Navigating Professional Commitments and Postgraduate Study: Supporting Military Students in an Online Flipped Learning Course

Abstract

Military learners represent a very specific group within the diverse community of students. With unexpectedly changing professional commitments outside of academia ensuring inclusivity in courses designed for military students, especially part-time, is particularly challenging. Nevertheless, it is not impossible.

This paper discusses a case study of the development and delivery of a fully online, part-time postgraduate course aimed primarily at military personnel. Understanding the challenge of balancing professional commitments with part-time study, the course was designed with a strong emphasis on flexibility and inclusivity. The flipped learning approach required students to engage with course materials in advance, allowing them to actively participate in online discussions and activities.

This paper aims to critically reflect on the author’s experience of designing and delivering several modules in the aforementioned course. The key challenges that were found to be particularly problematic for the module leaders and tutors included supporting military students in balancing their education and professional commitments as well as supporting them in meeting academic expectations. The article discusses a number of solutions that were implemented from the start of the course to ensure that the students’ needs were met, and favourable learning conditions were created. Furthermore, it provides an assessment of how successful these were and explores adjustments that were made during the course. Reflecting on these strategies, the paper suggests improvements to enhance student engagement and academic performance in online course aimed at military learners.