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One of the current trends in education that you may be hearing about is the flipped classroom. Essentially, it is a fairly simple concept: assign the learning of concepts and information as homework and then spend class time applying the concepts that they have learned. Traditionally, a teacher might introduce a concept, explain it, give some examples or practice questions, and then assign homework questions to further apply the concept. Students who don't really understand the work often become frustrated trying to do the homework or simply give up on it. And all too often parents who don't understand the material any better than their children experience great frustration trying to help them with their homework. I can attest to this from personal experience.
The flipped classroom approach turns this around: what was formerly homework is done in the classroom with the assistance of the teacher, who gets to see firsthand where the students may be struggling. The instructional portion of the lesson occurs at home and if the parents wish, they can learn alongside their children.
So how exactly does a teacher achieve this "flipped" approach?
Flipping the classroom is accomplished by using online content, which the students may find on a class wiki or blog, in GoogleDocs, Edmodo, or on an website. The content might be created by the teacher using any number of user-friendly tools. It could be a video of the teacher or a student explaining the content: videos can be created easily with phones, flipcams, webcams and even document cameras. Some teachers are using screencasts, which are like videos but they show the computer desktop accompanied by the teacher's voice. A free tool for creating a screencast video of up to five minutes is Jing, which works on both the Windows and Mac platforms. There are also various iPad apps that create "whiteboard" style videos that can be uploaded to a class site. Teachers who have LiveScribe pens might create pencasts, capturing what they write or sketch along with teacher explanation or commentary. Any of these formats can then be posted to the class wiki, blog, Edmodo, or GoogleDocs site.
There are also many different online resources where the content has also been created: the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) is one of the most well known, but excellent resources can also be found on TeacherTube, YouTube, iTunes U, Edutopia, and TEDEd. Of course, with online resources, it is important to preview the resource first to make sure that it suits your needs and is appropriate for the age of the students.
One of the strengths of the flipped classroom approach is that students can review the material as many times as the need in order to understand it, and it is available to them for review prior to tests and exams. It does require some new learning on the part of the teacher and it does require access to the internet; so consideration must be given to students who may have slow or no internet access at home.
Finally, there is one really important consideration: the lesson, regardless of the format, needs to be interesting and engaging. A boring video is no more effective than a boring lecture. And whenever possible, I would suggest that teachers enlist their students to help them create the content.
The flipped classroom approach turns this around: what was formerly homework is done in the classroom with the assistance of the teacher, who gets to see firsthand where the students may be struggling. The instructional portion of the lesson occurs at home and if the parents wish, they can learn alongside their children.
So how exactly does a teacher achieve this "flipped" approach?
Flipping the classroom is accomplished by using online content, which the students may find on a class wiki or blog, in GoogleDocs, Edmodo, or on an website. The content might be created by the teacher using any number of user-friendly tools. It could be a video of the teacher or a student explaining the content: videos can be created easily with phones, flipcams, webcams and even document cameras. Some teachers are using screencasts, which are like videos but they show the computer desktop accompanied by the teacher's voice. A free tool for creating a screencast video of up to five minutes is Jing, which works on both the Windows and Mac platforms. There are also various iPad apps that create "whiteboard" style videos that can be uploaded to a class site. Teachers who have LiveScribe pens might create pencasts, capturing what they write or sketch along with teacher explanation or commentary. Any of these formats can then be posted to the class wiki, blog, Edmodo, or GoogleDocs site.
There are also many different online resources where the content has also been created: the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) is one of the most well known, but excellent resources can also be found on TeacherTube, YouTube, iTunes U, Edutopia, and TEDEd. Of course, with online resources, it is important to preview the resource first to make sure that it suits your needs and is appropriate for the age of the students.
One of the strengths of the flipped classroom approach is that students can review the material as many times as the need in order to understand it, and it is available to them for review prior to tests and exams. It does require some new learning on the part of the teacher and it does require access to the internet; so consideration must be given to students who may have slow or no internet access at home.
Finally, there is one really important consideration: the lesson, regardless of the format, needs to be interesting and engaging. A boring video is no more effective than a boring lecture. And whenever possible, I would suggest that teachers enlist their students to help them create the content.