ABSTRACT
In 2020–21, campus closures due to the Covid pandemic brought into focus the advantages and limitations of online and mixed online/face-to-face study using an interactive, student-centred pedagogy (flipped learning). The chapter explores how flipped learning was implemented in two occurrences of a credit-bearing, 12-week graduate academic writing course at a university in New Zealand. During this period, instruction shifted back and forth between fully online and on-campus-online modes, offered to mixed groups: some were studying remotely (in different time zones), while others lived locally and studied on campus. The chapter reflects on efforts by the teacher to accommodate the needs of students with differing degrees of skill, conceptual understanding and interest in the learning experience. It notes that while students’ cognitive engagement, measured through achievement on assessments, appeared largely unaffected, the affective/behavioural engagement of some students appeared to diminish. It concludes with suggestions for university authorities and teachers about how students’ emotional engagement and willingness to participate might be boosted without impairing cognitive engagement or losing sight of workload consequences for teachers.
