Ensuring student completion of preparatory work in flipped classes - Example from a TRACKS course

Paper in proceeding, 2026

Flipped classroom pedagogy is based on students completing preparatory self-studies before participating in more active forms of learning. Unfortunately, students do not always adhere to the necessity to have completed the preparatory work. We present hereafter some course design principles ensuring that students come to class prepared. Those principles were applied to a Master level course offered at Chalmers University of Technology, as part of the TRACKS initiative. The effectiveness of those principles is analysed separately via completion rates of the preparatory activities, success rates of those, and overall course performance. It is demonstrated that the design principles resulted in a high student engagement throughout the entire course, both during the preparation for the more active forms of learning and during such sessions. As a result, students obtained high grades, and the overall course satisfaction was also high.