Flipping lectures and inverting classrooms

The concept of 'flipped teaching' is currently a hot topic at all levels of education. The basic premise is nothing new: the teacher provides guidance and materials that students then digest in their own time before the next session. Completing the assigned tasks gives students knowledge and understanding and allows the teacher to make more effective use of precious face-to-face contact time. While in the past the 'flipped' activity might have involved something as simple as reading a chapter in a textbook, recent developments in learning technology have opened up an exciting range of opportunities for inverting the classroom at both university and school level.