Technological advances in learning management systems (LMS) enable greater opportunities for students to access selective content ahead of lesson time. By leveraging your LMS, you can create easy and engaging content for students to undertake prior to entering your classroom. This approach to learning forms a great foundation for exploration, discussion and analysis.
What is Flipped Learning?
Time with our students is precious—there is always more to be learnt and discussed. The good news is there are opportunities to get creative with our teaching methods.
Flipped learning is an approach that provides students the opportunity to be introduced to material before class. This then enables class time to be used more effectively to deepen understanding of the topic through discussion and problem solving, with the teacher there to assist as and when they are needed.
How to Effectively Implement Flipped Learning
Using an LMS makes it easy to develop and deliver a flipped model of instruction. Firstly, communicating this new approach to your students is important as they will need to understand the variance in expectation that the change will bring. A set of guidelines will support students to know what is required before walking into a classroom for each lesson. Ensuring students are engaging with content prior to the lesson is essential to a successful flipped learning experience. Required activities may include, but are not limited to readings, creating a written response to a text, watching a short video or even completing a survey or poll.
In order to build an effective flipped learning experience that supports both teachers and students, we have provided some guidelines that may help you along the way…
Communicate expectations
Introduce flipped learning to your students by setting specific expectations for them. Make them aware that some of the things they are currently doing may be a little different and they might need to change the way they think to get the most out of their learning.
This usually involves preparation prior to the class rather than homework or a follow up activity. Students must be prepared to enter the class with some level of pre-existing content knowledge, in readiness for further discussion.
Effective flipped learning is highly dependent on preparation, both of teachers and students, and encourages thinking about a subject matter before class.
Choose your own adventure
Effective flipped learning provides a great way to integrate a variety of educational formats into your LMS. This will enable students to absorb the educational content before entering the classroom. Examples include assigning readings with questions, creating short videos or screencasts of instructional content or leveraging collaborative components to engage your students in the content. There are also many amazing LTIs that can support your content delivery in your flipped learning experiences.
You can also track your students’ learning progress, and compare it with the learning goals. By doing this, you will be able to understand what works for your students and utilise formats that are most suitable for your students’ learning abilities and further enhance the flipped learning experience.
Entry and Exit Tickets
Entry tickets allow you to develop an understanding of your students’ current knowledge of content, determine each student’s baseline and ensure that you personalise the learning for your students at their point of need. Once inside the classroom, teachers have the ability to facilitate stimulating discussion and ask deeper questions. An exit ticket provides your students with an opportunity to share their ideas and thoughts on their learning, completing an effective feedback loop. The advantage of the LMS is that it provides you the opportunity to create a survey around their understanding and keep your content in one location.
A Quick Poll
To get your students interacting with the subject matter, a poll can provide an engaging experience. Consider using a poll to determine prior knowledge, find out what formats of content your students are enjoying, engaging with, or engage understanding on the fly. With your LMS, you can set up a quick poll and deliver instant, anonymous feedback.
Time to Flip
Once the content has been introduced to students, it’s time to move on to the most important and enriching part of the flipped learning experience.
With the content already in their minds, your students are primed for your expertise in helping them to understand, develop and extend what they now know. Your job is to facilitate rich discussions, answer questions and provide in-depth analysis of what they have already learnt.
Be ready with thought-provoking questions that your students can discuss as a class. Lead the analysis and ask them to contribute.
The main message? Be prepared! You know what you want your students to achieve, so have your guided questions at the ready and ensure that you are open to new learning experiences and are flexible in how you meet the needs of your students.
Try flipped learning in your classroom!
Want to learn more about effective ways to enhance the learning experience—check out our other resources:
- What is Learning Beyond the Classroom?
- Learning with Online Assessment and Feedback Tools
- A Schoolbox Journey: Increasing School Community Engagement
