The diversity of backgrounds, ex-periences, and origins of the stu-dents in the manufacturing engi-

neering master’s program at Universi-ty West, Trollhättan, Sweden, leads toheterogeneity in the students’ priorknowledge. From 2017 to 2018, 72%of the students enrolled in the pro-gram were international students.Consequently, at the start of the ad-vanced production technology course,it was evident to the teachers thatmost students needed to acquire basicwelding knowledge to be able to followthe course and achieve the learningobjectives. Therefore, the use of digitalresources to provide students with in-troductory welding content was seenas a promising tool to explore. In contrast to a traditional class-room, the students in a flipped class-room (Ref. 1) are exposed to new con-cepts prior to class, often in the formof video lectures. The time spent in

class with the teacher and peers is fo-cused on consolidation and collabora-tive activities that require higher cog-nitive work, such as problem solving,debates, analysis, content application,and synthesis. Only one empirical research paper,published in 2017, has been found onthe flipped classroom approach forteaching mechanical engineering stu-dents (Ref. 2), which is an indication ofthe novelty of this approach in the field. This article summarizes a projectthat was implemented to explore theuse of digital media as a support toolfor first-year mechanical engineeringmaster’s students to help them achievea meaningful understanding of thresh-old concepts in welding technology. Italso encourages those involved in theteaching of welding topics to delveinto novel pedagogical approaches andutilize the new possibilities offered bydigital media.

WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 20191

Teaching Welding with a Flipped Classroom Approach

BY MARIA ASUNCION VALIENTE BERMEJO

Video lectures prior to classroomactivities helpedstudents learn basicwelding concepts

The flipped classroomapproach introducesstudents to new conceptsprior to class, often viadigital media, to allowclass time to be used forhigh-cognitive activities.

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Flipping the Classroom Experience

Digital resources can be used toawaken students’ curiosity and catchtheir attention while introducing top-ics in an engaging way. It can also helpstudents construct new knowledgeand have an active role in their learn-ing process (Refs. 3–5). In particular,videos, animations, apps/software,and images can help teachers to con-vey ideas and tackle preconceptions. For this project, the decision torecord video lectures for students toview prior to class was based on theease of use for students as well as theirdemographic profile (young and accus-tomed to using technologies). Addi-tionally, the cost of producing the lec-tures was relatively low. The privacyand secure access to the informationwas provided by the university’sstreaming service only to registeredstudents and personnel. Specifically, two videos were pre-pared, each in the format of a recordedlecture. In the first video, the conceptof welding was presented along withpreconceptions associated with thismanufacturing technique (dirtiness,sparks, and health and safety). Weld-ing was also compared to other joiningtechniques, and examples of complexi-ty in joining were shown. The videoconcluded with a brief account of thehistorical evolution of welding. In the second video, welding wasdefined according to standards, and aclassification of welding processes waspresented. Common imperfectionsand defects in welds were also shownto highlight the importance of quality. Students had access to the two in-troductory video lectures and learningplatform as soon as they were regis-tered in the course. It is ideal for stu-dents to have access to the learningplatform at least two weeks ahead ofthe course start date. At that time, the students also re-ceived a welcoming electronic messagefrom the coordinator of the course pre-senting the developed introductorycourse material. Students were asked towatch the videos prior to the end of thefirst week of the course. A second re-minder message was sent at the start ofthe course. The importance of watchingthe introductory videos in advance toensure a fruitful and profitable in-classlecture on campus was emphasized. As the students were requested to

work on the videos before class time,they were able to engage in activelearning and develop autonomy (Refs.6–8). Students were encouraged tosend comments, concerns, and ques-tions to the teacher prior to the class-room lecture on campus. These com-ments helped the teacher plan activi-ties accordingly for the face-to-face,in-class introductory lecture, whichtook place at the beginning of the sec-ond week of the course. The in-class lectures on campusprovided activities aimed at resolvingstudent issues. It was designed to pro-mote interaction among the studentsthrough group discussions on thethreshold content included in thevideos. Thought-provoking questions,images, and clips were also presentedin the classroom to help students gobeyond the basic content learned inthe videos by applying concepts to realindustrial cases. The in-class lectureconcluded with a summary of the mainoutcomes provided by the students.

Surveying Students and Teachers

The project was evaluated by teach-ers in the university’s Division of Weld-ing Technology and by students whoattended the advanced productiontechnology course in the fall of 2017.The motivation for the project, the se-quence of activities proposed, and thelinks to the videos were presented.Teachers provided written feedbackwhile students completed a question-naire to rate their degree of agreementwith seven statements on a scale from

1 to 5 (1-Strongly disagree; 2-Disagree;3-Agree with some reservation; 4-Agree; and 5-Completely agree). Theseven statements were as follows: A) The current 60-min classroomlecture on introduction to welding isenough to acquire the key conceptsnecessary for the course. B) This is a realistic activity: Stu-dents are responsible for their activelearning and autonomy, and they willwatch the videos before class at campus. C) The length of the video lectures(10–12 min) is suitable for the purpose. D) The content included in the in-troductory video lectures are relevantand suitable for the course. E) It would be a good idea to extendthis approach to other courses in themaster’s program. F) Digital resources like recordedvideo lectures are, similarly to books,source materials that can be consultedany time after the course completion. G) This overall project (video lec-tures plus in-class lectures) is effectivein helping students achieve meaning-ful learning of the threshold conceptsin welding. Figure 1 shows the summary of thestudents’ evaluations. In addition to completing the ques-tionnaire, some students sent addi-tional, spontaneous comments. Thefollowing quotes were given by fourstudents. “Great idea; this way you can savesome time in class. Based on my ownexperience from prior courses, it canbe hard to ask questions if you barelyknow what to ask about. Therefore, Ilike to study the subjects before class

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Fig. 1 — Summary of students’ evaluation based on the video lectures and flippedclassroom project. The vertical axis pertains to the seven statements in the ques-tionnaire, and the horizontal axis shows the percentage of student ratings.

Current situation is satisfactory

Students will watch video lectures prior to meeting

Suitability of the video lecture’s length

Content of the video lectures was relevant

Extend the approach to other courses

Video lectures as resources

5-Completely agree 4-Agree 2-Disagree 1-Strongly disagree3-Neither agree nor disagree

Effectiveness of video lectures + flipped classroom

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to get an understanding about the top-ic. I am then prepared to ask aboutthings that I did not understand.” “The video concept is very usefulfrom my perspective. I guess it willdefinitely help. We can pause and goback to understand the concept if wehave not understood.” “I watched the videos; your pronun-ciation was great and speed was good.I’m not good at English listening, and Iunderstood what you said.” “I really liked the idea of having theclassroom discussion later to makesure everyone has gone through thevideos and had an opportunity to clearall questions.” The following two comments wereprovided by teachers: “The concept of pre-study videos isa real good approach, which will givethe students a more clear view onwhat the course will consist of. I thinkthis will bring a better utilization ofthe first classroom lecture as the stu-dents will have a more common plat-form to stand on. I was totally fasci-nated by your videos!” “The videos you have made are veryimpressive and way better than any-thing I have seen in the program. Greatinitiative! Very good personal tone andperformance. Very good content also.Exactly what students need to be in-spired and have an overview. I think weshould use something similar for theundergraduate course. The language isvery clear and articulate, which is im-portant when we teach non-Englishspeaker to non-English speaker. Haveyou thought about copyright?”

Project Findings and Insights

Half of the students interviewedthink that the current situation withthe one introductory in-class lecture isdefinitely not enough to acquire thekey background concepts for thecourse. Together with the students’additional comments, the question-naire supports the initial motivationfor this project. The commitment of the students(or lack thereof) to watch the videosprior to the in-class lecture, which wasfundamental for the effectiveness ofthe flipped classroom approach, is apotential risk that needs to be consid-ered and minimized. All the studentswho were interviewed expressed thebelief that future students in the pro-gram would watch the videos prior tothe in-class lectures. Reminder emails

before in-class lectures, and present-ing the benefits of fulfilling the intro-ductory videos during an in-class lecture, might help this cause. Regarding the length of the videosin this project (10–12 min), all of thestudents completely agreed on the ap-propriateness of this length for thepurpose. It is well known that the videoduration has an influence on the video-watching completion rate. The shorterthe video, the higher a completion rateis achieved. Videos longer than about 9min show a marked decrease in audi-ence engagement (Refs. 9–10). The presence or absence of thespeaker’s image in the recorded videolectures was discussed with colleagues.In the videos produced for this study,the speaker’s image (talking-head style)was present during the whole video.Some colleagues pointed out that thetalking head could be disruptive becauseone’s attention cannot be concentratedon two points (speaker and backgroundinformation) at the same time. Othersclaimed the speaker helps to catch theaudience’s attention. A compromise so-lution would be to distribute the speak-er’s image to specific occasions duringthe video. Another possible option is toinclude two teachers discussing a specif-ic topic. That would generate more vari-ation in the recorded video lectures andmight help in getting higher watchingcompletion rates. Some research has been conductedon video styles and its influence on stu-dents’ engagement (Refs. 9, 11–12).The talking-head style seems to producea more positive reaction from studentsthan traditional recorded classroom lec-tures (Ref. 9). What is clear is that fur-ther trials are needed in our field to findout which video-style settings work bet-ter for our purposes. A sequence of 11steps to follow was proposed by JonasBärgman (Ref. 13), which seems to bean excellent guide to succeed in the de-velopment of educational videos, rang-ing from the definition of the learningobjectives to the final peer review of thevideo before publication. Additionally, all of the studentscompletely agreed on the need to ex-tend this approach to other courses.One student specifically mentionedextending this approach to other lec-tures dealing with welding processeswithin the same course, and oneteacher proposed to extend it to un-dergraduate courses. These sugges-tions are in line with University West’sdigitalization objectives.

Regarding the content included inthe video lectures, all of the studentsagreed on its suitability and relevancefor the given purpose, and this wasalso supported by teachers. When discussing the video lecturesas reference material to be consulted af-ter the course completion, there wasunanimous agreement by the students.In the spontaneous comments, one stu-dent pointed out that with the videolectures it is possible to pause and goback in the video to clarify the concepts. More than 80% of the studentsagreed on the effectiveness of thisproject (video lectures plus flippedclassroom approach) to achieve mean-ingful learning regarding thresholdconcepts in welding. Students also rec-ognized they were better prepared toask for questions, and they comment-ed on having a greater understandingon topics when they received prepara-tory information. Both students andteachers commented on the improvedutilization of class time for interactionproposed by this approach vs. conven-tional lectures. Most of the students in the manu-facturing engineering master’s pro-gram at University West come fromAsia and the Middle East. In the pastfew years, none of them have comefrom English-speaking countries. Theteachers are also non-native Englishspeakers. As pointed out by oneteacher, this situation stresses the im-portance of using articulated and clearEnglish language when communicatingwith students, which was achieved inthe video lectures. One of the studentsspecifically referred to her difficultiesin English listening, and she appreciat-ed the special care that was taken touse clear English in the video lectures. Refering to one teacher’s commentabout copyright, copyright issues needto be addressed when using images,clips, or films in the recorded lectures.Time also has to be spent on contact-ing and getting permission from copy-right owners.

Conclusion

The use of digital media and theflipped classroom approach for teach-ing welding content were highly appre-ciated by the master’s in manufactur-ing engineering students at UniversityWest in Sweden. Introductory videolectures before classroom activitieshelped the first-year students to ac-quire the basic knowledge required to

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follow the advanced production tech-nology course. The following conclu-sions were drawn from this project: 1) More than 80% of the studentsagreed on the effectiveness of this ap-proach (video lectures along with theflipped classroom approach) to achievemeaningful learning of the thresholdconcepts in welding. 2) Although the interviewed stu-dents believed future students wouldwatch the video lectures prior to thein-class lecture, it is necessary for theteacher to take some initiatives to en-sure students watch the videos. 3) All the students agreed on theappropriateness of the length (10–12min) and content of the video lectures. 4) Students completely agreed onextending this approach to othercourses, and one teacher proposed toinclude it in undergraduate courses. 5) Students used the recorded videolectures as reference material to beconsulted during and after completionof the course.

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledgesthe cooperation of the students in themaster’s of manufacturing engineer-ing program (2017–2018) at Universi-ty West, Trollhättan, Sweden, for theirfeedback. The author especially ac-knowledges the contribution and feed-back provided by colleagues in the col-lege’s Division of Welding Technologyas well as in the blended learning anddigital media in higher educationcourse co-organized by Chalmers Uni-versity of Technology and GöteborgUniversitet. The input from ThommyEriksson, Lars-Erik Stridh, ClaesFredriksson, and Americo Scotti arespecially acknowledged. Special thanksis given to Mattias Ottosson at Uni-versity West for unconditional supportand advice with IT.

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WJ MARIA ASUNCION VALIENTE BERMEJO(asun.valiente@hv.se), PhD, is aninternational welding engineer and seniorlecturer in the Division of WeldingTechnology, Department of EngineeringScience at University West, Trollhättan,Sweden.

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