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In the article or news story, "Understanding the Flipped Classroom", published in October 24, 2012 by Pamela Kachka, she states the purpose of having a flipped classroom. Kachka does this by including other articles about classes' experience on a flipped classroom. Ultimately, they are informing the reader to grasp the concept of a flipped classroom.

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Editor's Note: Part 1 of this article looked at the history of the flipped classroom. Today we look at what it takes for someone to teach effectively in a flipped classroom.

Although the flipped classroom is garnering a lot of attention of late, simply flipping the classroom alone does not increase student success. The instructor must seize the opportunity to guide and interact with the students. Looking at this new definition of homework in a flipped classroom, there are many details to consider.

Flipping doesn't work when the home lectures (in whatever form they take) are too long or simply replace valuable teaching from the instructor. Lecturing is more effective presented in small chunks and as brief as possible. A good guideline is to keep the videos at or less than 10 minutes. A talking head video, where the camera points at the instructor and the instructor simply talks for 10 minutes does not work well. If possible, it is important to make the video engaging with multi-media (Houston and Lin, 2012). Many use screen capture software such as Jing or Camtasia. Also, Firefox has add-ons that can be used to screen capture and record as well. Many resources make the task of creating a quality, engaging homework lecture quite manageable. It is also worth considering that the lecture does not have to be a lecture at all.

While potentially daunting, planning and preparation can make or break a flipped classroom. The first step is to require students to compile any questions they have after watching the video. If the students have no questions, then some suggest requiring the students to summarize the topic to demonstrate understanding. Ideally, the instructor will sort the questions before class and develop scenarios to address them. The instructor attempts to avoid teaching what students already understand. This is the most difficult part, especially if students do not supply questions. The upside is that collecting questions over time builds a quality library to continue the process in future terms (November, 2012).

Actual class time is spent briefly reviewing content and checking for understanding (Houston and Lin, 2011). The instructor helps the students unpack the content. Students work on problems while the instructor circulates. The instructor can hear and correct misunderstandings on the spot. Students learn how to think and the instructor learns what topics cause confusion for the students (Berrett, 2012). This is one format for a flipped classroom session. In Dr. Eric Mazur's physics classes at Harvard, he follows the same general principal but he has a very effective system for the students to teach one another their understanding and convince one another of correct answers. Truly any use of the class time that includes application and practice of concepts with more access to the instructor takes advantage of the opportunities that flipping a classroom provides.

What about common concerns regarding the flipped classroom process? A primary concern addresses students with poor or no Internet access outside of class. This is always a concern when the activities outside class rely on technology, but there are ways to accommodate the access to technology deficiency, such as burning the lecture onto a DVD.

The other big concern exists through all stages of education history. What if the student does not do the homework? As long as there has been homework, there have been students who fail to complete homework and simply show up for class unprepared. While this is an understandably valid concern, failure of some to complete homework should not be the reason to dismiss the flipped classroom concept. Instructors can track the knowledge gained from homework or they can adjust class activities for unprepared students if they are in fact unprepared. Some test for understanding through the questions students ask after watching the homework. When students ask questions that can be found in the lecture or prep material, it is clear they did not prepare. Quizzes are used frequently to track understanding of the lecture content and most LMS's allow you verify (to some degree) that students viewed the lecture (Houston and Lin, 2012).

Trends come and go in education. Flipping a classroom is not a new concept to education. Using video lectures to present lecture content as homework, thus freeing up valuable face-to-face class time is the latest trend born out of a years old method. If the concept is good enough to exist for years and years, updating it for 21st century learning seems, at face value, to be a pretty good idea. It does take a little work, but planning, implementing and revising are all doable tasks and each effort builds a block upon which the next term can be built.
Pamela Kachka, MAEd is an academic trainer and consultant for Pearson eCollege. https://www.facebook.com/eCollegeATC

References:
Alvarez, B. (2011). Flipping the classroom: homework in class, lessons at home. Learning First, Retrieved from http://www.learningfirst.org/flipping-classroom-homework-class-lessons-home

Bergmann, J.; Sams, A. (2008) Remixing chemistry class. Learning and Leading with Technology. 36(4) 24-27.

Berrett, D. (2012). How 'flipping' the classroom can improve the traditional lecture. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/How-Flipping-the-Classroom/130857/

Houston, M., & Lin, L. (2012, March). Humanizing the classroom by flipping the homework versus lecture equation. Paper presented at Society for information technology & teacher education international conference (site) 2012, Austin, TX.

Liles, M. (2012, April 10). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2012/04/10/flip-your-classroom-with-discovery-education/

November, A. (2012). Flipped learning: a response to fie common criticisms. November Learning, Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/resources/archive-of-articles/flipped-learning-a-response-to-five-common-criticisms/

White, D. (2011). Literature justification for blended/reverse instruction. Unpublished raw data, Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia.

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Understanding the Flipped Classroom: Part 2

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Editor's Note: Part 1 of this article looked at the history of the flipped classroom. Today we look at what it takes for someone to teach effectively in a flipped classroom. Although the flipped classroom is garnering a lot of attention of late, simply flipping the classroom alone does not increase student success.

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Flipping the Classroom Requires More Than Video

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Flipping the Classroom Requires More Than Video

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In the article, "Flipping the Classroom Requires More Than Video,"  published in April 13, 2012 by Kevin Makice, he points out the key facts of a flipped classroom. Makice does this by including data from other schools. Ultimately, they are informing the reader that a flipped classroom is not only just lectures at home.

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In 2004, a former hedge fund analyst began recording and posting videos of himself explaining some math techniques. He created the material to help tutor his young cousin. Rather than keeping it private, however, the analyst posted the videos to YouTube. By 2012, Salman Khan had more than 3,000 lessons online, 140 million views, and a reputation as an education guru.
This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact wiredlabs@wired.com to report an issue.
In addition to students viewing his handiwork 100,000 times each day, Khan Academy drew enough interest from teachers, philanthropists and investors to justify a career change from financial consultant to educational technologist. Khan's videos are now supplemented with software to support formal curricula, "flipping the classroom" by assigning lectures to watch at home and working on homework together in class en route to student-led mastery of a variety of subjects. The idea has even proved inspirational to other technology-challenged domains (e.g., health care) to spark better use of online information to prepare for face-to-face encounters.

What Khan Academy is not, though, is a panacea for education. Khan's timing - when digital media consumption is high and devices like iPads are widely popular (50 million units sold, through 2011) - helped mainstream the use of video for educational material. People like Bill Gates pump money into software development, and schools line up to try to capture a cost-effective genie in a bottle. Ultimately, success with a flipped class is a combination of understanding the pedagogical goals and using the technology and method to support them.

The Flipped Class Is an Ideology

Educators experimented with flipping the classroom long before Khan started shooting video.

Dr. Laura Berry, Dean of Arts and Sciences at North Arkansas College, remembers her college professors assigning chapters to read and expecting her and her fellow students to return to class prepared to discuss the material. "For as long as we've been trying to help students learn," says Berry, "we've wanted students to take responsibility for their learning, and we want to use our time with them to work on the meatier stuff and deepen the learning."

Two decades ago, Harvard's Eric Mazur used the Peer Instruction teaching method to move information transfer out of his classroom. His technique combines "Just-in-Time teaching" and ConcepTests to empower students to learn at their own pace away from the instructor and lead conceptual discussions when together. J.Wesley Baker described this as becoming "the guide on the side."

The term "flipped classroom" is most attributed to two chemistry teachers from Colorado, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, who pioneered the use of screencasting and video podcasting in 2006 to deliver content for their high school science classes. Those techno-centric terms made parents and other teachers recoil, however, so the innovators began calling their method "Reverse Instruction." It wasn't until September 2010, when Daniel Pink wrote an article about Karl Fisch did the method become known as the Flipped Classroom. Fisch subsequently credited the Colorado teachers with the inspiration.

Thanks in no small part to Khan's use of the term during his 2011 TED talk, the Flipped Classroom now has a following that includes an online network of 2500 educators, an annual conference, and a Twitter hashtag (#flipclass). Bergmann (now in Illinois) and Sams have a book, Flip Your Classroom, due for release early this summer.

Sams notes that his version of a flipped classroom has undergone continual revision since the initial live recordings of lectures. The Khan Academy model, which relies on proving mastery of particular topics through earning badges, has evolved into empowering students to consume information and demonstrate understanding of concepts in a variety of ways.

"If you structure your class exactly the same way you have always done but employ it flipped," warns Richard Talyor, CMO for Echo360, "effectively what you have done is added an extra hour of class for every hour of class the student has. Respect the students' time."

Evansville (Indiana) science teacher Brian Bennett describes the Flipped Classroom as an ideology, not a methodology:

Video itself will not help kids achieve more in your class. The flipped classroom is about making connections with learners and differentiating your instruction. If videos are a part of that multi-faceted plan, great. If they are not, still great.

Sams seems to concur: "Anyone who blindly adopts 'The Flipped Classroom' (or inquiry, or lecturing, or unschooling, or whatever) model and never modifies it to meet the needs of his or her students will blindly lead his or her students into educational ruin."

Entering Phase Three

Moving a lecture online changes where that information is consumed, not necessarily the degree of student engagement or its effectiveness. Curricula provider Mathalicious critiqued Khan Academy as "one of the most dangerous phenomena in education today." That argument is not directed at the site itself, but centers around the negative impact Khan may have on innovation. The Khan style of teaching is the same step-by-step process that students have seen for generations:

Khan Academy is great for what it is - a supplemental resource; homework help - but we've turned it into something it's not. Indeed, something it was never intended to be.

For Fred Singer, CEO of Echo360, the Flipped Classroom movement represents an important progression toward "Phase Three" of education reform: blended learning. Meaning, the digital form moves beyond simply augmenting face-to-face teaching into a peer role where online and offline interaction directly supports learning goals. State legislators are coming closer to endorsing blended learning as a required experience.

Echo360 began several years ago as "Tivo on campus," focused on capturing lectures to make the learning material more accessible for students. When teachers began to realize video could benefit them as well, Echo360 added features like Personal Capture, video viewing statistics, and communication channels to turn the process into asynchronous feedback. ("Khan doesn't do that," says Singer, "that's what we do.")

For several years, North Arkansas College used Echo360 to support different kinds of teaching methods. The versatile platform is useful for facilitating online classes and supplemental material for traditional "sage on the stage" instruction, as much as true blended learning. Over time, the College has increased faculty adoption to 44 percent, with 28 classrooms now Echo-enabled. However, only a handful have implemented a flipped classroom.

"We're trying to find a way to get that basic-level content out to students," says Berry, "without using valuable professor and classroom time to do it."

Technology is now entrenched in higher education. Its presence urges instructors to teach differently and think more deeply about what information can be delivered before class, during class, and after class. Students drive that change.

"We can't expect students who are carrying interactive devices and an 'always connected' social life to sit still for a couple hours while professors just lecture at them," said Valerie Martin, Director of Distance Learning at North Arkansas College. "We had to engage them on their terms."

In 1999, tweens and teens were exposed to 7:29 hours of media every day, and a quarter of them were using two media simultaneously. After a decade, the media exposure increased 44%, and two-thirds of these kids had cell phones. They won't watch a video lecture start to finish; they will watch 15 minutes and focus on areas that are important to them.

"We have had students at other institutions who have found our instructors lecture capture," says Berry, "and they ended up transferring here as a result. Students want the lecture capture."

Making the Flip Work

While Echo360 products are used by 500 universities and colleges in 30 countries around the world, budgetary and other resource constraints make adoption of such a platform challenging for elementary educators. Teachers like Bergmann and Sams tend to start with stand-alone video production tools, such as Camtasia Studio, TechSmith's screencapture software. The tools used to create the flip, though, are secondary to the motivations to change current practices.

Innovation has to overcome inertia. Resistance to video lectures typically begins with predictable fears, a few of which Bergmann recently addressed:

Video lectures lead to less engaged students. - "This is actually the opposite of what I experienced as a teacher," wrote Bergmann.

Classes will become too big to support engagement with students. - "I talk to every kid in every class every day."

It's just bad lecture on video. - "I see the flip as a stepping stone for teachers who have lectured for all of their career. For them the idea of moving to an inquiry, problem based learning model would be very difficult."

Students with limited access to technology are hurt - "We simply took 4-6 videos and burned them onto a DVD and handed the DVDs out to students. Some students who had a computer at home but not high speed internet brought in flash drives and took home the videos that way." Bergmann points to principal Greg Green's success in Michigan.

Singer notes that a fifth common concern - Creating a record of content the teacher doesn't want - is alleviated with editing tools that allow the professor to remove unwanted comments at any point.

"Flipping Classrooms is not a gimmick," says Berry. "We're trying to do more than help our students pass the next test. It's about bettering learning and this approach is making a big difference."

Early in the Flipped Classroom movement, educators Mike Tenneson and Bob McGlasson argued change begins with clear goals for both instructor teaching and student learning. They observed that the things teachers most want to address about their classrooms include issues of student motivation, teacher productivity and support for innovative instruction. Any use of technology or design of in-class content must strategically support those goals to allow Flipped Classroom to be effective. Furthermore, new skills are likely needed, both to use the technology and to adopt new teaching methods.

Educational consultant Andrew Miller suggests that the primary focus should be on increasing student engagement. As learners, we humans only retain 10 percent of what we read and 20 percent of what we hear, but we comprehend 90 percent of what we say and do. If students are engaged with their learning enough to apply their knowledge to a project and explain it to others, learning metrics will assuredly rise. Miller's best practices for Flipped Classroom begin by creating a need for students to know the video content. This is done by finding uses for the material that are relevant to their lives outside of school. A variety of instructional models are capable of creating this demand, including project- or game-based learning, understanding by design, or authentic literacy.

"People learn differently," Singer explains. "The reason schools teach the same way is economics; they can't afford to customize for every single student. What our platform allows is for schools in their own way to leverage technology to teach in a more personal fashion."

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Flipping the Classroom Requires More Than Video

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In 2004, a former hedge fund analyst began recording and posting videos of himself explaining some math techniques, posting the videos to YouTube. By 2012, Salman Khan had more than 3,000 lessons online, 140 million views, and a reputation as an education guru. Khan Academy is not a panacea for education, however.

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In the article, "Inverted Classroom," published in 2012 by Robert Talbert, he states that a flipped classroom is better than an in class lecture from a teacher. Talbert does this by implementing different evidences from different university professors. Ultimately, they are motivating the reader to go along with a flipped classroom to understand concepts.

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In the article, "Flipping the Classroom," published in 2013 by Cynthia J. Brame, she explains what a flipped classroom is and can do. Brame does this by showing research and implementing other articles. Ultimately, they are informing the reader understand the concepts of a flipped classroom.

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Cite this guide: Brame, C. (2013). Flipping the classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/.

"Flipping the classroom" has become something of a buzzword in the last several years, driven in part by high profile publications in The New York Times (Fitzpatrick, 2012); The Chronicle of Higher Education (Berrett, 2012); and (Mazur, 2009); In essence, "flipping the classroom" means that students gain first exposure to new material outside of class, usually via reading or lecture videos, and then use class time to do the harder work of assimilating that knowledge, perhaps through problem-solving, discussion, or debates.

In terms of Bloom's revised taxonomy (2001), this means that students are doing the lower levels of cognitive work (gaining knowledge and comprehension) outside of class, and focusing on the higher forms of cognitive work (application, analysis, synthesis, and/or evaluation) in class, where they have the support of their peers and instructor. This model contrasts from the traditional model in which "first exposure" occurs via lecture in class, with students assimilating knowledge through homework; thus the term "flipped classroom."

What is it?

Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom approach has been used for years in some disciplines, notably within the humanities. Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson promoted the use of this approach in their book Effective Grading (1998). They propose a model in which students gain first-exposure learning prior to class and focus on the processing part of learning (synthesizing, analyzing, problem-solving, etc.) in class.

To ensure that students do the preparation necessary for productive class time, Walvoord and Anderson propose an assignment-based model in which students produce work (writing, problems, etc.) prior to class. The students receive productive feedback through the processing activities that occur during class, reducing the need for the instructor to provide extensive written feedback on the students' work. Walvoord and Anderson describe examples of how this approach has been implemented in history, physics, and biology classes, suggesting its broad applicability.

Inverted Classroom

Maureen Lage, Glenn Platt, and Michael Treglia described a similar approach as the inverted classroom, and reported its application in an introductory economics course in 2000. Lage, Platt, and Treglia initiated their experiment in response to the observation that the traditional lecture format is incompatible with some learning styles. ¹ To make their course more compatible with their students' varied learning styles, they designed an inverted classroom in which they provided students with a variety of tools to gain first exposure to material outside of class: textbook readings, lecture videos, Powerpoint presentations with voice-over, and printable Powerpoint slides.

To help ensure student preparation for class, students were expected to complete worksheets that were periodically but randomly collected and graded. Class time was then spent on activities that encouraged students to process and apply economics principles, ranging from mini-lectures in response to student questions to economic experiments to small group discussions of application problems. Both student and instructor response to the approach was positive, with instructors noting that students appeared more motivated than when the course was taught in a traditional format.

Peer Instruction

Eric Mazur and Catherine Crouch describe a modified form of the flipped classroom that they term peer instruction (2001). Like the approaches described by Walvoord and Anderson and Lage, Platt, and Treglia, the peer instruction (PI) model requires that students gain first exposure prior to class, and uses assignments (in this case, quizzes) to help ensure that students come to class prepared. Class time is structured around alternating mini-lectures and conceptual questions. Importantly, the conceptual questions are not posed informally and answered by student volunteers as in traditional lectures; instead, all students must answer the conceptual question, often via "clickers", or handheld personal response systems, that allow students to answer anonymously and that allow the instructor to see (and display) the class data immediately. If a large fraction of the class (usually between 30 and 65%) answers incorrectly, then students reconsider the question in small groups while instructors circulate to promote productive discussions. After discussion, students answer the conceptual question again. The instructor provides feedback, explaining the correct answer and following up with related questions if appropriate. The cycle is then repeated with another topic, with each cycle typically taking 13-15 minutes.

Does it work?

Mazur and colleagues have published results suggesting that the PI method results in significant learning gains when compared to traditional instruction (2001). In 1998, Richard Hake gathered data on 2084 students in 14 introductory physics courses taught by traditional methods (defined by the instructor as relying primarily on passive student lectures and algorithmic problem exams), allowing him to define an average gain for students in such courses using pre/post-test data. Hake then compared these results to those seen with interactive engagement methods, defined as "heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities which yield immediate feedback through discussion with peers and/or instructors" (Hake p. 65) for 4458 students in 48 courses. He found that students taught with interactive engagement methods exhibited learning gains almost two standard deviations higher than those observed in the traditional courses (0.48 +/- 0.14 vs. 0.23 +/- 0.04). Assessment of classes taught by the PI method provides evidence of even greater learning gains, with students in PI courses exhibiting learning gains ranging from 0.49 to 0.74 over eight years of assessment at Harvard University (Crouch and Mazur, 2001). Interestingly, two introductory physics classes taught by traditional methods during the assessment period at Harvard show much lower learning gains (0.25 in a calculus-based course in 1990 and 0.40 in an algebra-based course in 1999).

Carl Wieman and colleagues have also published evidence that flipping the classroom can produce significant learning gains (Deslauriers et al., 2011). Wieman and colleagues compared two sections of a large-enrollment physics class. The classes were both taught via interactive lecture methods for the majority of the semester and showed no significant differences prior to the experiment. During the twelfth week of the semester, one section was "flipped," with first exposure to new material occurring prior to class via reading assignments and quizzes, and class time devoted to small group discussion of clicker questions and questions that required written responses. Although class discussion was supported by targeted instructor feedback, no formal lecture was included in the experimental group. The control section was encouraged to read the same assignments prior to class and answered most of the same clicker questions for summative assessment but were not intentionally engaged in active learning exercises during class. During the experiment, student engagement increased in the experimental section (from 45 +/- 5% to 85 +/- 5% as assessed by four trained observers) but did not change in the control section. At the end of the experimental week, students completed a multiple choice test, resulting in an average score of 41 +/- 1% in the control classroom and 74 +/- 1% in the "flipped" classroom, with an effect size of 2.5 standard deviations. Although the authors did not address retention of the gains over time, this dramatic increase in student learning supports the use of the flipped classroom model.

Theoretical basis

How People Learn, the seminal work from John Bransford, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking, reports three key findings about the science of learning, two of which help explain the success of the flipped classroom. Bransford and colleagues assert that

"To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application" (p. 16).

By providing an opportunity for students to use their new factual knowledge while they have access to immediate feedback from peers and the instructor, the flipped classroom helps students learn to correct misconceptions and organize their new knowledge such that it is more accessible for future use. Furthermore, the immediate feedback that occurs in the flipped classroom also helps students recognize and think about their own growing understanding, thereby supporting Bransford and colleagues' third major conclusion:

"A 'metacognitive' approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them" (p. 18).

Although students' thinking about their own learning is not an inherent part of the flipped classroom, the higher cognitive functions associated with class activities, accompanied by the ongoing peer/instructor interaction that typically accompanies them, can readily lead to the metacognition associated with deep learning.

What are the key elements of the flipped classroom?

1. Provide an opportunity for students to gain first exposure prior to class.

The mechanism used for first exposure can vary, from simple textbook readings to lecture videos to podcasts or screencasts. For example, Grand Valley State University math professor Robert Talbert provides screencasts on class topics on his YouTube channel, while Vanderbilt computer science professor Doug Fisher provides his students video lectures prior to class (see an example here). These videos can be created by the instructor or found online from YouTube, the Khan Academy, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Coursera, or other similar sources. The pre-class exposure doesn't have to be high-tech, however; in the Deslauriers, Schelew, and Wieman study described above, students simply completed pre-class reading assignments.

2. Provide an incentive for students to prepare for class.

In all the examples cited above, students completed a task associated with their preparation....and that task was associated with points. The assignment can vary; the examples above used tasks that ranged from online quizzes to worksheets to short writing assignments, but in each case the task provided an incentive for students to come to class prepared by speaking the common language of undergraduates: points. In many cases, grading for completion rather than effort can be sufficient, particularly if class activities will provide students with the kind of feedback that grading for accuracy usually provides.

3. Provide a mechanism to assess student understanding.

The pre-class assignments that students complete as evidence of their preparation can also help both the instructor and the student assess understanding. Pre-class online quizzes can allow the instructor to practice Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT; Novak et al., 1999), which basically means that the instructor tailors class activities to focus on the elements with which students are struggling. If automatically graded, the quizzes can also help students pinpoint areas where they need help. Pre-class worksheets can also help focus student attention on areas with which they're struggling, and can be a departure point for class activities, while pre-class writing assignments help students clarify their thinking about a subject, thereby producing richer in-class discussions. Importantly, much of the feedback students need is provided in class, reducing the need for instructors to provide extensive commentary outside of class (Walvoord and Anderson, 1998). In addition, many of the activities used during class time (e.g., clicker questions or debates) can serve as informal checks of student understanding.

4. Provide in-class activities that focus on higher level cognitive activities.

If the students gained basic knowledge outside of class, then they need to spend class time to promote deeper learning. Again, the activity will depend on the learning goals of the class and the culture of the discipline. For example, Lage, Platt, and Treglia described experiments students did in class to illustrate economic principles (2000), while Mazur and colleagues focused on student discussion of conceptual "clicker" questions and quantitative problems focused on physical principles (2001). In other contexts, students may spend time in class engaged in debates, data analysis, or synthesis activities. The key is that students are using class time to deepen their understanding and increase their skills at using their new knowledge.

Where can I learn more?

CFT Director Derek Bruff has a good blog post on flipping the classroom with some great embedded references. Find it here: http://derekbruff.org/?p=901.

References

Berrett D (2012). How 'flipping' the classroom can improve the traditional lecture. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 19, 2012.

Anderson LW and Krathwohl D (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman.

Bransford JD, Brown AL, and Cocking RR (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Crouch CH and Mazur E (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics 69: 970-977.

DesLauriers L, Schelew E, and Wieman C (2011). Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class. Science 332: 862-864.

Fitzpatrick M (2012). Classroom lectures go digital. The New York Times, June 24, 2012.

Hake R (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal of Physics 66: 64-74.

Lage MJ, Platt GJ, and Treglia M (2000). Inverting the classroom: A gateway to creating an inclusive learning environment. The Journal of Economic Education 31: 30-43.

Mazur E (2009). Farewell, Lecture? Science 323: 50-51.

Novak G, Patterson ET, Gavrin AD, and Christian W (1999). Just-in-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Pashler H, McDaniel M, Rohrer D, and Bjork R (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 9: 103-119.

Walvoord BE, and Anderson VJ (1998). Effective grading: A tool for learning and assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Footnote:
¹ Although there is widespread belief that matching students' preferred "learning styles" to instructional formats promotes learning, a 2008 review by Pashler and colleagues finds no evidence that this strategy promotes learning.
Cite this guide:
Brame, C., (2013). Flipping the classroom. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/.
Brame, C., (2013). Flipping the classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Cynthia J. Brame Print Version Cite this guide: Brame, C. (2013). Flipping the classroom. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/. "Flipping the classroom" has become something of a buzzword in the last several years, driven in part by high profile publications in The New York Times (Fitzpatrick, 2012); The Chronicle...

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In the article, "The Flipped Classroom," published in 2012 by Bill Tucker, he states that engaging in a flipped classroom is better than lectures in class. Tucker does this by implementing statistics and information from schools and programs. Ultimately, they are informing the reader to test out the benefits of a flipped classroom.

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Four years ago, in the shadow of Colorado's Pike's Peak, veteran Woodland Park High School chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams stumbled onto an idea. Struggling to find the time to reteach lessons for absent students, they plunked down $50, bought software that allowed them to record and annotate lessons, and posted them online. Absent students appreciated the opportunity to see what they missed. But, surprisingly, so did students who hadn't missed class. They, too, used the online material, mostly to review and reinforce classroom lessons. And, soon, Bergmann and Sams realized they had the opportunity to radically rethink how they used class time.

It's called "the flipped classroom." While there is no one model, the core idea is to flip the common instructional approach: With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class. Class becomes the place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. Most importantly, all aspects of instruction can be rethought to best maximize the scarcest learning resource-time.

Flipped classroom teachers almost universally agree that it's not the instructional videos on their own, but how they are integrated into an overall approach, that makes the difference. In his classes, Bergmann says, students can't just "watch the video and be done with it." He checks their notes and requires each student to come to class with a question. And, while he says it takes a little while for students to get used to the system, as the year progresses he sees them asking better questions and thinking more deeply about the content. After flipping his classroom, Bergmann says he can more easily query individual students, probe for misconceptions around scientific concepts, and clear up incorrect notions.

Counterintuitively, Bergmann says the most important benefits of the video lessons are profoundly human: "I now have time to work individually with students. I talk to every student in every classroom every day." Traditional classroom interactions are also flipped. Typically, the most outgoing and engaged students ask questions, while struggling students may act out. Bergmann notes that he now spends more time with struggling students, who no longer give up on homework, but work through challenging problems in class. Advanced students have more freedom to learn independently. And, while high-school students still occasionally lapse on homework assignments, Bergmann credits the new arrangement with fostering better relationships, greater student engagement, and higher levels of motivation.

Once Bergmann's and Sams's lessons were posted online, it wasn't long before other students and teachers across the country were using the lessons, and making their own. Across the country in Washington, D.C., Andrea Smith, a 6th-grade math teacher at E. L. Haynes, a high-performing public charter school, shares Bergmann's enthusiasm, but focuses on a different aspect of the flipped classroom. Smith, who has taught for more than a decade in both D.C.'s public charter and traditional district schools, immediately saw the benefit for students, but says she was most captivated by the opportunity to elevate teaching practice and the profession as a whole. As Smith explains, crafting a great four- to six-minute video lesson poses a tremendous instructional challenge: how to explain a concept in a clear, concise, bite-sized chunk. Creating her own videos forces her to pay attention to the details and nuances of instruction-the pace, the examples used, the visual representation, and the development of aligned assessment practices. In a video lesson on dividing fractions, for example, Smith is careful not to just teach the procedure-multiply by the inverse-but also to represent the important underlying conceptual ideas. Like Bergmann, she makes it clear that the videos are just one component of instruction. She's keen on the equivalent of a motion picture's "director's cut," where a video creator might explain the reasoning behind the examples chosen and how she would extend those activities into class time.

"Flipping" is rapidly moving into the mainstream. Bergmann and Sams have completed a book, are in high demand across the country at educator conferences, and even host their own "Flipped Class Conference" to train teachers. The chief academic officer at Smith's school, Eric Westendorf, is taking the tools he has piloted at the school and building them into a platform for teachers everywhere to create and share videos. Most notable, though, is the emergence of the Khan Academy, an online repository of thousands of instructional videos that has been touted by Bill Gates and featured prominently in the national media.

Given education's long history of fascination with new instructional approaches that are later abandoned, there's a real danger that flipping, a seemingly simple idea that is profound in practice, may be reduced into the latest educational fad. And, in today's highly polarized political environment, it also runs the risk of being falsely pigeonholed into one of education's many false dichotomies, such as the age-old pedagogical debate between content knowledge and skills acquisition.

But the ideas behind flipping are not brand new. For over a decade, led by the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), dozens of colleges have successfully experimented with similar ideas across math, science, English, and many other disciplines. NCAT's increasingly impressive body of practice shows that thoughtful course redesigns lead to improved learning. Carol Twigg, NCAT's president and CEO, says there is no magic: course redesign is "a hard job." She's not assuming students love homework. But redesign offers an opportunity to reengage students and improve their motivation, while setting proper expectations and monitoring to "push school to the top of the list." And while many course redesigns focus on incorporating more project-based learning opportunities, Twigg's experience leads her to quickly dismiss pedagogical extremes: "If you don't have basic math skills, you can't do an interesting physics project."

There is also some danger that the flipped classroom could be seen as another front in a false battle between teachers and technology. Yet Bergmann and Sams emphasize that the "only magic bullet is the recruiting, training, and supporting of quality teachers." And while Khan Academy's prominence engenders fear of standardization and deprofessionalization among some critics, Bergmann, Sams, and Smith see instructional videos as powerful tools for teachers to create content, share resources, and improve practice. Smith admits that if such tools were available when she first started out, she "would have run to this every week when planning."

It seems almost certain that instructional videos, interactive simulations, and yet-to-be-dreamed-up online tools will continue to multiply. But who will control these tools and whether they will fulfill their potential remains to be seen. As Scott McLeod, one of the nation's leading thinkers on educational technology and the director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education, observes, the "reason Sal Khan is so visible right now is that nobody did this instead. It would have been great if the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics had been doing this, but someone from the outside had to fill the vacuum." His guidance to educators: "Start making!"
Bill Tucker is managing director of Education Sector. For more on this topic, please read "The Transformational Potential of Flipped Classrooms," by Michael Horn, from the Summer 2013 issue of Education Next.

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Four years ago, in the shadow of Colorado's Pike's Peak, veteran Woodland Park High School chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams stumbled onto an idea. Struggling to find the time to reteach lessons for absent students, they plunked down $50, bought software that allowed them to record and annotate lessons, and posted them online.

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1. How effective would a flipped classroom be for a general class?
2. In what ways can a flipped classroom benefit students?
3. Do you think a flipped classroom is a good or bad thing?
4. Would having a flipped classroom for the entire school year be much better than the usual lecture in class?