The Flipped Classroom
Recently I read the term “Flipped Classroom” when exploring on the net, and decided to find out more. As it turns out, it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, but in a much more turbo-charged way.
The traditional classroom sees students learn lessons from the teacher during class time – it may be a “chalk and talk” lesson, or the explanation of a concept or idea. The students then have set homework to do at home based on this. The Flipped Classroom model sees the homework aspect as the “chalk and talk” lesson, completed via on-line vodcasts that students watch and observe. The in-class time is then dedicated to small group work and extension of the understandings learnt at home, allowing the teacher to complete a lot more one-on-one time with students.
A sample of sites I found
- The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture by Jackie Gernstein
- What’s a Flipped Classroom? at Edudemic
- Flipped Classroom and Video as Homework by ChannelTechSmith
- The Flipped Mastery Classroom in Action by Learning4Mastery
Over the past few months, I’ve been toying with online tutorials for my students (a few examples can be found here), but more as an opportunity for them to revise what they have already heard in class. The models espoused in the above webpages certainly lend themselves to a high school setting, where each teacher only has to focus on one learning area, but what of the primary school teacher? Is it realistic to expect my Year 6 and 7 students to watch enough online tutorials each evening to cover all eight learning areas? My first impression is no.
So, on reflection, how can I use this – theoretically excellent – idea in my classroom? Well, I certainly wouldn’t expect students to watch my tutorials for homework; firstly, not all of my students have access to the Internet; secondly, I’d like to be present to answer immediate questions, rather than have students write them down, and ask them the next morning.
However, I would certainly use tutorials as an independent or small-group learning tool. I can see real value in subject areas where students are all working at varying speeds and levels (such as our English programme, consisting of spelling skills, comprehension, and conventions), where students can use the tutorials at their leisure, ask for immediate assistance and feedback, and then work on their enrichment tasks.
So, my professional challenge for Term 4 will be to use an in-class “Flipped Classroom” style model for my spelling and grammar programme.
Challenge: Adapting “Flipped Classroom” approach to Spelling
Reason: My students are beginning a new “style” of spelling for Term 4 anyway, where they take a more individualized, independent approach.
Curriculum:The new Australian Curriculum has been used heavily to guide the structure and content of the programme, namely English: Writing: Language.
Question to Consider:Will using self-led tutorials be of greater benefit to the students’ learning than traditional face-to-face teaching? Gauge success through student interviews and feedback forms based along the line of “Did you prefer to use the on-line tutorial, or have Mr Hinchliffe teach the class each new learning point?”
Competency 1: Use innovative and/or exemplary teaching strategies and techniques to more effectively meet the learning needs of individual students, groups and/or classes of students.
Uses a range of meaningful and relevant learning and teaching strategies.
feature image source: wikimedia
Since posting this, I’ve come across a few more Flipped Classroom online articles:
How Youtube is Changing the Classroom: Troy Cockrum, an English teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic school, shares his Flipped Classroom model.
Why Youtube Videos Will Never Replace Teachers: A list of arguments against the Flipped Classroom model.
Doing a twitter hashtag search on #edtech #flipped also brings up some interesting debates between those for and against!