One Solution to Effective Group Learning

At Spotify I worked a bit on the Alexa speakers and had meetings with Amazon. This is where I first learned about the “silent meetings” structure that Amazon had. They usually began with someone having written a document on the topic, different viewpoints, and a possible way forward. The first 10-15 minutes of the meeting went into reading this document. And once everyone was literally on the same page, the meetings started. The discussions were engaging, and everyone was focusing on solving the same problems.

There are key parallels between Amazon’s silent meetings and the flipped classroom model: both rely on everyone starting with the same information before discussion begins. When done right teachers become coaches guiding students through shared material rather than lecturers delivering new content.

When I’ve experienced a working flipped classroom, it has been all about the “silent reading” part. The students all started from the same baseline when it came to the information. They worked together in small groups summarizing it, then shared with a bigger group about what they learned.

This is often when I’ve seen the flipped classroom break. Instead of having the same baseline, each group has had a different set of topics and areas they should summarize and teach to the rest of the group. Effectively they’ve switched from an experienced teacher to an amateur teacher, and they’ve only learned the topics they themselves have discussed. The method works best when it builds on shared understanding rather than dividing the learning experience.