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: Tan Sear Weeh
School: Maris Stella High School (Primary)
Role:LH/EL
Part A: Article on Flipped Classrooms
1. Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"
Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"
The flipped classroom is a reversal of traditional teaching where students go through some content materials outside of class first, usually via reading or watching online video lectures, demonstrations, and explanations of assignments, and then meet face-to-face in class in the larger group to explore content through active learning and engagement strategies. The teacher in a flipped classroom is a learning facilitator, able to work one-to-one with students, clarify assignments, and offer help as needed.
It was popularised by two teachers in USA, Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, in 2007. They pioneered flipped teaching at the high school level and went on to spread the word about its value.
Flip Precursors
1. The Inverted Classroom
2. Just in time teaching
3. Peer Instruction
2. What the flipped classroom is/is not
What a flipped classroom is:
· pedagogical solution to a problem with today’s instructions
· a shift from teachers delivering content to learners practising it
· optimising opportunity for feedback and coaching
· teacher is active all day
· creating more meaningful activities that optimise learning
What a flipped classroom is not:
· about e-learning only delivering content
· a technological solution
· designed to increase curriculum time by encroaching upon family, personal or social time
· a replacement of teachers
· sitting passively in front of the screen and getting lectures from watching a video
· students watching videos for homework
· one size fits all teaching approach
· top down whereby the teacher has been told to do it
· teacher sitting at the back of the classroom and drinking coffee all day
· a teacher holiday
· it is not easy – students are used to traditional teaching and find it difficult to play learning
3. Designing, developing, evaluating, and managing flipped classrooms
Designing and developing flipped classrooms:
- Objectives of the lesson and learning outcomes must be clearly articulated.
- Ensure that students understand the expectations.
- Need to know students’ profile such as whether they have computers at home, what their learning styles are, etc.
- Consider what technology to deploy to support the flipped classroom.
- Create videos which are 3-5 minutes. Ensure that they are not so long that it loses the audience. On the other hand, it should not be too brief too.
- Provide meaningful classroom activities so that students are engaged during class time rather than doing homework without learning.
- Give ample time for reflections on the experience of learning.
Evaluating flipped classrooms:
- Build in reflective activities to have students think about what they learned, how it will help them and its relevance so that they can connect content to objectives.
Managing flipped classrooms:
- Establish flipped classroom rules such as ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’t’s’ – eg. Must complete going through the content that has been instructed to read / watched via video before coming to class.
- Give students sufficient time outside class and in class for their learning.
- Move away from the teacher providing information to the students. Instead, guide them to discover much of the information for themselves with the teacher’s role being the facilitator (“the guide on the side”).
- Divide the class into groups of three or four students in terms of seating arrangement as they are expected to collaborate on discussions or assignments.
- The teacher moves from group to group to guide the students if they need help or assess their understanding of the work.
4. Flipped classroom issues and solutions
Students have no access to computers or have not done their homebased learning:
- make available the computer facilities or reading materials in class
- allow students to be in class before the lesson proper begins to go through the materials
- assign student leaders to play the role of FC embassadors to support these students in class
Parents may not be supportive of or familiar with the idea of FC:
- Inform stakeholders what flipped classroom is via written communication and thereafter update on a regular basis the progress of students’ learning
Lack of Resources/Ideas for homebased or in-class learning:
- form an expert group based on subjects to provide support
- share resources among teachers
- create a resource bank for teachers to deposit their resources, according to subjects, content or topic
Teachers are keen to try but not sure how to go about doing it
- start small eg. with one subject first, or with a small group of students such as remedial class students
- classroom observation of teachers who have done flipping
- conference with teachers after lesson observation to deepen understanding
Computer Literacy Issue:
- buddy system: attach a teacher who is not too confident in terms of computer skills to a teacher who can help in this area
- provide training by expert group mentioned above
Time:
hard pressed for time
- ride on timetabled time platform, weekly contact time, staff retreat
5. References
http://www.uq.edu.au/tediteach/flipped-classroom/what-is-fc.html
http://www.21things4teachers.net/21--flipping-the-classroom.html
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
Context
The level that I am looking at is Primary 3 for the subject of English and this involves 8 teachers. The size of each class is 40. The teachers are strong in their subject mastery but only two of them are quite knowledgeable in terms of ICT tools while the rest of the teachers are not too confident in this area. Thus, we will try out the flipped classroom with only two Pimary 3 classes but all 8 Primary 3 EL including myself will be involved in the planning, preparation, communication, monitoring and evaluation. We have timetabled time (professional learning time) of two periods every week factored into our timetable to meet and discuss matters pertaining to students' learning, hence school leaders will support strategies that enhance students' learning such as flipped classroom.
Plans & Timeline
Term 3 Week 1
All 8 teachers involved in the FC are to view the video introducing flipped classroom and its benefits.
Divide them into groups of 4 – Group A and Group B
Read through the Primary 3 EL STELLAR Guide and Scheme of Work
Teachers are to jot down queries regarding FC and bring them to the 1st meeting for discussion.
Term 3 Week 2
During the meeting
As teachers have already viewed the video beforehand, during the meeting we will proceed with clarifying and discussing issues.
Get into groups to identify topics and discuss lesson plans.
Will ensure that the two teachers who are savvy in terms of ICT tools are not in the same group to divide expertise and to handhold the rest of the teachers. Assure them that they will not work alone.
Thereafter, both groups present their ideas to get each other’s feedback for improvement.
Term 3 Week 3 - 4
Professional development (1)
EL / HOD will do a sharing on how to plan lessons for homebased and class learning, selecting and evaluating resources and classroom management.
Term 3 Week 5
Professional development (2)
Liaise with HOD / ICT to provide training for teachers in the use of various ICT tools.
Term 3 Week 6
Professional development (3)
Arrange school visits to view lessons of flipped classroom.
Term 3 Week 7 - 10
Preparation
Prepare resources, lesson plans for:
- Homebased learning
- Activities in class
Backup plans for students who are unable to do / do not complete their homebased learning (homework)
Create a folder (resource bank) for deposit of resources: eg. teacher-created content videos for homebased learning, lesson plans.
Term 4 Week 1
Communication
- Communicate plans at Staff Contact Time.
- Send out letters to inform parents what Flipped Classroom, a new instructional strategy, is about, how it would be implemented in class and how learning would be monitored.
Term 4 Week 2 - 3
Implementation
- Implement in two Primary 3 EL classes.
- Make observations and gather feedback.
Term 4 Week 4
Evaluation
(1) Get feedback from students through the 'Focused Group Discussion' platform. This means that we will get some students from each of the two classes for a face-to-face discussion with a teacher.
(2) Get feedback from teachers:
- Are students more enthusiastic about the lesson
- What problems do students face
- Does FC bring about quality learning
- Is it cost effective to produce own videos
- Other challenges …
- Suggestions for improvements
- Next step …
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.