Date of Award

May 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Jared Schlenker

Abstract

High school educators tasked with teaching and learning are often challenged to find ways to keep students engaged and ensure they are learning content. However, the COVID-19 pandemic that the United States experienced from 2020 to 2023 (Northwestern Medicine Staff & Northwestern Medicine, 2025) made educators’ efforts more difficult. This unprecedented time of remote teaching and learning transformed the educational landscape overnight. It removed face-to-face learning and replaced it with virtual classes—neither teachers nor students were prepared for the challenges. This research study examines how a flipped classroom approach has the potential to yield positive results at the high school level. More specifically, it explores the level of support a flipped classroom can provide for at-risk students who are failing in a secondary math classroom when this teaching and learning model is accessible to all students on the school site. Ishartono et al. (2022) recommend that online learning necessitates students to self-regulate their learning to maintain their grasp of mathematical concepts, and that the flipped classroom method could provide a means to achieve this. Quantitative data was collected from high school students in southern California and used to determine whether the flipped classroom method provides students with a positive perspective on achieving higher academic scores than the traditional lecture-based approach. The academic score collected for this study pertained to the overall score from all assignments in the student’s class. Teacher interviews and classroom observation data was collected for contextual purposes to help understand the teaching culture at the site. This data would not be used in the analysis of this study but mainly used to verify if the flipped classroom model was already being implemented in other classes enrolled by the student participants. The researcher developed a questionnaire, interviewed educators and based on their responses, conducted a follow-up classroom observation. The educator participants were selected from those who taught different math instructional content, and the data were used to build a narrative on the teaching challenges they currently face when teaching high school students. Another survey was developed for at-risk high school math students who chose to participate in a flipped classroom setting and tracked their weekly grades. The research data revealed that at-risk high school math students preferred the flipped classroom model rather than the traditional lecture-based instructional format even though their grades fluctuated throughout the 5-week study. Educators shared similar responses revealing that students lacked the motivation to find the classes meaningful and do the work in traditional, lecture-based instruction. The results showed a positive change in students’ attitudes, with increased assignment completion outside the classroom, though their participation in the flipped classes did not result in significant grade changes.

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