Increasingly, numerous universities have identified benefits of flipped learning environments and have been encouraging instructors to adapt such methodologies in their respective classrooms, at a time when departments are facing significant budget constraints. This article proposes an instructional design framework utilized to strategically enhance traditional flipped methodologies in a first-year engineering course, by using low-cost technology aids and proven pedagogical techniques to enhance student learning. Implemented in a first-year engineering course, this modified flipped model demonstrated an improved student awareness of essential engineering concepts and improved academic performance through collaborative and active learning activities, including flipped learning methodologies, without the need for expensive, formal active learning spaces. These findings have been validated through two studies and have shown similar results confirming that student learning is improved by the implementation of multi-pedagogical strategies in-formed by the use of an instructional design in a traditional classroom setting.

Since the development of Open Educational Resources (OERs), different models regarding the usage of these resources in education have appeared in the literature. Wiley’s 4-Rs model is considered to be one of the leading models. Research based on Wiley’s model shows that using materials without making changes is the most common use. Compared to the extensive literature regarding OER usage in education, the literature barely deals with OER usage by instructional designers or training managers in corporations. The purpose of this research is to examine the OER usage of these two stakeholders, distinguishing between Little and Big OER repositories, in which Little OER repositories such as YouTube and Wikipedia aren’t necessarily designed to fulfill educational purposes. Findings show that these stakeholders almost use only Little repositories and that their usage level is higher than what is documented in the literature: they mostly Revise–modify the form of the resource, and Remix–combine different resources to create new ones. These differences can be explained by the fact that materials from Little OER repositories are raw materials, requiring further editing and adjustment. Significant differences between instructional designers’ and training managers’ usage of OERs were found regarding the Reuse level of resources from internal repositories and the Google Images repository, and the frequency of this Reuse.