The 'Flipped' Classroom - A Method for Improving Teaching and Learning Even in Large Classes

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many of us to transform our approach to teaching and learning. Instead of standing in front of a class in the lecture hall or sitting around a table and interactively debating with students, we, as teachers, have found ourselves staring at students (or just their names) through such platforms as Zoom or Teams and overcoming the instances of hesitance or silence by, well, talking more. Sooner or later some, perhaps many, of us recognised this “trap of silence” and in searching for better approaches to online teaching began to use – intentionally or not – the flipped classroom method. In this text, I will share my experience from the spring semester of 2021, in which I used the flipped classroom method in a large group setting (over 150 enrolled students). In the first part of this text, I will describe the course and implementation of the method. Then I will summarize its advantages and disadvantages and identify questions for further consideration. Throughout the paper, I include the experience of other teachers from the field of law and other disciplines to provide more context for my experience with the flipped classroom.