How the Flipped Classroom Turned Me into a Better Student

Learning / by

Kylie is a 12th Grade Student at Clintondale High School, in Clinton Township, Michigan 

My first two years of high school were a continuous struggle. I wasn’t very engaged during class, had a difficult time doing my homework, and was unable to get help from my parents because they didn’t know the material that I was being assigned. After my sophomore year I took the ACT test and scored a 13 – which was not good enough to have many options after high school. I began preparing myself to work at McDonalds because I didn’t think there would be anything else I’d be qualified to pursue after I finished high school. It wasn’t what I wanted – but it seemed to be my only option.

On my first day of class junior year, everything changed.

My school began flipping all of its classes, which meant that for homework, I was assigned videos to watch, which were made by my teachers and explained the material which we were learning. During class, instead of listing to my teacher lecture, we began doing our homework assignments. If I had any questions, I was able to ask someone else in the class or my teacher, who was there and ready to help whenever I was confused or didn’t understand something. Suddenly, everything started to make sense.

The biggest different in the flipped classroom was that I was able to learn at my own pace. When watching videos at home, if I didn’t understand something my teacher said, or wasn’t able to take notes fast enough, I had the ability to pause and rewind the video, and watch it again. Also, with class time now being spent doing work and solving problems, I could get help whenever I needed it. Rather than getting stuck on a problem at home and give up when it became too difficult, my teacher was able to show me what I was doing wrong, so I could figure out the answer and move on.

Being able to learn at my own pace and ask my teachers very specific questions gave me a greater understanding of the material. Immediately, my grades went from a B’s and B-‘s- to all A’s. When I took the ACTs a second time after my junior year, I ended up scoring a 21 on the test! I was so happy and couldn’t believe how much I improved. With my new grades and ACT score, I realized that there were a lot of options for me beyond high school. I began looking at colleges to attend and learning about various scholarships that I can apply for. I’m currently considering pursuing accounting, business management or health management.

The flipped classroom made a huge impact on my education – and life. Without the change in my class structure, I don’t think I would be applying to colleges and thinking about continuing my education beyond high school. Not only did my grades and scores improve, but I began enjoying school and learning, and it taught me how to learn and think on my own. The flipped class turned me into a better student.

7 Comments

Megan /

Thank you for sharing your experience. I’ve spent so much time reading about how beneficial flipped learning can be, but have never heard a student’s perspective before. It is so great to see how a simple change can make such a dramatic difference in someone’s life.

Josh /

Who is Kylie? Because the person writing this op-ed is clearly not an 8th grader. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

Roy Wright /

Yeah, I’m pretty sure a normal 8th grader wouldn’t have already taken the ACT twice…

Edgar Acosta /

Como educadores debemos pensar siempre en brindar todas las herramientas para los diferentes estilos de aprendizaje, el ejemplo de este post es uno de ellos pero aun podemos explorar mucho el trabajo en el salon ya que no todos nuestros estudiantes son visuales.
En mi caso en Colombia tenemos una experiencia de aprendizaje con cohetes Hidráulicos.

Troy Stein /

Like Josh, I like the story and sentiment. But it says that Kylie is an 8th grader at high school and she’s taking an ACT. Can we get more solid background information to add more credibility? I’ve worked with students and teachers at Clintondale and I can attest to the student impact. No doubt about it. But the article needs a bit more to help others who haven’t been there to trust the story.

Tony /

I would like to hear the teacher’s perspective. Most importantly, does this take more time and energy on the teacher’s part or not?

Kajal Sengupta /

I have been curious about how much the flipped classrooms are effective. By the way, I have been a teacher in a face to face class and am now teaching online for past few years. When I taught in real classrooms I always felt very frustrated where I could realize that I was not able to do justice to all kinds of students. Most of them could manage on their own but few of them needed extra help. In a class of 45 students I was helpless. When I came to know about flipped classrooms by that time I had already started to teach online so could never use this method in my class. My instinct told me that if implemented in proper way it should benefit the students and teachers both. Kylie’s post validated my belief . I am looking forward to more such instances where people would share their experience, positive or negative .