Personalising learning: Exploring student and teacher perceptions about flexible learning and assessment in a flipped university course

Flexible teaching and learning and the ‘flipped classroom’ are current buzzwords in higher education in Australia and elsewhere in the world. They are reflections of the progressive change in higher education over the last few decades towards more student-and learning centred pedagogies and practices, which are made possible through new technologies and more delivery of online and blended (combination of face-to-face and online components) courses. The increasing personalising and flexibility of learning in higher education requires equal attention spent to assessment practices to ensure a cohesive learning experience. This paper provides the findings and conclusions of a study about a flipped classroom, which also included flexible assessment components. The study showed that students enjoy and are more engaged in a flipped classroom, prefer a blended learning to a fully online learning approach, want and require clear structure and guidelines, and strongly value flexible assessment through more choices and control. The main concern of higher education teachers is the time commitment and lack of institutional support for flipping classrooms and providing flexible assessment. It is argued that personalising learning requires more personalising of assessment, and that it is mainly the responsibility of teachers and institutions to develop ‘flexible students’.