A Classroom with Difference: A Whole New World of Learning!

By Jason Gaya

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Learning in the flipped classroom is something that happens if the learner and / or teacher go against the traditional chalk and talk method, a mind-numbing methodology that has been inflicted for generations on unsuspecting students.

The flipped model has been much talked about in learning circles. Such circles have now come to include and accept ‘learners’ as active participants in the learning process. It essentially depends on using the new technologies to make learning interactive and interesting through the endlessly experiment media. The model seeks to provide a self-paced learning experience to the learner, in effect a ‘tailored’ one so that the learner may delve deeper into topics. The subjects / topics are of interest to him/her or spend more time on a particularly difficult one. Sounds amazing! Some may even rue the fact that they were born much earlier and being unable to take advantage of this newer system sweeping across the learning community.

Why, there may come a time when schools are no longer necessary and the learner “thinks’ his PC or tablet or some other gadget ‘on’ and chooses his / her learning for the time. No school buildings, no principal, no teachers and the least of all no punishments or social ostracism! The resultant tax savings may be channeled to other pressing needs or even subsidizing the studies of a ‘needy’ learner.

One may be forgiven for thinking that all this is fine for affluent societies, what about the millions who are in that part of the world where the required stuff is not available? Remember there was limited internet before the 1990s and yet societies have developed!

Some doubters still question this flipped learning model but these are in an increasing minority (their fear stems from having to relearn or come down from their pedestal of the ‘omniscient’ one).