Introduction to the Flipped Classroom

Here is an excerpt from a recent post written by Jeffrey R. Young on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog. The post was published on 28. August, 2015 and is entitled, “Readers’ Definitions of Ed-Tech Buzzwords: Confusion and Skepticism Continue.”

Most administrators gave straightforward definitions of terms like “flipped classroom,” which one defined as “The readings and lectures are consumed outside the classroom, and then the class time is used for more hands-on experience, discussion groups etc., more practical application and less listening time in the classroom.”

Some professors who responded used their definitions as a chance to express their suspicion of tech reforms. For example, here were some of the definitions for “flipped classroom.”

• “A way for edupreneurs to make money and for bad professors to avoid actually teaching.”

• “It’s an idiotic assumption that teaching has only worked in a single way up until “now,” after some “genius” white dude saw that students watched an indian guy’s videos.”

• “Something good teachers have been doing for decades.”

• “This is a corny term coined in the past few years to describe a process whereby students read course materials and watch videos in preparation for class discussions. This is what classroom education is supposed to entail … the idea that it is a next new thing just shows how superficial most discussions of teaching and learning are … especially by some online HE journalists.”

Another educational blogger, Lynne Diligent (from whom I borrowed the above cartoon), says this about the flipped classroom:

While the flipped classroom sounds like a new idea, it is actually an old idea. Several decades ago, it was called preparation–a good name–in Britain, although I am not aware of any specific name for it in America. It often consisted of reading a selection in a text book before arriving in class, for example, so that one could better benefit from a lecture.