What is the flipped classroom model, and what is flipped classroom teaching? Can you believe how much teaching and learning has changed over the years? Seriously! Think back to when you were in the classroom as a student. I remember, when I was in middle school, we would pretty much read out of our science textbooks and have to answer the questions at the end of the chapter. Oh, and don’t forget to write the questions too!
I mean, I guess I learned SOMETHING, because I do love science, but wow, information overload, and for sure, superficial learning.
What about lectures? Whew, that’s a whole other story for another day. Lectures have their time and place, but the focus in the classroom should be to reduce cognitive load and to increase learning.
What is a Flipped Classroom?
Many times, I hear the question, “What’s a flipped classroom?”. Well, it pretty much is:
- doing to lesson and notetaking at home and then,
- doing the “homework” and classwork while you are at school
So, students are exposed to the material before they enter the classroom and have the notes that they need before starting the school day. In that way, students are able to begin class time working on higher order thinking activities and collaborative tasks.
The flipped classroom can also be called the inverted classroom. In this type of model, the lessons are student-centered, and, in the classroom, the teacher serves as a facilitator to the learning.
What Does a Flipped Classroom Look Like?
So, what a flipped classroom looks like can be different for different teachers depending on their style and their students.

Your students can get the content by 3 different ways digitally:
Teacher Created Videos : using different tools such as Screencastify, Loom, or some other screen recorders
Pre-Created Videos: YouTube now has several different types of videos that can be used as content for your students. You just have to be careful to make sure the content aligns with your standards and is appropriate.
Digital Interactive Lessons: This is a new innovative way that can be used in a flipped classroom environment. Digital interactive lessons can be used to formatively assess students while they are learning. Students can store their notes in their Google Drive, or other digital storage, where they can house them. No more losing notebooks!
So, traditionally in this type of classroom, students would complete their lessons at home, either taking notes in a notebook while watching a video, or they can complete a digital interactive lesson.
Once they are in the classroom, they can directly begin working on applying the information. I used to do a traditional flipped classroom for my math classes, then I moved to an “in-class flipped classroom” approach in my science classes (more about that later!).
However, when I did the flipped classroom approach, I would always start my class by reviewing the lesson (no more than 10 minutes) so that most students were caught up, even if they didn’t get the notes they were supposed to!
After the review, more fun, engaging, and rigorous activities take place.
Examples of what you can do inside the classroom:
- Science labs
- Task cards
- Other hands-on activities
- Activities outside
- Creating models
- Cut-and-glue sorts
- Writing prompts
- Games
- Online simulations
- Citizen science
- Skits
I could go on! To get more ideas, check out these 99 Engaging Strategies for Middle School Science!
Advantages of a Flipped Classroom
There are SO many advantages to having a flipped classroom. I’ve read the research on it, and pretty much, if things are done right, positive outcomes occur. From a personal standpoint, I’ve seen success in both my math and science flipped classrooms.
Advantages Highlights
- Higher Order Thinking: By skipping so much in-class time for learning the material, more time can be spent doing higher-order thinking activities.
- Self-Paced: This is probably my favorite! Students can work at their own pace. They can review their notes and videos over and over again to learn the materials. As they are going through it they can stop and pause whenever they feel like they need to. If they really understand the material, they can move on and not have to wait on their classmates.

- Answer Questions: Since the class will be filled with activities and such instead of lectures, notetaking, etc., teachers have more of an opportunity to walk around, formatively assess students, and answer more questions based on students’ individual needs.
- Improved Communication Between Teachers and Parents: Because students will be required to do a lot of the notetaking and have most of the first content exposure at home, communication between parents is crucial. Parents should be aware of how the class is structured and what is expected. You can write a letter at the beginning of the school year explaining everything and keep them updated throughout the year using apps such as Remind.
- Recycling of Lessons: If you decide to create a video of a lesson on your own, these videos can be used for years to come. I created my own YouTube videos a LONG time ago. They are pretty ancient, and not that pretty, but I STILL have students refer back to them because I know the content is good.
- Teachers Learn the Students Better: Because teachers will have more time to facilitate learning, teachers will have a chance to learn the students better. The teacher can focus on helping students on a more individual basis with the classroom set-up!
- Differentiation: Because students are working at their own pace, especially at home, this IS differentiation. Allowing students to learn in a student-guided fashion is exactly what you need to differentiate.
- More Group Work: Students are not focused on the note-taking portion in the class, so they have more of an opportunity to work in groups and collaborate. In fact, most of the in-class work should be collaborative.
Disadvantages of a Flipped Classroom
As with anything, when there are advantages , there are disadvantages.
Disadvantages Highlights
- Access to Internet: Many students do not have access to the internet at home, or even technology for all that matter. Even after this crazy year (2020-2021), there are still students that do not have the necessary resources to successfully participate in the flipped classroom model. This is why I chose to use an “in-class flipped classroom” model. I ABSOLUITLEY LOVED THIS MODEL, and it worked! I discuss more below.
- Trust That the Student Is Doing the Work: This is harder than it looks. Have you ever trusted a middle schooler before? It is hard to let go and trust that your students are completing the work. Of course, once they come into class, you can see who has their notes and who does not, but handing the responsibility over to the students is difficult, but much needed for them and YOU!

- No Immediate Feedback for Students: If you choose the traditional flipped classroom model, students will be working from home; therefore, if they have any questions on the material, they will not be able to ask right away. You could tell your students to write down any questions that they have as they are working, and you can answer them during class time.
- Increased Screen Time: After the 2020-2021 school year, I actually think screen time would be decreased, but there is still a lot of screen time with this model. It truly only has to be during notetaking time though, and after that, application activities!
- Can Be Time Consuming for The Teacher: The work in the beginning can be very time consuming if you create your own videos and the planning time, but it’s totally worth it in class! You can save yourself by purchasing digital interactive lessons or finding videos online that align with your standards.
How to Spin Your Classroom
As mentioned, I have done the flipped classroom and the in-class flipped classroom (spinning the classroom) Hifor my classes. It depended on the students I had which one I used. For the most part, the in-class flipped model worked for me, so how did that look?
Through a grant, I received a class-set of Chromebooks for my classroom. If students took notes on that day, students got their Chromebook at the beginning of the class and started taking notes. At that time, students wrote their notes in an Interactive Science Notebook. Many times, if time allowed, they would write notes on a foldable of some sort or a graphic organizer. Cornell notes are great for this model as well!
If you choose to use digital interactive lessons, students can go through the lesson and store it into their Google Drive or other digital storage.
As students are working, you can walk around, see how they are doing, and answer any questions that they have.
Students that finish early should know what to expect when they are finished. I had a Canvas page where I stored links to different simulations, activities, and more dealing with the topic that was covered. I also gave options to students to do task cards when they were finished. This way, students that finished early could go ahead a dive deeper into the content, differentiation!
After the students finished, we moved on to collaborative and exploratory activities.
In is totally weird “not directly teaching”, but I promise, it works! Students love working at their on pace.
More Resources to Transform Your Classroom
What does a flipped classroom mean? What is a flipped classroom video? Interested in learning more? Check out these resources!
Creating an EPIC Flipped Classroom in Middle School
The Flipped Classroom: Pro and Con

I can’t get the “99 Ways”. It did the page isn’t available. Can you email it to me?
Marilyn.stout@chestercountyschools.org
Hi Marilyn, I will be happy to email them. Thanks for letting me know that you couldn’t access the link. I believe it is fixed!