Implementation and Experiences of a Flipped Lecture Hall - A Fully Online Introductory Programming Course

Abstract

The course Introduction to Programming is one of the first and fundamental courses within any computer science-related study program. Traditionally, such introductory courses are characterized by a large group of students, whereas this group has a heterogeneous prior knowledge of the topic. These courses are usually taught in a traditional setting due to a high number of participants. However, the Covid-19 pandemic situation required to shift from traditional teaching to alternative approaches. In the winter semester 2020, a total of 636 students actively participated in the course at Graz University of Technology. Therefore, the course was revised to a fully online flipped classroom course using asynchronous elements such as pre-recorded videos and synchronous elements such as live streams on Twitch. In this paper, we show how we implemented a fully online course using the flipped classroom approach. We present approaches that engage students in active participation and encourage self-paced learning. We found that a high community-related interaction with students has a major impact on students satisfaction. This can be reached using lively communication and different communication channels. These results may be useful for researchers and lecturers that want to have insights into experiences in flipped classroom settings.