It’s Time to Flip Your Learning
Are your training courses falling flat? If participants appear bored or disengaged with your learning sessions, you need this guide! It’s time to flip your learning.
Mindy is a training manager at a large Software company. Mindy typically prepares lectures for her training courses and is excited to deliver her speech to attendees. However, people that attend Mindy’s classes report being generally disengaged, bored or unsure about what’s happening or what they are supposed to be learning. In addition, while Mindy hosts many sessions and her students receive handouts and take notes, workbooks often end up as desk clutter for a few weeks before landing in the recycling.?
In classes, Mindy’s participants rarely get to apply what they learn, and because they don’t work with the new information, it’s forgotten as soon as they return back to their day-to-day work. Managers of employees that attend Mindy’s courses are not sure what the value of the sessions is as when they ask employees that have attended their classes how it went and what they learned, they often respond with sentiments of “it went fine” and “we learned stuff.”
Mindy puts lots of time and effort into creating engaging powerpoints and worksheets, but still, the learning just-not-sticking. People stop signing up for her classes, and the overall demand for learning at her company dwindles. Mindy isn’t sure what to do and worries her role might be eliminated if the demand for training continues to fall. What can Mindy do to save her job?
In my view, Mindy is at a pivotal point in her experience as a trainer. She can choose to continue the way things have been and risk having her role eliminated, or she can flip her teaching style to focus on putting learners first. Mindy can leverage flipped learning to change her classes, how learners engage, and how learning outcomes are achieved.?
Mindy needs to flip her learning and pivot from teaching to facilitating. If you’re anything like Mindy or have experienced any of the symptoms of traditional teaching as a learner or instructor, this guide is for you.?
What is flipped learning?
Flipped learning is a method that combines asynchronous and synchronous learning to prioritize interaction and activity during class time. Lectures, videos, and presentations are viewed outside of class, allowing students to engage to reinforce and apply the learning to scenarios when they are together.? Instructors no longer lecture during class time; they coach and facilitate groups towards learning outcomes through interactive activities and workshops.?
In short, flipped learning means students learn new concepts before meeting together to apply them and reinforce the learning. If facilitated effectively, students will retain more information for a longer period when compared to traditional teaching methods.?
Flipped learning works best amongst adult groups that can self-guide through asynchronous material to prepare for an engaging session. Once learners are geared up for the collaborative session, instructors transition from being a “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side.”??
Flipped learning has the opportunity to improve the longevity and effectiveness of learning outcomes while shifting the role of the instructor or facilitator. Here’s a quick take on the differences between the process of facilitating traditional and flipped learning:
Flipped learning turns traditional instruction on its head while making learning more approachable to students of varied learning styles. For example, when students are absorbing content to prepare for class, they can review a page multiple times or re-watch a video to ensure they understand the content. A benefit to both students and instructors, the instructor doesn’t have to re-iterate a portion of the lecture and take up classroom time to restate something a student may have missed while daydreaming because all of the content is available to review at any time.
Are you ready to experiment with flipped learning? Let’s get started!
How do you get started flipping your learning?
Instructors that take on the challenge of flipping learning put in effort and time at the outset that pays dividends throughout the course and in each subsequent run of that course in the future. Gone are the days of preparing for a 30-minute lecture presentation with slides and awkward student questions.?
In flipped learning, an instructor can prepare students for the class session by recording a short video of the lecture, assigning an article with examples of the concept in practice and sharing a TED talk from a notable leader in the topical area. These prep materials can be used repeatedly through different iterations of the course, making setup and content sharing a breeze. Next, it’s all about the classroom experience to reinforce the learning.
Get started flipping your courses by following these five steps to facilitate flipped learning:
Determine Course Learning Outcomes
When designing content for a flipped learning course, instructors must move beyond the idea of “covering a topic” to achieve a learning outcome. Learning outcomes describe a “measurable, observable and specific statement that indicates what a student should know and be able to do as a result of the learning” (Mohawk College).?
Learning outcomes are often associated with each class session or topical area and are used to guide the course content and activities. As you design your class content and sessions, ask yourself if each piece of content and in-class activity contributes to achieving the learning outcomes. If content or activities don’t meet those criteria or don’t contribute to building your collaborative classroom environment, they probably don’t belong in your course.??
I use learning outcomes to guide each class session very directly by starting each session by reviewing the learning outcomes for that day. By sharing the outcomes, students know what we’re trying to achieve together. More recently, I also review the learning outcomes at the end of each session and ask students to rate how they feel we have achieved each outcome by indicating their view on how “skilled” theta are against each learning outcome--this is a great way to get feedback from students and ensure activities are working and learning is being absorbed and reinforced in sessions.
Source: Author
Curate Engaging Content
Once your learning outcomes are defined, curate engaging content for asynchronous learning before your synchronous sessions. Go beyond the textbook and find content that clearly articulates the core message and value of the lesson while engaging learners of varied styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic and reading/writing) Content may take the form of:
Once your content is curated, be sure it is aligned with achieving the desired learning outcomes of the course. Be brutal in cutting out items that do not contribute to achieving the learning outcomes, your students will thank you!?
If you have too much content and want to ensure students don’t miss out on something that might benefit them, consider including content that is not assigned but optional if a student wants to learn further.
I have personally found success in including optional content and allowing students an opportunity to review and teach students about the optional content for extra points in the course!
Here’s an example of content curated for the Leadership model of my Operations Leadership class offered in the MBA program at the University of Portland. In this course, I use Harvard Business Review as our “textbook” and add in videos to cover content wherever possible. The required items are listed with optional content related to that item below and clearly indicated as Optional. I also include links to all content in my course guide (syllabus) so students can use their learning time focusing on the content rather than finding the materials.?
University of Portland Operations Leadership Course, Leadership Module Content:?
Optional: Reinventing Organizations Summary (LMS)
Optional: Reinventing Organizations Deep Dive (LMS)
What Makes a Leader? (HBR Video)
Optional: Leadership Lessons from Multipliers by Liz Wiseman (Web)
Optional: Accountability and The Oz Principle Summary (LMS)
领英推荐
Optional: Skills Leaders Need at Every Level (HBR)
Optional: Are You a Collaborative Leader? (HBR)
Optional: The Power of Small Wins (HBR)
Optional: Global Teams That Work (HBR)
Good Leadership is Contagious (HBR Video)
Optional: Too Much Charisma Can Make Leaders Look Less Effective (HBR)
Optional: Only 8% of Leaders are Good at Both Strategy and Execution (HBR)
If students review the required content before our class session, they are ready to engage and get the most out of our time together. Next, it’s my job as a facilitator to have class activities planned and prepared to go to help reinforce and apply the learning content.
Create Activities to Engage
Creating in-class activities to engage adult learners will vary depending on the content, the format of the course, delivery method and the context in which your participants know each other.?
There are hundreds of options for in-class activities to reinforce learning and many can apply to a wide variety of content. I find that facilitators often find a handful they like and adapt them to meet the needs of the content, format, delivery method and context they are teaching in. I consider these activities that I am comfortable with and can easily adapt as being in my “bag of tricks” and ready to go at any moment. Here are a few of my favorites:?
Note: Facilitating online can be especially daunting at first. I’ve found that the same activity can take a different amount of time online vs. in-person. Thankfully, tons of guidance is available for facilitating online sessions with activities. (Webinars with WOW Factor - 2nd Edition by Becky Pike Pluth)
Build a Trusting, Open and Collaborative Environment
If you are going to be successful in helping students learn, you need to create an environment where they feel safe to grow. Across learners of all ages, this means creating a trusting, open and collaborative environment. A great way to do this for adult learners is to work as a group to develop community agreements. Community agreements establish guidelines and expectations between learners about how they want to work together throughout the course.?
Developing community agreements includes a large group discussion on how students want to interact, learn and grow together. As a facilitator, community agreements help the class self-govern and can be a great tool for helping coach individuals through performance or behavioral issues as community agreements can serve as the rulebook for engaging with others in the course.?
Examples of items that can be included in community agreements:
Community agreements can be adapted based on the context and are helpful across many different types of engagements. In workplaces, community agreements are often known as working agreements. Learn more about working agreements from Atlassian.
Tip: If you are facilitating learning on sensitive topics or tackling issues that may be controversial, consider creating not just a safe space, but a brave space. Learn more about brave space from AWARE-LA and check out this example of brave space from Ohlone College to learn more.?
Facilitate and Coach Participants to Achieve the Learning Outcomes
As a facilitator, your job is to focus on the learners, not on yourself. You are not the star of the show, your learners are. You can be the greatest lecturer ever known, but if your learners are not learning, you have failed. Remember this each time you step into the classroom or into a virtual facilitation space--it’s not about you.?
Your job as a trainer or teacher is to facilitate experiences to shorten the path to learning or knowledge. You are the guide through the journey to the outcomes of learning. Treat this responsibility with respect and arrive prepared and excited to help your learners grow.?
One of the key reasons activities are critical to adult learning is that whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning. When your students share, teach or role play, they learn, much more than when you, the facilitator, talk. Gone are the days of lectures, it's all about facilitation now.?
Checklist to prepare to facilitate:?
Tip: Create a facilitation guide for your sessions to help guide your interactions with students and keep pace with the content you plan to cover. If you have a co-facilitator or producer involved in wrangling technology, a guide is especially helpful to keep everyone aligned and on-track.?
Using a template can be extremely helpful to ensure consistency and ease of use across your class sessions. Here are a couple of my favorite templates that are widely available:
What are you waiting for? Start facilitating!?
If you’re a teacher or trainer feeling a bit overwhelmed by this article--I get it, I really do. I remember preparing big presentations and lecture-style materials for courses. I remember the comfort of a well-created PowerPoint presentation that may have even included a short video to show students to “mix it up”. I remember these moments fondly but know they are best left in the past.?
My teaching style got turned on its head when I learned to be a corporate trainer and studied how adults learn best. Now that I know better, I can’t go back. You now also know better and my hope is that you don’t turn back. Let’s move forward, together. There is a wealth of information, guides and support to help you get started. I am confident you can make the change.?
Want to dive in further? Learn more about facilitating learning in a student or participant-centered setting from one of my favorite training organizations, The Bob Pike Group.?
If you’re a teacher turn facilitator, how did it feel to make the change? What difference do you see in student engagement? How are your learners achieving their outcomes?? Share what changes made the most significant impact on enhancing learning in the comments!
About the Author: Liz Lockhart is the Sr. Director of PMO & Training at Smarsh, leading the intersection of People and Project strategies and execution. She holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Portland and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Liz is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) by HRCI and has 15-years of experience leading people and teams across education, consulting and technology firms. The best place to reach Liz is on LinkedIn.
Champion of High-Performing Teams & Value-Driven Outcomes | Scrum Master | Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation
3 年Great article! Some great thoughts! Thank you!
People success | Team collaboration | Learning design | Facilitation
3 年This is a very helpful summary of recent developments in teaching, training, and learning, Liz. Thanks for writing it.