In the traditional classroom, pupils spend considerable time in a passive, receptive mode while teachers transmit knowledge via readings or lecture-style presentations. This limits the amount of lesson time left for interactive or creative activities that boost student motivation and deeper learning. Meanwhile, the teacher is confined to the front of the room.
Reversing the balance, or “flipping” your classroom, can transform your teaching style. However, coming up with ways to implement this approach can be time-consuming and difficult. To help you get started, we’ve selected 5 flipped learning examples you can try out in your next lesson.
The flipped classroom is a form of reverse classroom. Rather than devoting lesson time to knowledge acquisition and then asking students to complete exercises for homework, the flipped learning model turns this upside down.
Students run through materials at home, whether that’s reading a textbook, watching an instructional video, or listening to a podcast. You then use lesson time for activities that help them apply that knowledge and develop further understanding.
The flipped classroom model has several key benefits. For students, it means that lessons can be more engaging and interesting. Rather than spending hours passively reading a textbook, school becomes the place where they work in groups, complete projects, and conduct investigations. These types of activities are not only more fun but can also help them develop 21st-century skills of creative thinking and communication.
Some students may also benefit from learning at home because they control the pace. For example, English language learners (ELLs) and pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) may wish to repeat the material several times or use learning aids like dictionaries. This can be easier outside the main classroom environment.
For teachers, flipped learning allows more time to assess student progress through carefully designed activities. You can also shift your role from instructor to helpful guide, available to troubleshoot or work closely with selected students where needed, instead of being trapped at the front.
It’s worth noting that a flipped classroom may not work for everyone. You need to trust that your students will do the preparation, and if using digital resources, they will need the right equipment. However, it’s not a case of either/or. You can mix and match traditional instruction and flipped learning to suit your class.
When flipping your classroom, the first thing to decide is how to teach the basic information. With blended learning on the rise, today’s students are increasingly comfortable with using technology to study, and may particularly enjoy the opportunity to learn through multimedia. You could:
When students return to your classroom, you’ll need to find ways to help them process, understand, and apply their new knowledge. For example:
The methods above are a great way to instruct, engage, and assess your students. But how do you actually implement them? We’ve got 5 flipped classroom examples for you to try:
Set your students the task of preparing for the flipped class at home. For example, ask them to read the next chapter of a novel in their own time, using a dictionary to look up any unfamiliar words. Or, ask them to watch a video explainer on YouTube about the causes of a historical event.
In the next lesson, you can assess how much students have retained through some simple quizzing (a good opportunity for formative assessment). Next, assign a more complex written exercise, which students can plan together in groups before writing their essays. You can move around the room to support individuals.
In this model, students prepare for a discussion or debate. You might ask certain students to read or watch different materials so they can learn about a particular theme or point of view. Or you might ask students to come to class with an opinion on what they have learned.
For example, assign students one of 4 climate actions to learn about via a video lecture. In the lesson, groups of students prepare arguments for why their action is most important. The class then holds a debate to decide which action should go forward to the local government.
Use the prep time to demonstrate a skill students will need in the following lesson. This could be how to conduct an experiment, demonstrate a particular sports move, or order a coffee in French. Here, a video can work really well to help students grasp the method, and they can replay it multiple times as needed.
In the subsequent lesson, ask students to put this skill into action. This can be through a simple performance test, or you could set up a more complex scenario, like running a real science experiment or simulating a shopping experience in France. You can also run these simulations digitally through a computer assessment platform like TAO, where custom question types allow you to build virtual environments students can interact with.
Peer teaching is a powerful way to deepen students’ understanding of a topic while developing their communication skills. The peer teaching model sees students prepare different parts of a topic before class, then join up with others to teach them in pairs or small groups in the next lesson.
You can do this via a “jigsaw” group method: ask all students who worked on the same topic to share notes first, then split them up so each new group has someone to cover each theme.
If implementing the full flipped classroom isn’t yet suitable for your class, don’t worry. Some students may be too young, may not have digital resources at home, or may not yet have sufficient self-discipline to manage their own learning.
In the faux flipped classroom, you can assign students the preparation tasks to complete in the lesson. For example, students can watch a video lecture on their devices for half the lesson. You can then use the second half of the lesson to complete some of the follow-up activities listed above. You could even do those activities digitally, perhaps in the form of a collaborative digital assessment task.
The flipped classroom can be a powerful model that gives students more responsibility for their learning. It saves time in the classroom and gives you more room to assess and support students rather than spending hours on basic instruction. While it may not work for every learning context, it could be worth trialing one of the examples above to see if it works for your learners.
You might decide to combine flipped learning with adaptive teaching, in which you set activities to suit an individual student’s level of progress. And don’t forget to explore more creative assessment ideas, which could work really well in the flipped learning model.
In a flipped classroom, basic instruction happens outside the lesson through text, video, or other media. In the classroom, you set engaging activities that help you assess student progress and deepen their skills and understanding.
In a flipped classroom, a teacher shifts from being an instructor at the front of the room to being a facilitator for more engaging activities, an observant assessor, and a guide who can support and troubleshoot where needed.