Comments on: Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms

By: edscha

edscha — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:13:38 +0000

While people are saying there’s nothing new here, I beg to differ.

The difference between having students watch a video and then discuss and/or respond in some way BEFORE class allows for better differentiation AND technology integration (which is a WI state and now USA Federal initiative). Here’s how:

With a textbook, you assign reading, and the next day in class, assuming your students read, you go over the material to assess where student understanding is. This is class time wasted.

With this ‘flipped’ learning idea, your students watch a video, can discuss with each other outside of school using something like Google Talk, and answer questions that YOU can see the results of (many ways to do this). This allows you to see initial student understanding of the concept before class starts, allows you to review only the necessary parts of the concept, use the remaining class time to put students together who are at the same level, and assign differentiated classwork.

Being that the videos and classwork are all available, this allows students who are both ahead and behind to continue to be challenged or re-mediated without taking any extra time out of your day.

By: rcallejo22

rcallejo22 — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:23:26 +0000

Fantastic response. Thanks for sharing your well thought out and tested approach!

By: globalearner

globalearner — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:00:15 +0000

Of course the real opportunity of the FLIP classroom is NOT that students are watching videos instead of reading texts! This is an over simplification of the process.

1. The real change is that students are not waiting to find out whether they are write or wrong when they solve homework problems until the next day. Based on brain research that shows “practice does not make perfect, but makes permanent” Flip teachers attempt to provide immediate feedback in class as students work on problems.

2. Learning is social. The best of the Flip classrooms I have seen engage students in deep conversation about making meaning as they work on problems during class. I think Socrates would love the Flip.

3. Thinking is made more visible by students who are much more willing to ask questions on a class community web site than face to face.

4. #3 leads teachers to abandon traditional “one size fits all” lesson plans and personalize instruction to match challenging problems in class with the pattern of questions generated on the class website.

By: bjobrack

bjobrack — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:36:07 +0000

I agree. There is nothing new here. There is a perennial problem regardless of whether it’s reading, watching, or preparing in some way and that is that a significant number WILL NOT DO IT! The teacher is always faced, even in college, with students who are not prepared. To think that this won’t happen every day is fantasy. Using technology actually complicates the problem because a significant number of kids do not have access to technology at home. For struggling students the Kahn Academy videos are incomprehensible. Plus they are full of errors and are not pedagogically sound.

By: jmrau

jmrau — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:40:19 +0000

I agree with both of your points, but using the video instruction as part of the “home study time” is a tremendous advantage to the school day schedule.

I have seen students successfully watch an instructional video and then do a quick skype conference to discuss prior to posting questions. That then incorporates the study buddy system without it taking class time.

Even my 2nd grade uses Skype to work through questions about their book clubs. No video instruction involved, but the homework is discussed and questions created prior to coming in the next day. They are ready and excited to discuss when they hit the door.

By: stadlera

stadlera — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 10:26:31 +0000

I have read research on blended learning and do flip teaching in the classroom. Like every other Best Practice, it is not best practice unless it is integrated well. Flip classroom is not just about showing videos. Research shows that just showing videos does not enhance the learning and does not provide better scores. The first thing is to find out more about your audience. I know what type of learners my students are and I cater for them. On the LMS I add videos, web links, powerpoints videos made by me or others, they have the textbook, songs etc. to go to. They explore the content on their own. As they come to class they discuss what they learned and how they learned it. We clear up confusions. They then have a quick formative assessment to see where they are at,and according to that they go to different groups, activities, centers, or me. If they don’t do it and they are lost, then instead of doing the fun activities, group work in class, then they work on their own on what they should have done. After 2 weeks, my weaker students found it a lot better to do what I asked so they could be part of the class. They also found out that this way, the hard stuff is being done in class where they have support from their peers and teacher, instead of at home on their own. They really enjoy the flip classroom and it helps for differentiation, project-based learning, and obviously includes media and information fluency. Again, IF DONE WELL!! And this is where PD is lacking

By: harry674

harry674 — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:40:27 +0000

jabbacrombie asks two excellent questions. They should be answered.

Must the entire class be flipped? I’d say not. It’s always good pedagogy to mix things up a bit. What do others think?

Can we rethink the idea of the video lecture? That question leads to rethinking the idea of lectures entirely. What’s the big advantage of lectures over textbooks? It’s another medium, but that’s not enough. Lectures can provide the opportunity to ask questions, but you can do that in conjunction with textbooks too if you set things up properly.

With Internet technology at our fingertips, it should be possible to have fully interactive online experiences rather than passive ones such as reading, lectures, or even professional videos. Even simulations are not interactive, not really.

Truly interactive online learning will supplant textbooks, etextbooks, and video lectures.

By: mathtrain

mathtrain — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:54:31 +0000

Also, the students themselves can assist in the flipping process. It’s possible that they can create videos or other content.

I even have some high school students who come back to create math tutorials for our current middle school students. I use some of those videos, as well as other student-created screencasts, to flip lessons.

Eric Marcos

By: mathonline

mathonline — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:02:31 +0000

There’s nothing flipped or remotely new about it. As long as there have been textbooks, teachers have assigned reading before class. The ideal would be that the students would study the material in advance, think about it, and come to class prepared to participate and clear up any confusions. This is simply a slight change in technology, combined with a buzzword and a lot of hype. Will this new technology allow teachers to come closer to the ideal of having students come to class prepared to participate? Possibly, for a few students who really really prefer video to text. For the most part, though, adoption of this technology, like that of all other technologies going back to the printing press and beyond, will just give you another tool. It’s teaching skill that will bring you closer to the ideal.

By: jabbacrombie

jabbacrombie — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:38:54 +0000

I loved using flipped lesson. They are amazing for all the reasons you have stated.

My only worry is whether or not we’re too narrowly defining “flipped”. While I’m all for flipped lessons, I wonder about two things:
1. Is it necessary that ALL lessons be flipped?
2. Can we re-think the idea of video lecture?

I wrote one article on this (http://wp.me/p1Dq2f-i9) and I’m becoming more and more convinced that we need to remember that the best lectures include short bursts of information combined with short periods of time for learners to reflect. Hence,

I think the video lectures are even more powerful when students watch them in pairs, stop, discuss, review, then move on. Afterward, I can take them further quicker because I’m not “reteaching” things from the video that confused students.

Over time, flipped lessons will become more popular and more refined. Until then, it is easier to defend flipped lessons than entirely flipped classrooms.

Janet | expateducator.com