The Flipped Classroom, Rewired: A Neuroeducation Perspective on Active Learning

Why flipping isn’t enough

The flipped classroom has become a cornerstone of modern teaching. Swapping passive lectures for active sessions sounds promising but in practice, many flipped models struggle to deliver on their potential. Why? Because reordering content isn’t enough. Real impact requires rethinking how students engage with that content: cognitively, emotionally, and socially. This is where neuroeducation offers essential insights.

What neuroeducation teaches us about learning

Since the mid-1950s, cognitive science has sought to understand how the human brain acquires, uses, and transmits knowledge. Stanislas Dehaene, professor at the “Collège de France”, is a prominent representative of this discipline.

As a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist, he has highlighted the main contributors to successful learning, which are attention, active engagement, feedback, and consolidation. He refers to these four fundamental elements as the “Four Pillars of Learning.”

Attention: One can’t learn without paying attention to what must be learned. According to Dehaene, this is the first condition for successful learning. Teachers must actively capture and direct students’ attention by asking questions, varying their tone, and emphasizing key points. Attention is selective: it filters incoming information, determining what enters working memory and what doesn’t.

Active Engagement: Passive listening is insufficient for deep learning. The brain encodes new knowledge best when learners struggle intellectually: by hypothesizing, questioning, experimenting. This cognitive effort lays down stronger memory traces than simply receiving information.

Error Feedback: Mistakes are not obstacles to learning but pathways through it. Dehaene describes how the brain uses prediction error to update internal models. Learners try, fail, receive feedback, and adjust. But the emotional environment matters: feedback must be constructive, not punitive, to be effective.

Consolidation: New information doesn’t become lasting knowledge overnight. Repetition, spaced practice, and even sleep contribute to long-term memory formation. Over time, what was effortful becomes automatic, freeing cognitive space for new learning.

Flipped classrooms often support consolidation through pre-class videos. But without attention strategies, active tasks, and feedback mechanisms, they risk reproducing passive formats in a new sequence.

The cognitive gap in flipped classrooms

Surveys of flipped models, notably Bishop and Verleger’s 2013 synthesis, show that most flipped classroom studies focus on student satisfaction, not learning outcomes. In many cases, flipped classrooms become “active” in name only: students vote in polls, raise their hands, or answer a few basic questions. These interactions create the illusion of engagement while leaving deeper thinking untouched.

Despite positive student perceptions, learning gains remain inconsistent across implementations. A review by O’Flaherty and Phillips (2015) highlights a persistent lack of robust, comparative research in flipped learning, especially regarding higher-order outcomes. Flipping, it turns out, is not a magic formula, it’s an opportunity that depends entirely on how classroom time is used.

This underlines a core truth: flipping content alone isn’t enough. We must intentionally design for cognitive activation, error-driven feedback, and deep engagement.

Designing flipped lessons with the brain in mind

Let’s explore how neuroeducation-based interactivity can transform each phase of a flipped classroom:

🧠 Before Class – Attention & Curiosity

Instead of just sending a video, use a prediction question beforehand. For example: “What do you think will happen if X is removed from the circuit?” This primes attention and activates prior knowledge — a key step in the learning process.

Example activity: “Open Question” or “Matching” at the start of a module to surface misconceptions or anchor concepts.

🧠 During Class – Cognitive Conflict & Feedback

The heart of the flipped model is the in-class session. This is where interactivity must do more than entertain: it must challenge, clarify, and connect. Using image-based questions to diagnose, compare, or justify responses leads to higher-order thinking.

Example activity: “Label an Image” for anatomy; “Drag & Drop” to prioritize ideas in a marketing plan;

These activities engage learners in active recall, peer discussion, and feedback reception, activating the Dehaene model in full.

🧠 After Class – Long-Term Consolidation

Consolidation requires spaced repetition and meaningful reactivation. Embedding a low-stakes quiz or “challenge question” a few days later helps learners reinforce knowledge.

Example activity: Scheduled “Wooflash” micro-reviews, or asynchronous Wooclap events with automated feedback.

Rethinking edtech: the interface is pedagogy

The tools you choose are not neutral. They signal what kind of thinking you expect from your learners. A word cloud encourages listing. A justification question demands reasoning. A clickable image invites spatial understanding.

Flipping the classroom is only the first step. Flipping cognition is the next frontier and that requires aligning technology with what we know about how the brain learns.

A brain-aware edtech, at the service of learning

The future of flipped learning isn’t just about video lectures and polls. It’s about intentionally designing every phase of the learning process: before, during, and after, with the learner’s brain in mind.

Edtech does more than facilitate interactivity. It enables the kind of thinking that leads to true understanding. Neuroeducation gives us the map, tools like Wooclap help educators follow it.

Come meet the Wooclap team to further discuss class engagement and neuroeducation this winter in Berlin at OEB 2025. We’ll be waiting for you at booth B40!

Written for OEB Global 2025 by Clara Vanbellingen, copywriter at Wooclap

Resources:

Bishop, J. L., & Verleger, M. A. (2013). The Flipped Classroom: A Survey of the Research. ASEE.
O’Flaherty, J., & Phillips, C. (2015). The use of flipped classrooms in higher education: A scoping review. Internet and Higher Education.
Reyes, A. (2020). The Effectiveness of Flipped Learning in ESL Education. ResearchSquare.
Dehaene, S. (2018). How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine… for Now. Penguin Books.
Collège de France. (n.d.). Cours de Stanislas Dehaene.