Explore Courses
Top University
Jagpreet
12 August, 2024
Table of Contents
A decade ago, who would have thought teaching and learning could be made innovative? Traditional classrooms could be turned into creative settings to impart instruction was an idea that remained too far-fetched but not for very long. We have arrived at a juncture, where education is no longer restricted to a system and efforts are made to ensure that these lessons and values are inculcated strongly to transcend the barriers that the old systemic ways set for us. A flipped classroom is an example of this innovation. It is a kind of strategic concept that involves the transformation of traditional learning methods and environments.
Here, the students are encouraged to learn through different mediums of instruction such as videos, readings, and miscellaneous other sources that enhance their learning skills. Post-learning, they discuss these in their classes and apply that knowledge to improve their skills like problem-solving. This boosts their interactive learning. This method of learning is divided into multiple components, let us understand them:
Teachers engage the students with recorded lectures or specially curated videos for students to watch at home. This simplifies their concepts and gives them a new method to learn even the tricky concepts.
There is plenty of reading material on the concepts that students are expected to learn. These include textbook chapters, articles, blogs, newspaper readings, etc. Such material gives them some source to connect their concepts increasing the chances of the information staying in their long-term memory.
There are brief quizzes that are conducted to understand if the students find the material and the videos to be helpful. Such quizzes make them accustomed to the kind of questions they may have to answer preparing them for the examinations better.
During their classes, students are encouraged to participate in detailed discussions on the concepts they learn. This not only gives them a diverse set of perspectives but through such discussions, they remember these concepts for much longer.
Students are encouraged to work in group settings to develop sportsman spirit and cooperation despite the clash of ideas and decisions. Such activity is often incorporated into group projects, case studies and other miscellaneous problem-solving abilities.
There are several practical exercises such as practical visits to the labs, experiments for various science-based concepts, and field visits that broaden their understanding of the concepts and also improve their memory so they learn such new concepts for a long time as they are able to recall them by connecting what they learned with what they experienced.
Let us understand the key benefits of flipped classrooms on student engagement and learning:
Students are provided with material such as online videos, live sessions, and even other hard copies such as books, articles, newspapers, etc. These promote active learning and students learn beyond what their textbooks teach. For example, a subject like political science may be taught through textbooks but concepts that are a part of it such as governance, policy making, and implementation as well the other important topics can be much better understood if the students are explained such concepts through newspaper readings where they learn how these concepts look like when executed in reality. They can connect faster this way. This logic applies to the other subjects as well.
An individual is always able to think up to a certain limit. The extent to which we can think and imagine is often dependent on and influenced by our experiences. This limits our thinking when we individually work on projects. However, in a group, there is a diverse set of experiences, combined with knowledge and skills that are unique. This helps them come together to create a more impactful solution for any problem while also working on innovative ideas. Group work is often encouraged to promote creativity as well as cooperation. At a very early age, students get to learn how to handle disagreements, empathy and how to incorporate diverse ideas while concluding without any delay. This learning becomes useful when they work in corporates as there are very few projects that one gets to do all by themselves.
In flipped classrooms, students interact with their peers, their counterparts and their teachers based on what they learned. Initially, even if they hesitate, in the long run, they develop essential skills such as communication through voicing their opinion and knowing how to frame it as well as learning through the different perspectives. Students think differently despite being a part of the same age group, largely because of their individual experiences. This means, coming together in a group promotes a healthy exchange of unique ideas even if they do not all agree with each other.
Students can find the traditional quintessential ways of learning to be quite mundane. There are so many business ventures that are investing a hefty amount of money in developing ed-tech-based models. This is an amalgamation of education and technology to combine the benefits of both and make learning a fun engaging experience. As a result, they enjoy learning even the difficult concepts. Therefore, when flipped classroom techniques are put to use, there is a more efficient use of technological tools to teach subjects such as history. For example, historical concepts can be taught through cinema while mathematical concepts can be taught through interesting and engaging real-life examples. The purpose is not just to simplify the concepts but also to ensure that students learn faster and are stored in their long-term memory increasing the chances of retrieval of that information.
Several teaching methods are incorporated into the flipped classroom technique. This ensures cooperative learning and encourages students that help them remain motivated and consistent. Each learning and teaching technique has some benefit to offer. It has some purpose behind it. Additionally, they also open up multiple options for the students to study from as they can try different mathods to learn the concepts if they find the traditional way to be more difficult.
The term flipped classroom implies inverting the traditional educational model into an innovative one for teaching and learning.
Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams are regarded as the two most important advocates of flipped classrooms.
Here are the four pillars of flipped learning:
flexible environment
learning culture
intentional content
professional educator
The two types of flipped classrooms are- student-led and instructor-led models.
The other name for flipped classroom is hybrid learning.
