I was recently asked by a colleague if I knew of a useful article or two on flipped classrooms – what they are, what they aren’t, and when did they start. I was not looking for any simple advocacy or rejection posts, but explainers that can allow other people to understand the subject and make up their own mind on the value of flipping.
While I had a few in mind, I put out a bleg on Google+ and got some great responses from Laura Gibbs, George Station, and Bryan Alexander. Once mentioned, Robert Talbert and Michelle Pacansky-Brock jumped into the conversation with additional material. It seemed like a useful exercise to compile the results and share a list here at e-Literate. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, but a top level of the articles that I have found useful.
- ELI’s “7 Things You Should Know About … Flipped Classrooms”: This 2-page PDF from 2012 might be the best first article on the subject. I like the explanatory tone and basic questions (what is it, how does it work, who’s doing it, why is it significant, what are the downsides, where is it going, what are the implications for teaching and learning).
- UT Austin Center for Teaching’s “What is the Flipped Classroom?”: This web page is notable for a simple but relative effective one minute video as well as some useful graphics.
- Jackie Gerstein’s “A Little More on the Flipped Classroom”: This blog post includes a list of articles (current as of spring 2013 for additional reading. In addition, Jackie has a series of useful posts tagged as ‘flipped classroom’.
- Robert Talbert’s “Inverted Classroom”: This 2-page article from 2012 for Grand Valley State University’s ScholarWorks includes some historical context as well as concise description of benefits and pitfalls. Robert also has a series of posts at the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Casting Out Nines blog describing his personal experience flipping a class. This post addresses the need for a clear definition.
- Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies: The 16-page introduction in this 2012 book gives some history and context for flipped classrooms. Don’t tell Michelle, but you can read the entire introduction on Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. Michelle also has a Flip Your Class web site that includes videos that help capture the concept in action.
- Inside Higher Ed’s “Still in Favor of the Flip”: This article from fall 2013 captures viewpoints of people across the spectrum – from advocates of flipping to neutral to opponents of flipping.
- Ian Bogost’s “The Condensed Classroom”: This summer 2013 article in The Atlantic gives a serious critique of the concept of flipping.
There are other useful article out there, but this list is a good starting place for balanced, non-hyped descriptions of the flipped classroom concept. ((I did not include any directly commercial sites or articles in the list above. Michelle’s book was included as the introduction is freely available.)) Let me know in the comments if there are others to include in this list.