Flipping Your Class? Read This First
Flipping can offer significant benefits to both instructors and students, but is this shift guaranteed to offer positive results? To ensure your flip doesn’t flop, consider three concerns raised in A Few Concerns about the Rush to Flip.
The author’s first concern is that our enthusiasm for flipping — which is enabled by a myriad of technology that can be robust, versatile, and easy to use — may not be supported by the “careful design work” necessary to guide “independent learning experiences.” Ensuring that students are “studying in ways that promote mastery of the material” requires careful consideration and design.
The second concern relates to the students themselves. The author asks us to consider whether flipped courses are “equally appropriate for everybody.” A flipped approach might work wonderfully with one population of learners, say third- or fourth-year students, and poorly for others, such as first-year students. The author recommends we consider “whose learning will benefit the most” from a particular approach.
The third concern focuses on issues of content. As the author asks, “Does the content of some courses flip more successfully than content in other courses?” and “What criteria do we use when deciding what content to flip?” To allow instructors to answer these questions and assess the success (or not) of flipping course content, the author recommends incorporating a flipped approach incrementally.
