I believe the heart of a flipped classroom lies in its ability to focus on learner content creation. In primary and secondary school examples, we hear that the flipped classroom asks students to bring their “homework” to class, while the bulk of the learning happens at home. For the flipped model to work for adult learners, there has to be some aspect of the behavior that translates to professional applications in the field. Particularly, many instructors in adult learning already assume the position of a facilitator, so a flipped classroom approach won’t be such a culture shock.

One of the concepts I want to drive home with any adult learning experience is mentioned in the video we watched from Stephen Brookfield (his workshop at TC is fabulous!). In every adult learning experience, I want to challenge their assumptions and make the learning experience relevant and significant.

I don’t believe learning online, and face-to-face is critically different in the flipped classroom, especially because traditional education is increasing its use of online media (videos, discussion forums, blogs, podcasts, etc.) and often, many resources are delivered via these methods. When I was teaching full-time, I often referred to online the same way I spoke about my classroom. When I did not know when I accepted a position if I’d be “art-on-a-cart,” have a large classroom, individual student desks, smartboard, no boards, no supplies, etc. I couldn’t tell if I’d be in a lunch room for the summer arts program or teaching out of a small closet-like classroom. Online for me is just a different location, with its set of affordances and constraints. It draws on the same engagement techniques and teaching strategies as other modalities, with some adjustments and considerations made for the audience, time, subject matter and so on.

I think the strategy is more dependent upon the audience than it is on the modality. Considering flipped strategies for grade school students is far different than adults, where the emphasis may be on time management rather than outside support systems, like parents and library resources. Here are some techniques that I’d use to keep that experience engaging:

• Prep with short, helpful videos and pre-class materials
• Provide time-management cues to help learners plan their approach to learning
• Give ample choices that meet the objectives
• Build a reflection into the pre-session, so participants are encouraged to think about how this information is relevant to their work
• Focus on workshopping what the learners find to be the most important.

To that end, the strategies that I’d use to flip an online course would be similar to that of a face-to-face experience. In all those cases, the focus is on the learner’s experience, needs and requires their action to be successful. Now that we have breakout groups in virtual software such as Adobe Connect and Zoom, we can emulate group work in a similar synchronous fashion as we would normally do in face-to-face environments.

Regardless of modality, there are still some aspects of the flipped classroom that I find concerning from a planning and support standpoint, which I think are exacerbated in an online environment:

• Access to all digital resources and connections: The effectiveness of a flipped classroom, especially one that is workshop driven and collaborative, tend to rest on our ability to participate fully. With the spotty connection, malfunctioning microphones and wifi lag, I’ve seen great flipped assignments fall flat. Unfortunately, no level of preparation from the instructor can help mitigate the requirements imposed by the online environment and lack of student preparation
• When teaching yourself isn’t enough: I’m reminded of several statistics courses (on of which I worked to design), that ended up being a nightmare for students, especially when any level of self-instruction was involved. Often, a live instructor focusing on reviewing the lecture and fielding questions was the best way to address this issue. There may be certain subjects and mastery levels that do not benefit from a flipped approach.
• Distractions and student metacognition: Depending on the age group, not every student will understand how they learn best and adjust their environment to fit this. Part of what the designated session time in traditional education accomplished was to offer an optimal learning environment free from distractions and
• Flipped without feedback isn’t helpful: this was more of concern in the past, but we’ve since improved our technology to provide students feedback throughout the self-taught stages of a flipped classroom experience. Early examples of our flipped approaches found students teaching themselves the wrong information and memorizing mistakes with no one to correct them effectively. Now that we have adaptive learning and teachable agents that can provide immediate feedback, we have opportunities to remedy the path to success.