Education is getting more informed, digitalised and person-centred. The transition to active learning blurs the boundaries of traditional classroom teaching and encourages the development of new teaching formats. As a result, more and more teachers are turning from "rigid" teaching formats to ones that are more flexible. However, new teaching formats and their role in achieving the goals of education remains little studied. New teaching formats in Russian school education emerge due to the awareness of the need to establish a proper subject-object relationship between the participants of the educational process. Another factor is the growing profile of electronic resources and technologies as means to train effective approaches to information processing (both textual and non-textual). The article aims to analyse advantages and disadvantages of the new formats of teaching and their possible application in a school (evidence from teachers of biology). It will also determine the readiness of teaching community to grasp and implement new formats in teaching practice in a school.