Should elementary and secondary teachers "flip" their classroom?

A recent research paper looks closely at the benefits and challenges of the flipped model for K-12 teachers

Photo by: Julia M. Cameron

Highlights

• The flipped learning model involves assigning instructional content, such as videos or readings, for students to engage with at home, thereby freeing up class time for interactive, hands-on activities, discussions, and personalized support.

• Most comparative studies of flipped learning report positive results. However, researchers observe that the flipped learning literature suffers from methodological irregularities, confounds, and inconsistencies across studies.

• Kapur et al. (2022) conducted a detailed review of the flipped learning literature. They discovered that flipping offers few benefits for teachers who already incorporate a lot of active learning in their instruction.

• Equity issues may arise in flipped classrooms if some students can’t do, or don’t do, the assigned pre-class activities.

• It’s not clear that “flipping” offers significant benefits for K-12 teachers. Better student outcomes may be obtained by introducing new material in manageable chunks and tightly interweaving the presentation of new content with structured, active learning.

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Recently a teacher candidate asked us to comment on flipped classrooms. Are flipped classrooms a good idea? Does “flipping” produce better student outcomes? What does the research say?

Flipping is an idea that has gained widespread attention in recent years, particularly in post-secondary circles. The idea is to “flip” the traditional way of teaching. In many college and university courses, students attend an in-class lecture, after which they solidify their new learning by doing assignments or other exercises as homework. Here’s what that looks like:

In a flipped university lesson, students read new material, or watch a recording of the teacher’s lecture at home prior to class. This allows the instructor to dedicate class time to active learning, in which students work on solidifying their knowledge of the new content, while the instructor circulates, providing support and feedback as necessary. 

There are several advantages to a flipped arrangement. The chief advantage is that the pre-recording of lectures frees up class time. The instructor can use this valuable time to provide feedback, address misunderstandings, and ensure that all students have fully grasped the newly-learned concepts.

Much of the research on flipped classrooms has been favorable, yielding positive results (e.g., Strlan, Osborn, & Edward, 2020; Cheng, Ritzhaupt & Antonenko, 2018). Such studies suggest that student learning outcomes improve significantly when instructors replace lecturing with structured in-class opportunities for active learning.

Does this mean that elementary and secondary teachers should flip their lessons?

While flipping has been shown to be beneficial in many post-secondary contexts, there are good reasons to be suspicious of claims that “flipping” is effective in K-12 classrooms. Research suggests that the principal benefit of flipping is that it provides students with more opportunities for instructor-supervised active learning and problem solving (Strlan et al., 2020). This can be productive when lecture-based classes are the norm. However, in elementary and secondary classrooms, many teachers already dedicate a considerable amount of class time to active, minds-on activities, where students receive guided instruction and feedback. For those teachers, flipping is less likely to offer benefits.

A recent study by Manu Kapur, John Hattie, Irina Grossman and Tanmay Sinha reviewed 46 meta-analyses of flipped learning. Their paper, entitled, Fail, flip, fix, and feed – Rethinking flipped learning: A review of meta-analyses and a subsequent meta-analysis concluded that “the current levels of enthusiasm for flipped learning are not commensurate with, and far exceed, the vast variability of scientific evidence in its favor,” (p. 1) calling into question the popular belief that flipping yields learning outcomes that are superior to those of conventional teaching. Here are some of the key points from their paper:

• Past research into “flipped learning” is inconsistent: In their review, Kapur et al. (2022) observed that the 46 meta-analyses were highly inconsistent in their measurements of mean effect sizes, a concern that has also been reported by Hew, Bai, Dawson and Lo (2021). Inconsistent effect sizes across studies may be a sign of methodological irregularities or confounding elements in the individual studies.

• Teachers rarely followed a strict model of flipped learning: Kapur et al., (2022) found that there was great variability, across studies, in way that instructors flipped their teaching. Surprisingly, many teachers in the flipped conditions did not significantly alter their in-class lessons. Most continued to provide some kind of lecture or presentation of content. In fact, flipped learning was found to be more beneficial when the in-class portion included a lecture that revisited some of the material from the pre-class recorded presentation. The authors attribute these benefits to “the double, or extended exposure, to the lecturers’ interpretation of the knowledge and understanding.” (p.12). 

• Pre-class activities also varied considerably across studies: Across the 46 meta-analyses, the nature of the pre-class portions of the flipped conditions varied significantly. While most involved the passive presentation of new content, through video or reading assignments, many also incorporated interactive elements, such as collaborative discussions, simulations, application problems, interactive demonstrations, and quizzes. The lack of consistency in the way flipped learning has been implemented in research studies, both in the pre-class phase and the in-class phase, makes it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions regarding its educational value.

• Some of the claimed advantages of flipping may actually be due to greater student time-on-task:  Many of the studies that compared flipped learning to traditional learning failed to control for the amount of time students spent on learning.  Kapur et al., (2022) write:

Because of the addition of pre-class on top of in-class time, the total instructional time in flipped learning is often greater than in the traditional method alone, which means that the effects on learning may simply be a function of students spending more time on the learning material. (p. 4)

This suggests that some of the perceived advantages of flipped learning are not a function of the flipping, but rather are due to students spending more time on task.

• The benefits of flipped instruction over traditional instruction depend heavily on how you interpret the phrase “traditional instruction”.  “Flipping your teaching” is a somewhat ambiguous notion, since different people teach in different ways. A university instructor may regularly deliver 60-minute lectures, while an elementary teacher will routinely craft lessons that carefully interweave the presentation of new material with practice and guided feedback. Flipping may indeed be beneficial for those who teach through lecture only. However, it may not be helpful for instructors who already employ a lot of active learning in their regular, day-to-day teaching.  Kapur et al. explain: 

As more active learning was incorporated in traditional instruction, the effect of flipped learning over traditional instruction tended to reduce, and in several cases, even reverse. This suggests that effects on learning are not due to flipped learning or traditional instruction, but due to active learning. Active learning, when designed well, be it in flipped or traditional instruction, is effective, and we should focus on that more squarely. (p. 12).

What can we conclude from the Kapur et al. (2022) paper?

The Kapur et al (2022) paper offers interesting insights because it moves us beyond simplistic questions of whether flipping works or not. Instead, we see that implementations of “flipping” vary widely across studies, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about its efficacy. Moreover, the article shows that the stereotypical “flipped” approach (i.e., a passive pre-class presentation of content followed by in-class active learning) was uncommon in flipped studies. In fact, better learning outcomes were obtained when the in-class activities were more traditional in nature, incorporating both teacher-led presentations and active learning.

The stereotypical flipping approach can be problematic for a number of other reasons as well. One frequently voiced concern is that students may not do the pre-class activities, which means they will be disadvantaged during the in-class portion. There may also be equity issues associated with flipping. Some students may not have the required technology at home, or they may lack a quiet space where they can do the pre-class work. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, teachers should be wary of models where students are expected to consume a large amount of content at once. Doing so raises concerns about cognitive load. Human working memory has a limited capacity for processing new information. Long lectures can overwhelm this capacity, making it less likely that the content will be retained. Students may also be disadvantaged if there is a significant time delay between the initial presentation of content and the subsequent opportunity to practice and reinforce the newly acquired knowledge.

Given the analysis by Kapur et al. (2022), our best advice is to not view “flipping” as some kind of panacea. The term itself is ambiguous, and researchers have raised serious concerns about the associated literature. Kapur et al. (2022) argue that positive learning outcomes are not associated with “flipping” per se, but rather with instructional approaches that tightly interweave the introduction of new content with opportunities for structured, active learning. This entails presenting new knowledge in manageable chunks, interspersed with active learning opportunities, so that students can process and integrate the new content.

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References

Cheng, L., Ritzhaupt, A.D. & Antonenko, P. (2019). Effects of the flipped classroom instructional strategy on students’ learning outcomes: a meta-analysis. Educational Technology Research and Development, 67(4), 793-824.

Hew, Bai, Dawson & Lo (2021). Meta-analysis of flipped classroom studies: A review of methodology. Educational Research Review, 33.

Kapur, Hattie, Grossman & Sinha (2023). Fail, flip, fix, and feed – Rethinking flipped learning: A review of meta-analyses and a subsequent meta-analysis. Frontiers in Education, 7, 1-19.

Strelan, P., Osborn. A. & Palmer, E. (2020). The flipped classroom: A meta-analysis of effects on student performance across disciplines and education levels. Educational Research Review, 20.