finish the exercises and waiting for the silence of the reading process. This situation, however, can be totally changed in H5P. The interactive book function enables teachers to put together different interactive content and exercises on multiple pages. So let's look at how to create a brand new reading experience for students in the following example (click here).

First, teachers can choose multiple ways to present the reading material. This can be a picture with interactive texts or a video with a detailed description below.

☝Students can click the red '+' button to explore detailed information☝

 ☝A video with further information☝

Also, teachers can apply different exercises in the interactive book. I really like the drag in exercise shown in the picture below, where students can feel that they are engaging in the process of creating a new thing. Compared with the traditional reading, I believe that students may feel fresh and interested when actions like clicking and dragging are elicited. 

                                  

☝Dragging practice makes reading interesting☝

But there are also limitations…

1. Nice examples, but it takes time to create

H5P provides an opportunity for teachers to customise their content using loads of interactive patterns and acts like 'a creative factory'. However, there are lots of steps and requirements when creating new content, which really takes time and effort. Also, teachers may feel unsure about the quality of their content because they cannot preview what has been included in their interactive videos, books or slides.

☝Too many instructions, without a preview☝

2. Hard to monitor students' progress

Although students are given autonomy to learn within a flipped classroom, it is important that they have great self-awareness and interest in learning. Otherwise, they may just not work on the exercises by heart. Teachers should know that H5P is just a plug-in that applies to different online classroom platforms. They still need to focus on students' performance during the offline seminars.

Finally, let's have a look at a video of different interaction patterns in H5P. Please comment below and share your ideas about this website!👦

Video source: YouTube (click here)