The inverted classroom model (ICM) has started to attract attention as a pedagogical approach in political science teaching. While there are many publications describing the application of the model in single courses and analyzing students' performance in inverted classes, the existing literature provides little guidance for first-time users of the model. In this Political Science Instruction article, we offer a beginner's guide for preparing and applying the ICM to assist other instructors who wish to invert their classes based on our repeated experiences with the ICM in an introductory International Relations course. Employing a constructive alignment approach, we show how a course can be broken into learning units, each with an online preparatory phase geared toward knowledge acquisition and attendance and follow-up phases focused on application and the development of higher-order cognitive learning objectives. To deal with frequent challenges and pitfalls, we recommend trying a partial inversion first, inverting a familiar course, being prepared for initial resistance from students, sticking with the concept, rethinking the instructor's role in the classroom, and combining tight planning but flexible execution of the attendance phase.