Why Flip a School?

Five Factors that Influence Processing Outside of a Classroom

As a result of our 2009-10 senior student interviews, our high school seniors helped us identify the top five factors that directly affected their ability to successfully process information outside of class. We also compared the results of our students who were considered at-risk through our free and reduced lunch application to those students who were not. Our comparison chart represents what was regularly available to our at-risk students and non at-risk students after school.


Availability of Five Factors         At-Risk versus Non At-Risk
Basic Needs                                                            x

Technology                                                             x

Family Core Solidified                                             x

Community Values                                                  x

Expert                                                                    x

Our chart reveals that at-risk students generally struggle in obtaining the five resources that positively affect their ability to grasp, complete, and process information. In addition, it also lends credibility to why we have a low homework completion rate when our free and reduced lunch percentage is at 72% for the 2010-11school year.

It also reveals that when using a traditional delivery and instructional model in an at-risk setting, we are setting students who most vulnerable up to fail. In a traditional setting, we are asking at-risk students to do the majority of their classroom processing at home where they don’t have the necessary tools for a successful outcome. How does an at-risk student create a presentation if they have don’t have a place to study, have a computer or Internet service, and/or live in a community riddled with crime, and that lacks tutors and parents or community leaders to help them study? In a non at-risk environment, most student’s have their needs met in order to help them process and understand complex information and to fulfill their homework requirement. In an at-risk student’s life, school simply ends when the bell sounds.

Flipping Our Instructional Model

The flaw in at-risk schools is their instructional model. It has been built around a traditional delivery model which lacks the outside support that at-risk students desperately need when trying to do their higher-order thinking.

The question still remains: How do at-risk students have their needs met in order to help them excel academically? Where can they get their five basic needs met? Where can they use a computer? Who in their life cares and supports their pursuit of education. Where can they find an expert? The answer: in school!

At-risk schools must properly align the learning platform and delivery system for their at-risk students. At-risk schools must have their school, classroom, and teacher be the primary support mechanism for higher-order thinking and processing in order to increase content understanding and achievement. This is no secret. However, how does a school deliver required content and increase its time to help students process information for better understanding without increasing the cost? The answer is flipping their instructional delivery model.