Learning & Leading Through Technology

and manners movies of the 1950s, reel-to-reel nature documentaries of the ’60s, film strips of the ’70s, VHS tapes of the ’80s, DVDs of the ’90s, and video subscription services of the 2000s to the teacher-created content of the 2010s, video has been used in education for a long time. Yet using it as a pre-teaching tool is new.

Flipped learning teachers have not come up with anything unheard of. They are simply leveraging emerging technology to deliver instruction in a way that was not possible before. Could you imagine making your own filmstrip back in the ’70s and distributing copies of it to all your students so they could watch it on their home filmstrip projectors? Tools that enable teachers to quickly create, produce, upload, and distribute video content also allow us to teach in ways that were not possible prior to 2005.

Where Is Flipped Learning Now?

Before we discuss the flipped class as a way to the answers, let’s define some terms. What exactly is a flipped classroom? We have hesitated to answer this question because we strongly believe that there is no such thing as the flipped classroom. In fact, we believe a better term for what we have promoted is flipped learning. This may seem like mincing words, but we want to be clear that what has popularly become known as the flipped classroom is only one basic form of the flipped learning model.

The common description of a flipped classroom is having students watch instructional videos at home and do the typical homework ( worksheets, problem sets, back-of-the-chapter exercises) in class. We refer to this model as “Flipped Class 101.” This is the entry point, but it should not be the final goal. Moving direct instruction out of the group learning space and into the individual learning space is a great place to begin your journey, but it is not the destination itself.

If flipped learning is something other than the popular definition, what is it?

We like the definition that the Flipped
Learning Network (flippedlearning.
org) adapted from the work of Ramsey
Musallam ( goo.gl/qrj7pS):
Flipped learning is a pedagogical
approach in which direct instruc-
tion moves from the group learning
space to the individual learning
space, and the resulting group space
is transformed into a dynamic,
interactive learning environment
where the educator guides students
as they apply concepts and engage
creatively in the subject matter.

The basic premise is that direct instruction, which is often referred to as lecture (though it is not necessarily the same), is not conducted

Flipped Mastery Flipped Mastery
+ Gamification
Flipped Peer
Instruction
Flipped Project-
Based Learning
Flipped + Genius
Hour Explore-Flip-Apply An Inquiry
Technique