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The Flipped Classroom

The core idea is to flip the common instructional approach with input and interactive lessons (often through the internet) in advance of the classroom setting. The classroom then becomes the place to work through problems and engage in collaborative learning.

Basic Tenets
The tenets that drive The Experiential Flipped Classroom Model are :

  • Student engagement is the key to learning.  This is more likely to occur through engaging experiential activities.
  • Informal learning today is connected, instantaneous, and personalized.  Students should have similar experiences in their more formal learning environments.
  • Almost all content-related knowledge can be found online through videos, podcasts, and information-rich websites, and often better conveyed through these media than by classroom teachers.
  • Learning institutions are no longer the gatekeepers to information.  Anyone with connections to the internet has access to high level, credible content.
  • Lectures in any form, face-to-face, videos, transcribed, or podcasts, should support learning not drive it nor be central to it.
  • Lectures do still have a place and can be more effective if given in the right contexts, such as after (not before) students have explored something on their own (via a lab experience, simulation, game, field experience, analyzing cases, etc.) and developed their own questions and a ‘need to know.’”

Why It Works
It has truly individualized learning for students. Teachers describe how students can now move at their own pace, how they can review what they need when they need to, and how the teacher is then freed up to work one-on-one with students on the content they most need support with.

Why It Doesn’t Work for Everyone
There is some criticism by educational specialists as to the extent the flipped classroom model can be used by everyone. A closer look at the approach will reveal that some podcast, reading, and audio instruction is still not addressing some learning styles that prefer demonstration and immediate practice over simple information input. This is a valid criticism – which especially criticizes lecture-oriented (online) input. But more and more we are also finding online tutorials that are designed to “demonstrate” processes – and provide the learner with interactive practice opportunities with immediate feedback. Of course, these are more time consuming and expensive to make, but it is a trend that is rising in all areas of education.

Why it’s not really new
An early pioneer in education was the American philosopher and educational reformer, John Dewey. What he maintained over a hundred years ago, was that learning needed to be centered on the student, not the teacher; learning that allows students to show their mastery of content the way they prefer. In addition, he believed that students succeed best in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum.

TED Talk: Using Video to Re-invent the Classroom. (You can stop at 16 minutes)
https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education

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