Seltzer also brought up the possibility that the flipped classroom model could overburden students with preparation work on top of their already heavy assignments.

Yet instructors and their students agreed that the biggest challenge behind flipping the classroom is adapting the model for a significantly larger class size.

“In terms of [the instructor] being a highly visible presence while people are working on the problems, 12 tables is pretty much the limit,” Bamberg said.

Bamberg said he thinks the upper limit on a flipped classroom is around 50 students—to teach more than that, a class would have to be split up into different sections.

Currently, there is no interactive class space for larger courses among SEAS’s lecture halls. Both CS 161 and CS 20 are held in Pierce 301, a newly-renovated interactive classroom which seats 50 students.

Although SEAS will have the opportunity to design similar classrooms in Allston, there remain problems in scaling the flipped teaching model that go beyond the sheer amount of room available. Seltzer said that she was “struggling” to envision the model working for a class as large as CS 51, which has more than 200 students.

“What would a classroom look like where you could actually have that many people but still have the small group interaction in a pretty seamless way?” Seltzer asked. “I don’t think just taking [Pierce] 301 and making it four times bigger is the right answer.”

Although there may be challenges to applying the model to other courses, Seltzer said she hopes other professors explore the benefits of using a flipped classroom.

“I don’t think it comes as any surprise that there are ways that work better [than lecturing],” Seltzer said. “I am shocked at just how exciting I found it and how dramatic it was.”

—Staff writer Brian C. Zhang can be reached at brianzhang@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @brianczhang.