Instructions
Your personal page serves at least three purposes. It is a place for you to:
take notes
enable your flipped presentation
submit your individual assignment
Use the rough scaffold below as a guide. You may add headers and content, but not remove any.
Part A: Imagine that you are submitting a Wikipedia article on the flipped classroom. Draft your article here. Bear in mind that your writing will be public and subject to scrutiny and critique. What would you write to educate others like your school principal and colleagues about the flipped classroom.
Part B and C: You are a manager of other teachers, Suggest a plan for a group of teachers to flip their classrooms. Prepare a flipped presentation in Part C to get formative feedback on your plans.
Refrain from uploading presentation or other files to this space. Instead, host your files in the cloud and embed them in your page. For help on how to do this, refer to the iTunes U courses provided by CeL in the Resources section or search Google or YouTube.
Name: Melissa Lau
School: Da Qiao Primary School
Role: HOD/Math
Part A: Article on Flipped Classrooms
1. Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"
The orgination of a flipped classroom came from a relatively rural school Colorado. It was started by two teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. The main reason behind the initial flipping was for the many pupils in the school who missed their lessons due to time spent travelling to and fro school Therefore, in order for these kids to 'catch up', the teachers in the classroom flipped the way lessons and homework were given. Lessons, instead of being taught in school, was learnt through various ways at home, so that time in class could be spent on more interaction with the pupils.
2. What the flipped classroom is/is not
The flipped classroom is about leveraging on educational technology to enhance the learning environment at the pupils' own pace and to free up curriculum time to provide for less frontal teaching and more opportunities for learning through activities and discussions to take place in the classroom. It is also to allow for more fruitful interaction time between the teacher and the pupils where misconceptions can be clarified.
It is not to increase curriculum or double teaching time so that pupils can 'internalise' concepts.
3. Designing, developing, evaluating, and managing flipped classrooms
In designing a flipped classroom, like any other lessons, the teacher has to analyse the situational factors like the readiness of the pupils in class to embark on flipped classroom learning, how many of them could have difficulties accessing the internet. The teacher also has to be well aware of 3 factors.
1) Learning Goals - what are the objectives of the lesson; what are pupils supposed to have learnt after they have watched the online resources
2) Feedback and Assessment Procedures - how is the teacher going to assess the pupils on the learning that they have done at home and how to provide feedback that moves that learning forward
3) Teaching and Learning Activities - what sort of activities in the classroom is the teacher going to engineer such that it elicits evidence of the pupils' learning
Once all the factors have been considered, the teacher can then go ahead to develop their lessons for the flipped classroom. In developing the flipped classroom, the teacher should already have researched on the tools that are available and easy to use in preparing their videos.
In developing a flipped classroom, the teacher has to ensure that communication has been clearly done with the parents and pupils. The teacher should also be clear of the objectives of the flipped lessons - what is it he/she wants the pupils to have learnt at home and how the lesson in the classroom is structured so that effective learning and discussions can take place. Expectations should also be clearly communicated to the pupils because there will be an obvious change in the way they are used to having lessons in a classroom. They need to shift from having a passive role of absorbing and listening to the teacher delivering the lesson to having an active role of engaging in the materials.
Evaluating how successful a flipped classroom is, may not be something that can be seen overnight or be expected to achieve immediate success. Instead, a teacher will know how successful the flipped lessons have been when the pupils are engaged in their daily lessons. With proper planning and engineering of tasks in the classroom with increased pupil engagement and enjoyment in learning, there will be improvement in the overall learning and in their academic results.
Managing flipped classroom is without doubt crucial in sustaining the flipped classroom in the long run. How do we know whether pupils have actually done their share at home? When expectations have been set and understood by the pupils, even for the traditional homework, we face pupils who do not complete them. Therefore, for a flipped classroom where the learning is done at home and active discussions and exchange of ideas at school, it is important for the teacher to know with what level of knowledge the pupils come to class with. A simple quiz can be done to check on this knowledge. Besides managing pupils, it is also important to manage the teachers who are flipping. It may become draining in the long run when teachers who are flipping face obstacles. It is therefore important to sustain teacher motivation, whether extrinsically or intrinsically.
4. Flipped classroom issues and solutions
Availability of computers etc for the lower SES pupils - ensure that the library or computer lab is made accessible to the pupils for a certain period of time daily.
Lots of preparation work - see it as division of labour resulting in collation of resources which can be used again and again
Pupil participation - may be more difficult, but important to set ground rules and maybe even have an accompanying worksheet for the lesson at home so as to ensure that pupils do their part at home.
Increased reliance and solo time on the computer - ensure that time is purposefully spent and set limitations
Parents, Teachers and Pupils' buy-in - If a change is for the better, hardly any buy in is needed. However, at initial stages of implementation, lots of communication is required so that all parties are aware of the expectations
5. References
http://cit.duke.edu/flipping-the-classroom/
Part B: Flipped Classrooms in My Context
Outline a plan for mobilizing a group teachers who will flip their classrooms. You might:
Context:
Level: Primary 5
Subject: Mathematics
Classes: 4 Mainstream & 1 Foundation class
No of Teachers: 4
Planning
-Communication to the teachers involved through sharing of what Flipped Classrooms are like; share success stories yet acknowledge concerns and issues they may face
-Start small
-Consensus on the allocation of duty (who to do what and timeline)
-Send letter of communication to Parents, informing them of the start of flipped classroom
Execution
-Have open and constant dialogues with trs and parents
-Ensure that pupils are aware of the expectations
-Conduct cyberwellness classes for the pupils
Evaluation
-Get pupils’, parents’ and teachers’ feedback after the first lesson through surveys, FGDs etc.
-Do peer observations so that we can encourage each other in our journey of flipping.
-Revise plan if necessary
Timeline:
May/June 2014 – Sharing and discussion with the teachers on what a flipped classroom is / is not
June 2014 (last week of hols) – Group to come together to decide and agree on allocation of duties
July 2014 (Term 3 Week 1) – Design of first lesson on Decimals: use of calculators
July 2014 (Term 3 Week 2) – Execution and gathering feedback
July 2014 onwards – Design, execution and evaluation of subsequent lessons
Part C: Flipped Presentation
Embed your presentation for Part B here. You may include notes in a shared Google Doc if you wish.
http://prezi.com/muwybdw_nrwu/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Your peers will view this presentation before the last session and provide formative feedback.