Flipped classrooms

Sir, over the past two 'pandemic' years, we have incorporated flipped classrooms in our teaching strategies to ensure the students do not miss out on their valuable learning time.¹ We have gained a lot of valuable experience in imparting teaching using these methods, the most important being that the teaching drives the technology, not the other way round. How a flipped classroom differs from the conventional model is that in the latter, the students are usually not active participants whereas in the former, we encourage students to think critically and utilise their analytical skills. It has been seen that in the traditional model, students start to lose focus after the first 15 minutes but in the flipped model, they are the most active participants. In our university, we have been using a combination of flipped classrooms and incorporated problem-based learning (PBL) as a part of the curriculum to ensure students are not only engaged but also develop critical skills.² We have recorded lectures on our university portal to which we give access to our students so that they can learn and review anytime, and then during the scheduled lectures we engage in active discussions related to the recorded lectures. The students are divided into small groups and asked to discuss certain topics related to the lectures which encourages them not only to learn from the recorded sessions but also allows them to engage in deeper learning. Collaborative PBL has brought in good results as the students were kept engaged during the entire pandemic period until reopening. Even after reopening, we have continued the teaching by means of online classrooms and physically distanced practical sessions. Blended learning is the way to go, and it allows students flexibility to learn at their own pace and gain skills.