Book Review: The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education

A Book Review on

The Flipped Classroom – Practice and Practices in Higher Education

Reidsema, C. Kavanagh ,L., Hadgraft, R., and Smith, N. (2017). The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education. Springer. 307 pages. ISBN: 978-981-10-3411-4.

Introduction

The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education is a versatile guide to the new model of teaching that is aimed at breaking the monotonous tradition of lecture teaching and has the added benefits of keeping up with the ever-changing world of education. This book does an excellent job of providing a generalized overview and detailed guide to the flipped classroom techniques, but also acknowledges and provides examples for the fact that each class, subject, and educator are different. As an educator myself, my struggles in engaging students in a meaningful way are vastly different than that of an algebra or language teacher, yet the guide reassures teachers that being unsure of how to implement new techniques is perfectly normal. It is easy for many to forget that educators are people too and sometimes we are not sure as to how to proceed or we worry about making mistakes. The book is divided into two individual sections; the first section reads Part I: Practices and focuses on the methodology of the flipped classroom, wherein Part 2: Practices consists relevant case studies of flipped classrooms in higher education. The book review largely focuses on the former and examines the flipped classroom framework (Table 1).

TABLE 1

TABLE 1. Table of contents of Part I: Practice summarized from Reidsema et al. (2017).

Reviewing Part I: Practice

Teaching is a very subjective experience, but the fear of mistakes is very real in education and the extremely rigid current ideals of teaching can put pressure on teachers and students to get things “correct”. The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education not only reminds the reader that the current teaching system is not workable for all classrooms anymore, but that some trial and error is necessary to gain the best results. One of my favorite aspects of this guide that was so unique and helpful was the case study vignettes interspersed with facts and details on flipped classroom techniques. The research and explanations behind it offer a lot of insight into the way these techniques work and how effective they are in the classroom.

Finding effective teaching methods can be difficult or as an educator, one may wonder if they are not engaging enough. It can be difficult to tell sometimes if the methods one uses in teaching are effective and enjoyable for the students, but the real experiences of students detailed in the guide help offer definitive positive impacts of the flipped classroom. Flipped learning is a blended learning or teaching technique in which students are required to engage in preliminary learning online and learning activities in class. The authors use their research to back up their claim that this method leads students to absorb more information and pay attention to the material or think critically about it.

The authors also state evidence that shows that classrooms that use flipped learning models are better equipped to deal with inter and intra personal problems and perform higher upon graduation. The research the authors conducted suggests that students actually learn better in this manner. Furthermore, the guide reinforced the accuracy of their claims by referencing outside research such as that by Carl Weiman (Deslauriers, Schelew and Wieman, 2011) and Erik Mazur. It is so reassuring to have all of this information when engaging in attempting to learn new and unsure territories. This information and the way in which it is presented is hugely helpful to educators and is reassuring given that changing one’s methods can be difficult or stressful.

Another aspect of The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education is its emphasis on the usefulness of technology and ways to implement it into the flipped classroom. Technology has become an integral part of teaching now that the pandemic has forced the option to become available to more students and teachers. Therefore it was pleasantly surprising to find that the guide offered strategies for a blended learning style, but also some tips if that is not doable. All of Chapter 3 is dedicated to how to use technology effectively in a flipped classroom, which is essential nowadays because technology continues to pervade classrooms. There is no way to avoid it so it is best to learn from it and learn how to best use it. This guide describes in detail how to do exactly that. The book also provides graphs showing the functions, positives, and negatives of each application suggested so educators can know if they are well-suited for a common application used in online teaching. Links are also made available to click on and follow for more resources.

Continuing in the discussion of resources provided in The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education, this guide is fantastically stocked with every kind of resource one could possibly want. It is one of the best aspects and assets of the book. The authors clearly care about their field and other educators struggling to adapt to the rapid pace of changes in higher education. Therefore they have included every single resource I believe they could think of or is available. Whether by citing outside research, naming titles of other studies, providing links, or examples of helpful technology or strategies, these authors have included it all.

Another aspect of this book that makes it extremely valuable to educators is its emphasis on cooperation not only between students but between colleagues as well to maximize the experiences of the students involved. Project based learning and group discussions or student involvement is highly emphasized in the methods by which to implement flipped learning. This speaks to the nature of flipped learning as being for the student to do their best and get the most out of their learning experiences. The authors describe several different ways to group students or ways in which to engage students with each other and the course material. As a teacher I have been of the opinion that excessive competition in the classroom can be detrimental and cooperations and collaborations such as those described in the project planning methods of the book, are more useful in the real world. Aerospace engineers cannot devise more efficient technology by themselves nor can a single marketer create substantial growth in a company. Because of the real expectations placed on employees in the job market, it is impractical to expect monotonous lectures and competition for grades from them all the time. The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education recognizes this and emphasizes doing the opposite.

Last of the many virtues of this handbook to flipped learning is its ease with which one can reference past materials. The book is well organized with pneumonic devices by which to mentally organize or prepare new learning or instruction methods. One of my favorites of these was the 7Cs which are presented as a guide for designing lessons or strategies to teach material (Figure 1). There are many others like these. This book is at once both an in-depth instruction manual and a reference book to the methods that it explains and supports. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, it really has everything one could need as an educator. Furthermore, all of this information and these references are organized by chapter, section, and subsection, asking everything easy to find and refer back to. It is one of the best guides on education I have ever read.

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 1. The 7Cs of Learning Design adopted from Reidsema et al. (2017).

Conclusion

The pace of higher education and the rhythm of the classroom is changing very rapidly in the modern day. Simple lectures and notes are no longer enough to keep pace and prepare students for the outside world or their careers. I feel that the research and the methods that these authors are conducting and supporting is headed in the correct direction for the sustained future of higher education. I have found these techniques and this research very useful and informative, not only for my potential students but also for myself both in learning and teaching. It felt easy, accessible, and at times rather understanding of the difficult situations educators can be in when trying new methods of teaching or facing situations like the Covid-19 pandemic which drastically altered teaching for many educators. I highly recommend The Flipped Classroom—Practice and Practices in Higher Education to any teacher. I also recommend adopting one of the strategies in the book and discussing this guide in depth with one’s colleagues. Collaboration and consistency can make flipped learning a more doable facet of higher education, particularly in shared departments. This book has given me a lot of research and evidence to consider in the reconstructing of my classroom and methods, but the guidance offered has given me a good place to start.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors, and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

References

Deslauriers, L., Schelew, E., and Wieman, C. (2011). Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class. Science 332 (6031), 862–864. doi:10.1126/science.1201783

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Mazur, E. (2009). Education. Farewell, Lecture? Science 323, 50–51. doi:10.1126/science.1168927

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Reidsema, C., Kavanagh, L., Hadgraft, R., and Smith, N. (2017). The Flipped Classroom – Practice and Practices in Higher Education. Springer. The Flipped Classroom. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-3413-8

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar