#flipped teaching

Take part in our new contest, which focuses on flipped teaching and the flipped classroom! You don't know what that means? Watch the video and find out! ;) Create an original flipped video yourself, make it into a video quiz with our tools, and publish it on the iSLCollective website to win a valuable book set by Jamie Keddie! The deadline is June 1st, so hurry up! :)

Il Cappotto di Bruner

Le recenti esperienze, come docente esterno di Web Marketing negli Istituti Superiori, mi hanno fatto riflettere molto su come va oggi la scuola.

Da genitore, devo dire onestamente che ho sempre avuto un atteggiamento un pò giudicante dell’operato dei docenti, in relazione soprattutto ai risultati che i miei figli portavano a casa. Se tutto filava liscio era merito dei ragazzi, e se invece,…

Nuovi modi di fare Media Education

Se i nuovi media sono delle opportunità  e non minacce, è necessario che lo comprendiamo innanzitutto noi adulti. Dopo di che armiamoci di santa pazienza e facciamo capire ai nostri studenti che tipo di attività costruttive possiamo fare con i dispositivi digitali.

Due esempi. Ci troviamo in una quarta turistica del Liceo Raffaello di Urbino.

1. RIPRENDIAMO LE LEZIONI RICORDANDO TIZIANA CANTONE.

Middle and high school – now this is where I think flipped teaching can really shine. Not only are students developmentally ready to assume greater responsibility for their learning outside of class, their work is also more advanced and complex in nature.

Ways to Flip Library Instruction 

Record introductions and instructions for major unit projects. Not only can these be used across multiple classrooms (ideal for large schools) and for students who were absent, they can be used in subsequent years. 

Provide online tutorials for library procedures or instructions on using a particular database or educational learning tool. Students can come into library ready to use school databases for research rather than wasting valuable library time on learning how to use them (especially great for databases without at-home access - or when such access is prohibitively expensive for the library budget).

Have students create interactive pathfinders, tutorials, or videos about their research – share those with other students. What a great archive of student work!

Direct students struggling with a particular issue (e.g. fair use and copyright) to online resources that they can access at home to catch-up with their peers.

Classroom teachers can also use library-produced videos in their classes. This also has the pragmatic benefit of increasing the visibility of the library and underscoring its instructional importance.

Speaking of classroom teachers, don’t neglect them when flipping the library. If you provide technology instruction or other professional development for classroom teachers in your school, consider “flipping” that instruction too. Producing or curating videos, tutorials, and other online resources for teachers allows convenient access – at their point of need. Flipping isn’t just for students!

More Tips for Success

Keep videos short and focused – somewhere between 3-7 minutes is ideal. 

Consistently evaluate whether flipped teaching is effective for your students.

Customize your students’ experience – avoid complete reliance on out-sourced materials.

     How can elementary school librarians think about flipping their instruction? While not always an appropriate technique (some lessons might be better/easier in the library), prepping students can make for more productive in-library time.

      A few things to keep in mind. 1. Disparity of access to technology is a significant issue. By their nature, flipped classrooms presume students have access to the Internet away from school. For many school districts, this is not the case. 2. With the greater responsibility placed on students, flipped teaching is more appropriate for older students (3-5 grade).

Ways to Flip Library Lessons

      Teaching a lesson on copyright? Have your students take the Copyright Challenge before and after the lesson to assess what they retained.

      Working on a project using a new learning tool? Before class, have the students watch a tutorial, like this one for Glogster or look at examples or projects, like these from Little Bird Tales. 

      Students learning about a specific author or illustrator? Have them watch a video to introduce the author/illustrator. This is a great video about Tomie dePaola. Individual author websites or publisher websites often have these types of videos. 

      That's just a start - the possibilities are endless!

Tips for Success 

          Finally, I’ll share some helpful suggestions from Jill Thompson (coincidentally, a Syracuse native!) that I found on her blog “Inside the Classroom, Outside the Box.” 

Start small – flip one individual lesson and see how it goes.

At first, use videos that others have made. It takes a lot of work to make own – you can build up to that later.

     Alternatively called flipped teaching or flipped instruction, the flipped classroom has been a topic of intense interest and discussion in the education field over the past few years. The term “flipped classroom” refers to a model of instruction where the traditional elements of learning – lecture and homework – are reversed. Students watch videos of lectures or listen to podcasts at home, while classroom time is reserved for discussions, hands-on activities, experiments, and exercises.

     There are a number of benefits to flipped classrooms. Students take responsibility for their own learning by working at their own pace, reviewing material easily by watching the videos* again. If students miss class, they can catch up more readily. Teachers can build assessment tools into the online content to spot gaps in student understanding and then maximize their face-to-face interaction with students by focusing on higher-order learning activities because the students are prepared with the necessary foundational knowledge.

     However, flipped teaching assumes students have access to the Internet, proper technological tools (computer, tablet, smartphone etc), and a supportive learning environment at home. For schools in rural or impoverished areas, the lack of these poses a significant barrier to adopting a flipped model. Additionally, some students may lack the necessary time management skills, struggle with distractions on their devices, or simply dislike the more solitary learning experience. It should also be noted that flipped instruction does not necessarily entail improved teaching. The same things that make for a great teacher in person – demonstrating multiple approaches, giving clear explanations, anticipating “trouble spots,” making content interesting and relevant – also need to be present in a recorded lesson.

     I’ll end with a video from PBS NewsHour about the experiences of students and teachers at Clintondale High School, which has adopted flipped teaching across the entire high school.  

     Click here for the link. 

Note- Flipped teaching goes beyond videos of lectures. But they are one of the most common tools of flipped instruction, and so, act as a sort of shorthand term.

In the MA Creative Writing teaching was radically altered to 'flip' the experience. Instead of class time being used largely to deliver information, it was used almost entirely in the actual writing of work by students and the immediate discussion of the resultant work. This process radically increased both the amount of actual Creative Writing produced and the degree of feedback received from tutors and peers.