Flipped Classrooms: a Review of Key Ideas and Recommendations for Practice

Flipped classrooms refer to the practice of assigning lectures outside of class and devoting class time to a variety of learning activities. In this review, we discuss the range of approaches to the flipped classroom and focus on activities frequently used in these settings. Amongst these, we examine both out-of-class activities (e.g., video lectures) and in-class activities (e.g., quizzes, student discussions). We argue that the value of these activities reflects the particular cognitive processes engaged by the activity regardless of whether the setting is the traditional (lecture-based) classroom or the flipped classroom. Future work should continue to examine the influence of individual activities on student learning and behaviors, particularly when objective measures of learning, such as quizzes and exams, are held constant.