The flipped classroom from theory to practice: an Italian project. The teachers’ point of view

The first part of this paper introduces the didactic setting model of the flipped classroom, while the second part outlines the Cobipad project, an application of this model in the Italian school context. The Cobipad project was initiated in the 2012/2013 school year and will last thee years. It is being implemented at the Istituto Cobianchi in Verbania and monitored by the University of Milano-Bicocca. This project involves two classes of third year high school students who use an Apple IPad instead of printed text books, and has the principal aim of repositioning the students at the centre of the learning process, allowing them to learn by doing, through the implementation of a new didactic approach that is focused on competences, experiential, active and student-centered, using group work, promoting problem posing and solving and drawing on multiple sources and instruments to foster an independent and critical approach to learning. After the first year of the project, a focus group