2014-01 Low Wee Leong Eric

Instructions

Your personal page serves at least three purposes. It is a place for you to:

1. take notes

2. enable your flipped presentation

3. 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: Eric Low

School: Dunman Secondary School

Role: HOD/ICT

Part A: Article on Flipped Classrooms

1. Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"

Definition

In a traditional classroom pedagogy model, content is delivered during in-class time (by the teacher) and homework is to be completed outside of the classroom (by the student).

A flipped classroom inverts traditional teaching methods, delivering content online (outside of class) and moving homework into the classroom. Students watch lesson at home at their own pace (possibly communicating with peers and teachers via online discussion) and make sense of their learning when they are back in the classroom with the help of the teacher through meaningful activities where concept engagement takes place.

Origins

Flipped classroom can be traced back to two teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado (2007).

2. What the flipped classroom is/is not

Flipping is about the learner and how learning takes place. Putting the students in the inquiry path.

What is flipped classroom?

Reversal of lecture and homework elements of a lesson.

The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a lesson are reversed.

There are two key components of a flipped classroom model, students watching flipped videos at home and learning through meaningful activities in the classroom.

Short video lectures are viewed by students at home before the class session, while in-class time is devoted to exercises, projects or discussions.

The use of videos puts lectures under the control of the students: they can watch, rewind, and fast-forward as needed. Devoting class time to application of concepts might give teachers a better opportunity to detect errors in thinking.

Change in role of the teacher and student

The flipped classroom constitutes a role change for teachers, who give up their frontal teaching in favour of a more collaborative and cooperative learner environment.

There is a concomitant change in the role of students, many of whom are used to being cast as passive learners, where they consumed content that is served to them. The flipped model puts more of the responsibility for learning on the shoulders of students.

Flipped classroom should not

1) be used as a means to increase lesson time.

2) be continued with didactic frontal teaching during in-class time.

3) have flipped videos that is delivering content the same way as frontal teaching (same medium but different method).

Instead, flipped videos should engage learners actively.

4) be long video lectures. A good flipped video should be short, with few key learning objectives.

5) be screencast of PowerPoint slides.

3. Designing, developing, evaluating, and managing flipped classrooms

I would enable flipped classrooms in my school using the PALS approach. The PALS approach includes Planning, Articulating, Leading and Sustaining change in ICT.

What is PALS approach in enable change in ICT? (Planning, Articulating, Leading and Sustaining)

For Planning

Create the vision

I envision my students to be self-directed learners and take ownership of their learning through flipped classroom pedagogy model. They construct knowledge individually and collectively.

Involve stakeholders

I communicate with my stakeholders to find out their concerns, and to address them in my plan.

The stakeholders will be the School Exco, IP Department and parents. I have to decide on which level/stream/subjects that I would like to flip.

Identify change leaders

I will form a lead team, who will be my main driver. They can be an IP Head and teachers from the department who are keen to explore use of ICT in teaching.

Determine milestone results

I plan for some small wins that are realistic and achievable. For a start, teachers to flip one lesson in term 1.

For Articulating

In my articulation of change, it is to change mindset and to create buy-in from the various stakeholders (school exco, IP Departments, parents and students)

Clarity of vision and purpose

Flipped classroom model improves quality of learning. The value of a flipped class is in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands-on activities.

Highlight key strategies for success and approaches to address concerns on the ground

Make change gradual. For a start, teachers only need to flip one lesson in term 1. Assure the teachers that they will not be working in silos. There will be change agents to work jointly with them in their first attempt to flip.

Non-verbal communication

Get connected to teachers in new ways through use of videos (like a flipped video above) to deliver the message of flipping, and change is imperative.

For Leading

Empower the change agents

Carrying out PLC with level teachers and sharing of best practices.

Celebrate milestone success

Because this flipped classroom pedagogy model approach represents a comprehensive change in the class dynamic, teachers might have chosen to flip only a few selected class sessions during a term. We affirm the teachers’ effort and continue to motivate them through intrinsic or extrinsic means.

For Sustaining

Monitoring

There must be monitoring system in place so that teachers will not be doing didactic frontal teaching instead of meaningful activities during the in-class time portion of a flipped classroom. The monitoring can be in the form of peer evaluation, where teachers can observe each other lessons and to provide constructive feedback on how to carry out activities meaningfully.

Enhanced capabilities

As the flipped class becomes more popular, new tools may emerge to support the out-of-class portion of the flipped model. There should be an ongoing effort to train teachers to take advantage of the powerful mobile devices and to develop a wider range of rich, educational resources into the hands of students, at times and places that are most convenient for them.

4. Flipped classroom issues and solutions

Implementation issues can come from teachers, parents and students.

Tendency for teachers to carry out didactic frontal teaching during in-class time

We could have peer evaluation where teachers observe each other lessons. The heads of departments can also sit-in to give feedback to in-class time activities.

Parents’ initial reaction

We have to keep parents informed in stages (and regularly) about progress made in flipped classrooms. This can be communicated through letters to parents or during meet the parents sessions.

Tracking and monitoring students in accessing flipped videos

Students might not be accessing video lectures (at home) as they should. The flipped videos can be parked at LMS where logins are required to monitor usage. For students without computers or Internet access at home, access to computer labs can be made available to them in the afternoon, after school hours.

5. References

1. http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom/

2. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7081.pdf

3. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/flipped_classrooms_in_college_lectures_online_and_problem_sets_in_the_classroom.html

4. http://kdvr.com/2014/02/05/students-do-homework-in-class-lessons-at-night-in-flipped-classroom/

Part B: Flipped Classrooms in My Context

Outline a plan for mobilizing a group teachers who will flip their classrooms. You might:

• • Describe your context (what levels, what content areas, how many teachers, etc.)

  • Devise plans for communication, buy-in, professional development, evaluation, etc.

  • Provide a timeline

Level: Secondary 2

Subject: Interdisciplinary Project Work (IPW) - Mathematics and Science

Classes: 8 classes: 5 Express, 2 N(A) and 1 N(T)

No. of Teachers: 5 (HOD/ICT, PW coordinator, 3 PW teacher)

1) Form Lead Team to revise SOW for Project Work to include flipping (video lesson for technical skills, and in-class time for hands-on activities)

2) Articulate flipped classroom pedagogy model to stakeholders (school ex-co, parents and students) to change mindset and create buy-in

3) Use Departmental whitespace to discuss in-class hands-on activities or sharing of pedagogies in facilitating class discussion.

4) Use Departmental whitespace for cooperation and collaboration in creating flipped videos.

5) ICT trainer to conduct technical training on the tools available to create flipped videos, such as Camtasia (for mac), Screenflow (for mac) and Camtasia studio (for windows).

6) Pilot flipped classroom model for 2N(A) classes

7) Teachers to carry out peer evaluation of each other lessons (to ensure teachers will not be doing frontal teaching during in-class time, but carrying out meaningful activities).

8) Survey students on flipped classroom model.

9) End of course evaluation of flipped classroom model and determine AFI that will be used to make refinements to revised-SOWs.

Sec 2 IPW spans for 1 semester. Half the class will take IPW and half the class will take Life Science in Semester 1, the sequence is then switched over in term 2.

There is a one semester to revise the SOW for flipped classroom. Many execution plans have to run concurrently.

Term 1: Form Lead Team, revise current SOW; and articulate flipped classroom model to stakeholders

Term 2: Professional Development of teachers in using flipped video tools; and forming PLC to create flipped videos

Term 3: Implement flipped classroom to 2N(A) classes; and teachers to conduct peer evaluation

Term 4: Carry out end-of-course survey to determine AFI; and make refinements to revised SOW. Determine if can scale up to all other Sec 2 classes.

Part C: Flipped Presentation

Embed your presentation for Part B here. You may include notes in a shared Google Doc if you wish.

Your peers will view this presentation before the last session and provide formative feedback.

Peer Evaluation

Generally, my peers gave positive feedback for the well-thought through plans for the chosen subject to flip (Project Work).

The comment on "can consider asking students to prepare the pre-lesson once they have mastered the programming part" can be put as a challenging task for the students to do up a pre-lesson assignment before they go back for the lesson in class, so that class time can be devoted to discuss how students apply their skills from the flipped videos, and the discussion can led to another in-class activity to build further from that pre-task.