Traditional Versus Flipped Classroom
In a traditional classroom model, lectures take place in the classroom with students. Students listen to their instructor present and share new information; after class, they complete homework activities during their own time.
A flipped classroom model reverses the traditional relationship between class time and homework. Students review lectures online on their own time, then spend class time applying concepts through collaborative activities, such as:
- Engaging in group discussions
- Working on case studies
- Reflecting on personal experiences
- Solving real-world problems
- Completing project group work
Why Flip Your Classroom?
The flipped classroom model is learner-centered, allowing students to construct knowledge through meaningful activities in the classroom.
By shifting lectures online, students learn at their own pace, in their chosen environment, and on their schedule. They can revisit online materials for deeper study and come to class prepared to ask questions and share ideas. As an instructor, you can repurpose and reuse the online content you've developed for future class iterations.
In the classroom, students become active participants rather than passive listeners of lectures. Class time is dedicated to students exploring topics together in greater depth, interacting with one another, and reflecting on their learning.
Your role as an instructor in the classroom transforms from lecturing students to guiding them through meaningful activities, providing continuous feedback, and assessing their work in real-time.
How to Flip Your Classroom
There are many approaches to flipping a classroom. To get started with these five essential steps, click the tabs below.
Step One: Pick a lesson and identify goals.
The key to flipping your classroom is starting small. Choose one lesson from your class that you would like to flip, and identify key learning outcomes for that lesson.
Step Two: Plan for online delivery of instructional content.
If your class time relies heavily on instructor-led lectures, plan how you can deliver that content online instead. Ask yourself:
- Would students benefit from this content being available online and accessible?
- Can you build upon and reinforce the online content with in-class activities?
- What content do students need to know before class to successfully engage in a learning activity during class?
You may even consider adding self-study activities online, such as discussion questions, knowledge checks, or low-stakes quizzes that allow students to assess their understanding of the material prior to joining the class.
Step Three: Adapt or create materials for online delivery.
Once you have a clear idea of the content that you would like students to read or view in advance of attending class, consider the appropriate way to deliver that content online. A few options:
Option 1: Create your own online content.
You can "flip" a class by repurposing traditional materials, such as PowerPoint lectures. Consider recording them as online video or audio content for your course, such as podcasts, micro-lecture videos, demonstration videos, simulations, and more.
Using presentation software like PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Canva, you can narrate over presentations. Also, you can use Panopto, a great tool already integrated into Canvas, to record audio or video presentations.
Option 2: Select content currently available online.
You can add relevant third-party reading materials to your course, such as news articles, academic articles, book excerpts, online case studies, websites, and blogs. Outside of traditional textbook readings, additional reading materials can offer diverse perspectives and help students relate course concepts to their everyday lives.
You can also look for open source educational media to incorporate into the course, such as graphics, infographics, news clips, documentary clips, TED Talk videos, Khan Academy videos, YouTube clips, and more.
Step Four: Develop a plan for in-class activities.
Consider what activities students can complete in the classroom to deepen their learning and achieve lesson outcomes. This can entail a wide range of problem-solving, discussion, and creative activities. Ask yourself:
- What individual, paired, or small-group activities can take place in the classroom to help students collaboratively apply what they have learned online?
- How might you pair students based on their varying levels of knowledge, perspectives, and backgrounds to maximize learning?
Once you have chosen your activities, take some time to plan out their details:
- How will you introduce the activity clearly to students in the classroom?
- What materials are required in class to support the activity (e.g., handouts, textbooks, supplies, etc.)?
- How will you guide the learning and provide feedback during the activity?
- Will you conduct a debrief to allow students to share and reflect on what they have learned?
As you collaborate with students and receive feedback, you may need to adapt the activities in real time to support the needs of your students.
Step Five: Review, revise, and repeat.
Take some time to review what worked well with your flipped approach and what may need modification. Consider feedback provided by students during the process and whether students were able to effectively achieve the outcomes identified for the lesson.
Make meaningful revisions based on all the information you have gathered. Once you have made revisions, run the flipped approach again and continue to refine it.
Flipped Classroom for Remote Learning
The Flipped Classroom approach can also be applied to the remote classroom, where all aspects of the course are online. To apply the flipped approach to a remote learning environment, consider building asynchronous (self-study) and synchronous (live class session) components in your course.
Students can review instructional material online during their time and spend live, online class sessions working on collaborative activities in real-time with their classmates.
The web conferencing platform Zoom is directly integrated with Canvas and offers a variety of features that support student interaction, including:
- Polling
- Screen sharing
- Whiteboard
- Breakout rooms
Students can use live, online class sessions to work collaboratively using shared documents, including Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Jamboard, and more. A variety of digital tools that can support your teaching needs and help students undertake collaborative work online are available.