Karl Fisch is a 20-year veteran teacher who, instead of lecturing about maths during class time – and then giving his young charges 30 problems to work on at home – Fisch has flipped the sequence. He’s recorded his lectures on video and uploaded them to YouTube for his 28 students to watch at home. Then, in class, he works with students as they solve problems and experiment with the concepts.

Lectures at night, “homework” during the day. Call it the Fisch Flip, or Reverse Instruction.

When you do a standard lecture in class, and then the students go home to do the problems, some of them are lost. They spend a whole lot of time being frustrated and, even worse, doing it wrong. The idea behind the videos was to flip it. The students can watch it outside of class, pause it, replay it, view it several times, even mute if they want. That allows them to work on what they used to do as homework when all of them are in the class so they can help each other.

Fisch has clearly flipped the old classroom model. But the flipping trend is not exclusive to the world of education. Take for example Starbucks. There was a time where wifi was available for an added cost.  Now independent workers, small entrepreneurs, and grad students can get free wifi with the purchase of a cup of coffee. They have essentially created a new kind of work space and their business if benefiting from the new found clientele.

Summing-up: Ask yourself: what is one process, practice, method or model in my business, work or life that I can flip? We’ll work on your answers together in class tomorrow.