One principle of an effective meeting at work is to use face-to-face time for discussion, negotiation, and clarification – not for passing on the information. Meeting attendees are supposed to come to the meeting already prepared – they’ve read the briefing papers, they’ve studied the options, they’ve formulated their view. Someone even wrote a book last year about this, but I can’t recall the name of the author nor the book title (it was something like “don’t call a meeting”).

Anyway, a similar idea is taking hold in some educational settings. Classroom time is used for interaction, not instruction:

“The PI technique relies on the power of the “flipped classroom.” Information transfer (a teacher transferring knowledge to students) takes place in advance, typically through online lectures. In short, students study before rather than after class.

As a result, the classroom becomes a place for active learning, questions, and discussion. Instructors spend their time addressing students’ difficulties rather than lecturing. While originally developed for Mazur’s introductory physics courses, PI is now used across multiple disciplines, from the sciences to the humanities.“

Read more: ‘Flipped classroom’ teaching model gains an online community