The flipped classroom – why theory should come before practice

Published 2026-07-02 · The research behind Project-simulator

Think back to the last training course you attended. Chances are that most of the time was spent listening to a lecturer – and that the actual practising, if there was time for it at all, got squeezed in at the end. Chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams reversed that order in their classrooms, and their idea has since spread far beyond the world of schools.

The idea is called the flipped classroom. The core is simple: the theory walkthrough moves to before the lesson, so that the precious time together can be spent on what is actually hard – applying what you have learned.

What does the research say?

Bergmann and Sams were high school chemistry teachers in Colorado, USA. They started recording their lectures as videos for students who had missed class, and soon discovered that the students who were present also benefited from being able to absorb the theory at their own pace. Out of this grew a new way of working, which they described in the 2012 book Flip Your Classroom: students watch the lecture at home, and class time is devoted to solving problems with the teacher on hand.

The point is not the videos themselves, but the redistribution of the scarcest resource: the expert's time. Most people can listen to a lecture on their own. Getting qualified help at the exact moment you get stuck – that is hard to arrange by yourself. By moving the passive part out of the room, the time together is freed up for active practice, questions and feedback.

The book is built on the authors' own tested experience rather than on a controlled study, and that is worth saying plainly. But the underlying idea is in line with a broad research tradition on active learning: we learn more from doing and getting feedback than from merely listening.

What does this mean for you as a project manager?

First and foremost, it applies to your own development. Read the short theory in advance – for example a model for giving feedback – and then use the time with other people to practise, not to sit through yet another lecture. Knowledge you have only heard rarely sticks; knowledge you have used sticks far more often.

The same principle works in your own meetings. Send out the material in advance and make it clear that the meeting starts where the reading ends. A steering committee meeting where everyone has read the decision material beforehand can be spent on questions and decisions instead of presentations – shorter meetings, better decisions.

It also applies when you bring new people into the project. Give them material to read first, and use the time together to answer questions and let them try real tasks. Onboarding goes faster, and the new colleague is active from day one.

How to practise this

This article series is built on exactly that principle: short, research-based texts that you read in advance – and then the simulation is your class time. In Project-simulator you practise difficult project conversations against AI counterparts and get feedback that points to your own words, instead of just reading about how it should be done. You can try it free for a week and see whether the order theory first, practice second works as well for you as it did in Bergmann's and Sams's classrooms.