hands-on activities with ad hoc reinforcing lessons as needed. As students apply what they learned from the materials they viewed or listened to on their own, the facilitator is able to provide additional support and reinforce key concepts while students are afforded an opportunity to learn with and from one another.
It’s a model that is catching on in classrooms from elementary schools through college and university programs, and it is starting to see adoption in the adult learning space. By providing the more static “knowledge transfer” portions of a class as pre-recorded materials, you can minimize the need for class time devoted to lecture, thus shortening the length of time required for classes, sometimes reducing by half the amount of in-class time necessary for the course. In turn, this reduces time away from the office, travel days and per diem costs that are so hard to come by with today’s busy schedules and tight budgets.
An added advantage of the flipped classroom is that student performance and retention actually improves. In a traditional classroom, the instructor lectures, maybe asks some questions along the way to gauge where the class is as a whole in relation to the content, then moves on to a quick exercise or more lecture. Students frantically scribble notes, highlight portions of text, and dutifully try to follow the information being presented. There is no opportunity to replay the lecture or spend more time on a confusing topic. There aren’t many opportunities for the instructor to provide tailored, one-on-one tutoring or mentoring to students who either aren’t keeping up or who have mastered concepts and need additional challenges. In the flipped classroom, the student can pause, rewind and replay the “lecture” component of the class when needed, jotting down questions for further clarification once in class. Once in class, students are given exercises and activities to apply what they have learned but with the guidance and assistance of a facilitator who can clarify, guide, and challenge. Students who are struggling to get the concepts can take in information at their speed, not the speed of the class. Students who are ahead of the curve can be given more detailed or advanced challenges.
Learning
on its Head
Stephen Martin is a Learning Solutions Program Manager at DAI and an instructor for the Innovative Learning certificate program at tmgovu.org
Brought to you by:
by Stephen Martin, DAI
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