Edudemic's Guide to the Flipped Classroom for 2014 For the past few years, Edudemic has covered the rise of the flipped classroom and its subsequent evolution. Each year, we find that more teachers are testing this new learning strategy and creating new ways to improve current methods. While some teachers are trying it out for the first time this fall, others who used the flipped classroom method in 2013 are making changes to build on their lesson plans for the 2014-15 school year. Read this brief guide to learn why flipped learning is an increasingly popular choice, and review a few steps for teachers wanting to try it out. What Is a Flipped Classroom? Image via Flickr by flickingerbrad Studies have found that students K-12 are assigned an average of three hours of homework a day, but many parents question whether the quantity of work matches the quality of learning. Instead of banning homework completely, a growing trend in 2014 is the implementation of the flipped classroom. The Benefits of a Flipped Classroom How Can You Implement It?
Why Blended Learning Is Better? Blended learning is a buzz word that’s been thrown around quite a bit lately and brings together the best of both classroom learning and elearning. In fact it seems to be the ideal solution all-around as it appeals to all learning styles, circumstances, needs and demands. It combines the support of classroom learning with the flexibility of elearning. Blended learning has been defined by Innosight Institute as “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path or pace.” Blended learning however largely depends on the technical resources with which the learning experience is delivered - these tools need to be up to date, reliable, and user-friendly in order to have a meaningful impact. So, why choose blended learning over elearning, or face-to-face? This great post on why blended learning works spells it all out. Application in the corporate setting Resources
4 Pillars & 11 Indicators Of Flipped Learning 4 Pillars & 12 Standards Of Flipped Learning by Kari M. Arfstrom, Executive Director of the Flipped Learning Network Flipped Learning Defined 10 Common Misconceptions About The Flipped Classroom, by Kelly Walsh, offered some insight. TeachThought has published numerous articles about flipped classroom in the recent past, so it’s only fitting that the Flipped Learning Network™ (FLN) share its latest resource about the definition of Flipped Learning. The governing board and key leaders of FLN, all experienced flipped educators, released a whitepaper today distinguishing between a Flipped Classroom and Flipped Learning. While often defined simplistically as “school work at home and home work at school,” Flipped Learning is an approach that allows teachers to implement a methodology, or various methodologies, in their classrooms. 4 Pillars & 11 Standards Of Flipped Learning The Definition of Flipped Learning For a downloadable PDF of the definition, Pillars and Indicators, click here. Kari M.
Get the Lecture before You Even Arrive in Class Ignoring the advice of friends, Wilfrid Laurier University honours psychology student Sari Isenstein chose a second-year organic chemistry course as one of her electives. “Chemistry is not my forte and organic chemistry is one of the hardest courses offered at the university,” says Isenstein, 21, who graduates next year. She took the course in 2012 as a challenge, earning an A in the first semester and an A-minus in the second. She credits her professor, Stephen MacNeil, a recent convert to an innovative teaching method known as the “flipped” or “inverted” classroom. Instead of a traditional three-hour lecture, the professor prepares online video lectures, slide shows of core content and quizzes for students to work on before class – hence the flip. Flipping the classroom is labour intensive for the professor and puts the onus on students to be active learners, not passive note-takers. What’s prompting the interest in the new approach? For Dr. MacNeil’s Aha! Dr. “I was thankful for that.”
Toward Canadian Public Education 2.0 In a demographically challenged and technology fuelled world, where talent and ideas are the new wealth of nations, are we adequately focused on the role of a strong public education for our future success in Canada? The concern that we are not was the impetus for a recent education summit, organized by the Learning Partnership, where leaders from business, government, public policy and education came together to contemplate what public education 2.0 needs to look like, and how we might get there from here. The good news is that Canada is doing well in the basics: Canadian students’ reading, mathematics and science test scores were sixth, 10th and eighth, respectively, among OECD countries in the most recent Program for International Student Assessment. By comparison, U.S. students had respective rankings of 31st, 23rd and 17th. Today, we see a growing mismatch between “people without jobs” and “jobs without people,” and we simply have to do better at aligning the two.
Video in the Class Keeps Savvy Students Engaged Zara Cruickshank’s Grade 8 science class is a little different from those of yesteryear. Students regularly make mini films or podcasts for class projects, reams of notes are a thing of the past and video is an important part of learning. As the new school year begins a number of Canadian classrooms are increasingly implementing video as an educational tool to keep their digitally savvy students engaged and interested. “It’s just easy to focus when it’s visual,” says Ms. The 13-year-old at Regina’s Ecole Wilfrid Walker is talking specifically about Joanna Sanders Bobiash’s classroom. Ms. “Everyone has different learning styles, they learn best in different ways,” she says. The days of classroom video consisting of a TV and VCR rolled in for a lengthy film students could zone out on are over. “Before they could only express themselves in the written form, but now they can express themselves in different ways,” said the 35-year-old teacher. Ms. Shelly Wright knows what Ms. For Ms.
A Radical Approach to Teaching Canadian Students in the Digital Age This fall, Graham Johnson gave up lecturing to his students. YouTube, he figured, could handle that. So he had his math classes at Okanagan Mission Secondary School in Kelowna, B.C., watch prerecorded video lessons from home – freeing up school time for one-on-one work. Turns out pixelated teaching works well: His students’ grades are up about 5 per cent. But that may not be enough. How can we compete with countries like South Korea, which is arming every child with an iPad in a push for a paperless education system by 2015? The problem is that technology doesn’t have a proven payoff. What’s needed isn’t simply technology, but a radical shift in education for the digital age – the courage to address uncomfortable questions. For example, when students can access information online, what’s the value of a teacher at the front of a class? Take Mr. It not only re-imagines how to teach kids – but when they learn and from whom. The flipped classroom isn’t without skeptics. Mr. Mr. Mr.
Classroom Management and the Flipped Class | Edutopia Editor's Note:This post was co-authored by Aaron Sams, CEO of Sams Learning Designs, LLC and founding member of the Flipped Learning Network. Let's face it. We teachers spend far too much time and energy trying to keep students quiet so that they can listen to us. We have taken countless courses and workshops on classroom management in our careers, and it seems that the underpinning goal of classroom management is for teachers to keep kids quiet so that they can learn. Is there a better way to think about classroom management? What if the goal of class was for the students to actively engage in the content and participate in tangible ways in the learning process? Noise Is Good As we pioneered the flipped class, we got away from the front of the room and got a whole different perspective on what classroom management could look like. As we did this, the dynamics of the classroom dramatically changed. But, as with any change, we found some new challenges. 4 New Management Issues
Thoughts of a Maths Teacher Using Tech for Learning What To Do Inside the ‘Flipped Class’ ‘Flipping Activities’ The basic premise – students watch video lesson at home and work through problems in class. This allows the educator to advise and challenge the students inside the classroom safe in the knowledge content is delivered elsewhere. Of course, this is not a new concept, students have always been asked to prepare for the next class. So what to do in the classroom? My personal view – anything that can enhance learning. There is nothing wrong with the delivery of content with stimulating development tasks and thought provoking plenary and those educators are very successful and students learn a great deal. So what to do in the ‘flipped class’? There are some great examples of learning opportunities on the Flipped Class Network and the ideas below are just a taster of generic activities. I am well aware that techniques, like these, have been used for many years by educators across the land. Test results are up and the students are anecdotally favourable. Like this:
Flipping the Music Classroom In celebration of my fun new “12 Days of Ed Tech” rap and video, this week on FlippedClassroomWorkshop.com we’re sharing articles and resources focused on flipping the music classroom! This selection of posts and presentations offers an array of ideas and insights into moving the traditional approach to music teaching into a new, more student-driven learning paradigm. Strategies for Flipped Music Classrooms In this post, music teacher Mark Burke discusses a practical approach to flipping music instruction. Music class has always had a somewhat flipped nature, with students often learning (or struggling to learn) new pieces at home and then demonstrating them to the teacher in class and being critiqued. Edmodo: Flipping the music classroom There’s a lot going on in this Prezi, created by Peter Burke. Click on ‘Start Prezi’ to have a look! by
The Benefits of Students Teaching Students Through Online Video Erin Scott Videos have already become an important part of modern education, whether through well-known education platforms like Khan Academy or content created by teachers for their students’ use. Video tutorials can help students with questions on homework or test preparation. However, students are finding the value in creating tutorial videos themselves for other students. During her sophomore year, Shilpa Yarlagadda was falling behind in her high school courses and began looking up video tutorials online to help catch up. “What really makes a video tutorial powerful is capturing the essence of the student’s voice from someone who initially didn’t understand the material,” Yarlagadda told Alan November in a podcast last year. “When students explain it and they have a way to make it extremely relevant to your life and show you how this actually relates to you specifically, that can make the material really exciting,” Yarlagadda said. Related