Redesigning for student agency in university learning. A flipped approach for teaching successfully online

The future of education is tied to the future of online learning. Yet, despite constantly increasing demand for online education, online settings still lag in terms of student satisfaction or feelings of connectedness. Face-to-face learning in universities tends to be conducted with a focus on the agency of the instructor with the goal of getting through content. In online settings the efficacy of this instructor agency may diminish given how virtual online spaces are constructed. Attempts to focus on the instructor online may be fraught with low engagement or passivity from students. In this chapter, we envision a more fluid, flipped approach to teaching and learning designed for online environments, with a stronger emphasis on student participation and agency and the co-creation of knowledge. Flipped learning as a pedagogical approach has grown in university settings in recent years, and may be apt for engagement in online, synchronous learning environments. We discuss what a flipped online learning environment might look like, sharing a practice example, and use social constructivism and a dialogic approach to education to theorise the use of a flipped approach in university learning.