*You can watch a video of me explaining this concept here
Common leadership dilemmas:
- When’s the last time 100% of your leaders showed up at a training event?
- Do you ever find yourself summarizing training for those who missed it?
- How frequently do you hold orientation training for new leaders?
You wouldn’t have these problems if everyone just cleared their schedule for your training events (like they should!!), but sadly this just isn’t the case. So what’s the solution? Is it to hold additional training events? Or is there a smarter way to train all of your leaders?
The purpose of this post is to introduce the concept of “flipping the classroom,” as well as provide you with ways to use this in your church leadership.
Have you ever heard of “flipping the classroom?”
This is a hot topic in the educational world that is rapidly gaining ground as the new standard amongst educators. Let me explain it for you.
In the traditional classroom…
- The teacher is the sage on the stage.
- The classroom time consists of the teacher lecturing, possibly answering questions, and then assigning homework.
- The teacher needs to standardize the lesson, so she can’t possibly engage both the lowest common denominator, and the overachiever.
- Homework is completed at home. So, if the student doesn’t understand something, they have to either ask a parent, tutor, friend, or go back to class with their homework incomplete.
In the “flipped classroom”…
- The teacher is the guide on the side.
- The student watches the lecture at home via video, and then completes their homework in class. So, if the student doesn’t understand something, they can ask their teacher.
- Since the classroom time consists of homework, case studies, discussion, projects, and processing, every level of learner can be engaged.
- The teacher is able to customize learning to every student – spending more time with those who don’t get it, and in turn, catalyzing forward the students who do get it.
——- There’s an infographic at the end of this post for more information ——-
What does “flipping the classroom” have to do with leadership development in my church?
If your solution to those leadership dilemmas is to just offer alternative training events, send out the minutes from your training seminar, and hold orientation training multiple times a year, perhaps it’s time to explore how to “flip the classroom” in your church. After all, do you really want to be repeating yourself over and over again? What if your ministry were to grow? Would any of those solutions be scalable? Or would they just require an increasing amount of your time?
By “flipping the classroom” in your church, you would have more time to do what only you can uniquely do. For example, you would have more time to coach your leaders, identify and develop new leaders, pray for your leaders, and strategically plan for your ministry area. The possibilities are endless. So to help you continue to process what this could look like in your church, here are four ways to “flip the classroom” in your church.
4 Ways to “Flip the Classroom” in your Church:
1. Flip your training events
In a traditional training event…
- You would send the invite out to your volunteers and ask for an RSVP.
- At the training event, there would be fellowship, food, a recap or vision moment, a lecture or lesson, group discussion, and prayer.
- You would then assign your volunteers some sort of homework or application point to implement in their ministry area or leadership.
- This would happen a couple times a year or possibly once a month, at most.
In the “flipped” training event…
- You would send out the invite with an assigned video to watch (the video would be less than 15 minutes long).
- After the video, there would be some sort of brief assignment to complete to indicate basic understanding of the material, or how the concept would relate to their life.
- At the “flipped” training event, there would still be many of the same elements as in a traditional training event; however, the time allocation would be vastly different. Instead of spending the majority of the training event with a sage on the stage teaching the lesson, in the “flipped classroom” you would spend the majority of the time in work groups. In groups, the volunteers would be able to better focus on how to implement the concepts by working on case studies, revisiting concepts that might be difficult, and doing group brainstorming. Through this model, you would be able to better implement adult-education techniques and cater to a variety of learning styles.
- After the event, you could possibly assign ongoing training via a series of videos.
2. Flip your new leader’s orientation training
In a traditional new leader’s orientation…
- You would either have one-on-one orientations based on necessity, or you would have standardized orientation times at the beginning of each semester.
- In each orientation, you would be repeating the same thing: this is the vision of the church and this particular ministry, this is what it would look like to volunteer in this ministry, and then you would answer any questions.
In the “flipped” new leader’s orientation…
- Much like the traditional orientation, you would still have one-on-one orientations based on necessity, or you would have standardized orientation times at the beginning of each semester.
- However, the orientation wouldn’t begin at the start of the meeting, it would actually begin before the volunteers even came to the event. In other words, you would ask potential and new volunteers to watch a series of videos, at home, that would describe the vision of the church and this particular ministry and what it would look like to volunteer in this ministry.
- Then, when you would meet them, you would spend time getting to know them, discerning whether or not they would be a good fit in your ministry area, and answering any questions that they might have.
- Once you release them into ministry, you could then assign a series of training videos that they would be able to complete at their own pace. This could be interspersed with coaching times.
3. Flip your ongoing training
In traditional ongoing training…
- There would be regularly scheduled coaching appointments and a possible newsletter.
In a “flipped” model of ongoing training…
- You could connect this easily to the new leader’s orientation by having three separate training tracks. In other words, if you have a brand new volunteer, you could assign them to the foundational track of development. If you have a volunteer that has some level of experience in your ministry area, then you could assign them to the advanced track. If you have a volunteer with a vast amount of experience, and you’re wanting to fast track them to a higher position of leadership, you could assign them to the expert track. This video based training would be interspersed with regular coaching meetings – it would be leadership development that is both high tech and high touch.
- If you wanted to take this up a notch, you could even assign your leaders a self-assessment on the topic you’re wanting to train them on, and that self-assessment would then automatically assign them into their particular track of development. It would look like this:
- You would also be able to assign videos to your existing leaders based on their developmental plans.
4. Flip your staff development
Staff development often mimics how you would run your training event (see number 1). The only difference would be that you would do it during work hours, rather than on a weekend or during an evening.
Conclusion
I hope this post has gotten you excited about developing your leaders and “flipping the classroom.” If you are wanting to incorporate this model, or even elements of it, into the way that you train your leaders, the most important decision you’ll make is what platform you are going to build it on.
Ministry Grid is the premier platform to develop leaders in your context. It was built around the “flipping the classroom” model, so it has all the elements that you might be looking for. If you are wanting to film your own videos and upload them, Ministry Grid functions as a platform for you to do that. If you don’t want to film your own videos, Ministry Grid has 4000+ exclusive videos focused on leadership development. In fact, there are already many training pathways already built out – you can check them out here.
Let’s revolutionize leadership development in our churches!
