Teach students a topic, and they'll learn for a day

Learning culture is the second pillar of the Flipped Learning model. And in this respect, the idea is for students to get actively involved in their learning, in knowledge construction, in evaluating their progress. 

First things first, I believe that before trying to teach any content, students who are part of a flipped classroom need to learn how to learn. They need to understand that they are not supposed to be empty cases where we feed content. They need to feel that it is not enough to 'be there', to attend lessons  - whether virtually or f2f- or to download the material or even to read the material we tell them to. They need to read critically, to experience, to question, to doubt, to search and check if what we are telling them is actually true. I always remember my French teacher who used to tell us: 'Do not believe me, please check.' Most of our students are accustomed to attending lessons, receiving information and repeating it to pass a course. Whose fault is it then when they do not question anything they read? Whose fault is it when they do not doubt sources and fake news spread like wildfire? 

There is no doubt that teachers (or rather those who design curriculums) decide on the content to be taught. However, apart from adapting such content to our students' reality - which would be no novelty for most of us - students need to bear in mind that there is a lot more out there for them to find, to challenge what we say, etc. It is of paramount importance to realise that an instructor-centered pedagogy only reproduces the feeling that students need to be given what they do not know and therefore it feeds that illusion that students need to be passively receiving. A student-centered pedagogy requires teachers who not only understand and adapt contents but also show students that what they teach is not the truth and nothing but the truth and that it is by no means everything about their subject. What will happen then, once there is no teacher around to give them anything? Will they stop learning? What if a certain teacher did not give the students something they realise they need later? Who do you think students will blame?  

If learning equals to sitting in a classroom, be it a virtual or f2f classroom, reading and reproducing content, the only capacity we'll be fostering is memory. If what we teach is absolute and unarguably complete in itself, once students do not have us around, they'll stop learning. We need to teach students to learn, and they will learn for a lifetime...