ABSTRACT
With technology disrupting almost every industry, one of the emerging challenges for classrooms and education as a whole is the need to reevaluate traditional pedagogies (Adams Becker et al., 2017). Digital disruption brings a new level of connectivity or ‘radical connectivity’ (Mele, 2013) to education through technology. With information available at the touch of a few keys, a multitude of classes being taught solely in the digital realm, and businesses being created as quickly as websites are developed, keeping up with these changes is critical. As technology has shifted the economy, communication, and business landscape (Petouhoff, 2015), education must recognize the impact and foster these tools to aid and engage learning in its structure as well as to prepare students for their hyper-connected future. Those who understand the rapid pace of change that is impacting almost all industries and who also move on that trend will find they can scale faster than those hanging onto the traditional models (Bradley, Loucks, Macaulay, Noronha, & Wade, 2015).
Universities must learn to evolve and embrace these game-changing transformations. One of the emerging trends in higher education institutions (Adams Becker et al., 2017) is the understanding that education is affected by this rapidly changing world (Hutchings & Quinney, 2015), and that, in keeping up with this rate of change as well as educating students to do so in their future professions (Roehl, Reddy, & Shannon, 2013), the classroom must adapt to this transformed landscape. As noted in the NMC Horizon Report, research has directed much of the current educational conversation to future trends, specifically those involving innovation and technology as it pertains to higher education. Although much research has been done on the topics of the flipped classroom, blended learning, active learning, and hybrid learning, none has focused on the modern-day flipped classroom and its relation to agentic learning. It is well established that the goal of education is to prepare students for the future. If so, then educators must further evaluate and leverage the power of connectivity intrinsic to technology by integrating it into the classroom (Thompson, 2016). Looking at the flipped classroom methodology and technology as it supports agentic learning is an educational topic that would benefit and expand current research. This proposed research explores the flipped classroom instructional design, the technologies utilized, student engagement and the relation to agentic learning.
