Flipped or blended? What’s the difference and does it make a difference to learning in HE?

This paper discusses a critical evaluation of recent literature on the development and application of the “flipped classroom”, defined as offering pre-class materials online and using classroom time for interactive, constructivist learning, looking at distinctions between this and “blended learning”, the definition of which is diverse but which here is taken to mean any combination of online and face to face learning. The main focus is not to explore blended learning in detail, but to consider flipped learning as a subset of blended learning. The context in which this is explored is undergraduate Higher Education. Questions this research explored included: What kind of evidence does the literature offer for the effectiveness of the flipped classroom model? What range of versions is currently found in flipped classroom case studies? What learning/educational theories underpin the flipped classroom approach? What does the flipped classroom model offer to university teachers and students which cannot be achieved in other blended formats?