In traditional classroom instruction, the teacher is typically the leader of a lesson, the focus of attention, and the primary disseminator of information during the class period. The teacher responds to questions while students refer directly to the teacher for guidance and feedback. Many traditional instructional models rely on lecture-style presentations of individual lessons, limiting student engagement to activities in which they work independently or in small groups on application tasks, devised by the teacher. The teacher typically takes a central role in class discussions, controlling the conversation's flow.[2] Typically, this style of teaching also involves giving students the at-home tasks of reading from textbooks or practicing concepts by working, for example, on problem sets.[3]
The flipped classroom intentionally shifts instruction to a learner-centered model, in which students are often initially introduced to new topics outside of school, freeing up classroom time for the exploration of topics in greater depth, creating meaningful learning opportunities. With a flipped classroom, 'content delivery' may take a variety of forms, often featuring video lessons prepared by the teacher or third parties, although online collaborative discussions, digital research, and text readings may alternatively be used. The ideal length for a video lesson is widely cited as eight to twelve minutes.[4][5]
Flipped classrooms also redefine in-class activities. In-class lessons accompanying flipped classroom may include activity learning or more traditional homework problems, among other practices, to engage students in the content. Class activities vary but may include: using math manipulatives and emerging mathematical technologies, in-depth laboratory experiments, original document analysis, debate or speech presentation, current event discussions, peer reviewing, project-based learning, and skill development or concept practice[6][7] Because these types of active learning allow for highly differentiated instruction,[8] more time can be spent in class on higher-order thinking skills such as problem-finding, collaboration, design and problem solving as students tackle difficult problems, work in groups, research, and construct knowledge with the help of their teacher and peers.[9][10]
A teacher's interaction with students in a flipped classroom can be more personalized and less didactic, and students are actively involved in knowledge acquisition and construction as they participate in and evaluate their learning.[4][11][12][13]
In 1993, Alison King published "From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side," in which she focuses on the importance of the use of class time for the construction of meaning rather than information transmission. While not directly illustrating the concept of "flipping" a classroom, King's work is often cited as an impetus for an inversion to allow for the educational space for active learning.[15]
Harvard professor Eric Mazur played a significant role in the development of concepts influencing flipped teaching through the development of an instructional strategy he called peer instruction. Mazur published a book in 1997 outlining the strategy, entitled Peer Instruction: A User's Manual. He found that his approach, which moved information transfer out of the classroom and information assimilation into the classroom, allowed him to coach students in their learning instead of lecture.[16][17]
Lage, Platt and Treglia published a paper entitled "Inverting the Classroom: A Gateway to Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment" (2000), which discusses their research on flipped classrooms at the college level. In their research focusing on two college economics courses, Lage, Platt, and Treglia assert that one can leverage the class time that becomes available from the inversion of the classroom (moving information presentation via lecture out of the classroom to media such as computers or VCRs) to meet the needs of students with a wide variety of learning styles.[18] The University of Wisconsin-Madison deployed software to replace lectures in large lecture-based computer science course with streaming video of the lecturer and coordinated slides.[19] In the late 1990s, J. Wesley Baker was experimenting with these same ideas at Cedarville University. He presented a paper discussing what he termed the "classroom flip" at an education conference in the year 2000 in what may be the first published mention of the word "flip" associated with this model of teaching and learning.[20]
Kaw and Hess published a paper in 2007 to compare the effectiveness of four (4) instructional modalities for a single topic of a ATEM course -(i) traditional lecture, (ii) blended (what they called "Web-enhanced lecture"), (iii) Web-based self-study and (iv) flipped (what they called "Web-based self-study and classroom discussion"). Statistical analysis of the assessment data indicated that the second modality, in which Web-based modules for instruction were used during face-to-face lecture delivery mode, resulted in higher levels of student performance and satisfaction.[21]
A recognizable contributor to the flipped classroom is Salman Khan. In 2004, Khan began recording videos at the request of a younger cousin he was tutoring because she felt that recorded lessons would let her skip segments she had mastered and replay parts that were troubling her.[22][23] Based on this model, Salman Khan founded Khan Academy, which some associate with the flipped classroom; however, these videos are only one form of the flipped classroom strategy.[24]
The Wisconsin Collaboratory for Enhanced Learning has built two centers to focus on flipped and blended learning. The classroom structure houses technology and collaboration-friendly learning spaces, and emphasis for those involved in the program is placed on individualized learning through non-traditional teaching strategies such as flipped classroom.[25]
To decrease student resistance,[26] Clark, Kaw and Braga Gomes have used adaptive learning in the pre-class preparation for flipped classrooms. Because adaptive learning reduces student time and ensures required mastery learning, the flipped classroom became more favorable and decreased perception of responsibility.[27]
Recently, A group of researchers has also stated the importance of hybrid flipped classroom strategy in Covid-19 times in imparting online education, particularly in context of developing economies. Authors describe that the hybrid-flipped classroom strategy is expected to benefit a larger learner-instructor community in the times of pandemic crisis.[28]
Woodland Park High School chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams began practicing flipped teaching at the high school level when, in 2007, they recorded their lectures and posted them online to accommodate students who missed their classes.[6] They note that one person cannot be credited with having invented the inverted or flipped classroom, and assert that there is no one 'right' way to flip a classroom as approaches and teaching styles are diverse, as are needs of schools.[6] They went on to develop the "Flipped-Mastery" model and wrote extensively about it in their book Flip Your Classroom.[6]
MEF University, a non-profit private university located in Istanbul, Turkey, claims to be the first university in the world that has adopted the "flipped classroom" educational model university-wide.[32]
Proponents of flipped classrooms in higher education[33] have had an interest in seeing this put into practice in university classrooms. Professors at the University of Graz conducted a study[34] in which lectures were video recorded in a manner in which students could have access to them throughout the semester of a lecture-based course on educational psychology. The professors surveyed how the students used their educational tools: attending lectures and watching or rewatching videos. Students subsequently rated (on a scale of 1=none to 6=nearly all) how often they used these materials. The majority of students (68.1%) relied on watching the podcasts but had low attendance rates compared to their podcast usage. The remainder of the students either rarely watched podcasts (19.6%) or somewhat used the podcasts (12.3%), but both had similar lecture attendance. Students that watched the videos more than their peers performed better than those who chose otherwise.
In traditional schools, each topic in class receives a fixed amount of time for all students. Flipped mastery classrooms apply a mastery learning model that requires each student to master a topic before moving to the next one.[36]
Mastery learning was briefly popular in the 1920s, and was revived by Benjamin Bloom in 1968. While it is difficult to implement in large, traditional classrooms, it has shown dramatic success in improving student learning.[37][38] The mastery model allows teachers to provide the materials, tools and support for learning while students set goals and manage their time.[36]
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