Principles such as active and technology enhanced learning are easy to read about and much harder to apply. Without a clear reason to engage, a reading before class can stay abstract, and students arrive without having connected the ideas to the way they teach or will teach themselves.

Vasileios Karamanis designed a flipped classroom activity in which students prepare for class with an Interactive Document. Instead of simply reading, they take on the role of advisor to Professor Garcia, a fictional instructor, and evaluate the teaching approach described in the scenario.

Multiple choice questions are embedded in the reading, so students respond as they go and check their understanding of active, learner centred and technology enhanced teaching. Instructors can change or add questions to fit their own course and students.

The activity ends with a reflection in which students compare their own course design and teaching with what they have learned, and describe concrete ways to bring more active and technology enhanced strategies into their practice. Class time can then go to discussing those ideas together.

The reading becomes a consulting task, so students arrive in class having analysed a teaching approach, tested their understanding and reflected on their own practice, which gives the discussion a much stronger starting point.