You may be asking yourself, "What exactly is a flipped classroom?" According to Tucker (2012), "...the core ideas is to flip the common instructional approach: With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class." So what is the purpose? The bottom line and purpose for this emerging trend is TIME. Time, time, time. There is never enough of it, in education lives, personal lives, there is just never enough. The idea behind flipped classrooms is that students are able to access information (teacher-created videos mostly) outside of class at their own pace. They should take notes and focus on a topic to prepare them for more collaborative learning inside of the classroom, with a readiness to begin practice and go more in depth with the concept. This takes place of the traditional homework. It doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Opinion time! I absolutely LOVE the idea behind flipped classrooms. In one of my courses in Applied Technology in Education, I had to create two styles of flipped classrooms - one through an Educreations video, and another through a video of myself introducing a concept. I used both of these in my fourth grade classroom to introduce topics, one about text features in ELA and one about types of resources in Social Studies. Since then, I have created three other flipped classroom videos to use in my classroom. My fourth graders love it and have been practicing taking notes.
The only issue? Many of my students do not have access to devices/internet at home, so it is unacceptable for me to assign these videos as homework. This has been a struggle for me, but I have figured out a way for it to work in my specific situation. Morning work time! This time is usually used for short practices of concepts that my students have previously learned before heading to their daily Special class, which many times they do not end up finishing before they need to leave the classroom. So, occasionally, I will choose or create a video for my students to watch and take notes during this time. This prepares them for the new concept that I will be teaching later on in the day. The times that I have used this approach, it has worked very well in my classroom, although my flipped classroom approach is quite different than the traditional one used. If students are instructed to watch videos for homework, there are always situations where the students do not complete the assignment, so it will make them further behind than the other students. My approach keeps this issue from occurring. It has been a learning process, but I am excited to continue to use this trend in my classroom.
Would you like more information on flipped classrooms? Check out these educational articles that may answer some of your questions:
Things you Should Know about Flipped Classrooms
Education Next: The Flipped Classroom
Or check out these videos with information and examples of flipped classrooms:
References
Educause (2012). Things you should know about flipped classrooms. Retrieved from
https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7081.pdf.
Educreations (2016). Educreations: Teach anything to anyone from anywhere. Website retrieved from https://www.educreations.com/.
Edutopia (2014). The flipped class: Is flipping for everyone? Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAWidtL7pKE.
MADDrawProductions (2012). The flipped classroom model. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojiebVw8O0g.
Tucker, B., (2012). The flipped classroom: Online instruction at home frees class time for learning. EducationNext, 12(1). Retrieved from http://educationnext.org/the-flipped-classroom/.
I love this post. I have had such similar experiences with this same topic. I agree, the biggest benefit is TIME. Flipping a classroom offers so much additional time in class simply because a 10 minute video could save 20 plus minutes. Students need to take notes or ask questions about what they did not hear, it really saves all that time. I do not even fully flip, but if there is something I realize we need more in class practice with I will intro it with a video to save the time. Or if I was absent I can catch up using this strategy. Great post!
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ReplyDeleteI would like to use flipping strategy in some areas with my students. Having a self-contained classroom with various instructional levels along with behavioral challenges, it would be useful to have some instruction pre-recorded for students to view. We have a rolling cart with instructional materials that we use when we need to have a "room clear" - it would be easy enough to include an iPad with access to instructional videos on concepts that are not necessarily sequence-dependent.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post! There is many benefits and some disadvantages in flipping a classroom. I see that there is definitely more time in the classroom to expand on the lesson presented in the video but I am concerned of the time it takes to put the video together as well. I find that we do so much and theres never enough time to get everything done during planning and even at night when we bring home so much work to grade and such! I see there are many benefits though if it is done well and the students have access at home to technology. I like how you have implemented it into your classroom and adapted it to your students needs. I am interested in using it as morning work!
ReplyDeleteI like how you decided to use your videos for morning work instead of homework. That does solve one of your problems. When I was assigned a flipped video assignment for one of my grad classes, I struggled with finding a topic since I teach ELA. I finally settled on a grammar lesson. It worked quite well. Do you think the flipped classroom lends itself to math and science? I have a hard time developing videos for reading, language, and writing.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of flipped classrooms but, find it hard to implement in a first grade classroom. I teach in a title 1 school and many of my students don't have access to the internet at home and my classroom only has 2 computers which would even make it hard to implement during morning centers. I believe that this would be a great tool to use for older students. I love that it would allow for more small group instruction during class time which is what students need.
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