In the traditional classroom model, which we are quite familiar with, teachers give lectures in the classroom while students are assigned practice questions and take-home tasks to be completed on their own. However, this model is evolving into one where students can take advantage of their curiosity about specific subjects to learn on their own, and instead, the classroom sessions are utilized for further exploration on subject matters they’ve learned. This is called the flipped classroom model, which has been popularized even more by edtech. This model was invented in 2007 by Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergman when they started recording their classroom lectures to let their students access them at home.

Flipped classrooms work by allowing students to go over lecture notes and videos at home. The next day, classes focus on what questions the students had while studying at home, and then the instructor answers those questions. With the information gathered both via home learning and class clarifications, students are then expected to carry out their projects as well as any other tasks that would have been previously done at homework.

Typically, students do the following at home in a flipped classroom:

·         Review online course material

·         Conduct research

·         Watch an online lecture

·         Read digital or physical texts

·         Participate in an online discussion

In classrooms, students will usually do the following:

·         In-person discussion with peers

·         Skill practice (which may be unguided or guided by the teacher)

·         Presentations

·         Debate

·         Peer evaluation and review

·         Lab experiments

·         Station learning

The flipped classroom model has innumerable advantages, both for instructors and students. Instructors are able to dedicate more of their time to actually solving the problems students encounter in their learning process. Additionally, they won’t need to flip their whole class to benefit from this model. Instead, they can just flip a single lesson to introduce their students to the concept, notice how it works, and go from there. Students can also cut out the time spent attending unnecessary lectures and instead engage in hands-on learning and have their burning questions answered. They also get to learn at their own pace and are encouraged to take responsibility for their learning. Flipped learning increases collaboration between students as well.

This model helps students explore new concepts in their own way and go deeper to understand and apply the concepts in a supportive and controlled environment. Since all these occur naturally, students are more likely to remain engaged.