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: Tay Pei Yun
School: Yusof Ishak Secondary School
Role: HOD ICT
Part A: Article on Flipped Classrooms
1. Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"
Definition: It is not exactly a pedagogical method to approach teaching and learning in class but one of the mode in which teachers adopt in
- varying delivery modes
- maximizing classroom time for clarifications of homework or content rather than just frontal teaching
Origins: It started with Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann in 2007. Aaron and Jonathan started flipping their chemistry classes because they believe that they want their students to be able to learn by themselves and for themselves.
My version: Why "flipped classroom" started in once in my class because I was so frustrated with the way students are attempting homework and that I am continuously running out of time in completing the syllabus. Two other teachers have also noticed that they had to keep repeating their instructions in class and precious wasting curriculum hours and time. Then I recalled going to ICTLT in 2012 learning from another pre-school educator ways he collaborated with parents and teachers in the use of flipping his classroom time to allow students to learn phonics and pronunciation from home and clarifying the right way to be done in school. I thought if the preschoolers could do so.... shouldn't my secondary school student try it! Unfortunately, there are of areas to improve on which I will not elaborate here.
2. What the flipped classroom is not....
- To solve existing classroom problem due to poor pedagogy e.g. not just about lecturing again once the students come in after the flip learning at home as it might result in more classroom management problems
- One size fit all teaching approach
- Constrain to one effective method but in fact there are many ways to approach flipping.
- just about introducing video lectures as a form of a placement pedagogy but unchanged method. In fact, the activities should be designed meaningfully.
- Increasing coaching and curriculum time at the expense of family and personal time
- about replacing teachers with videos or just an online course approach.... in fact teachers may need to spend more time on the planning than they use to do in frontal teaching methodology.
What a flipped classroom is....
- a method that requires careful deliberation of lesson outcomes and intentions with thorough planning and implementation with more meaningful activities and learning experiences
- delivered with and without technological integration however, the merits of technology allows students to carry out self-directed learning at a probably more collaborative manner and may allow self-pace and more exploration.
- optimizing learning where it is an opportunity to carry out more personalised coaching or even try out differentiated instructions and a blend of direction instructions with constructivist learning
-specially thought through and designed by the teacher
-pedagogical response to current classroom problems
- effective with good classroom follow up of the learning content
-starting with the current classroom and learner's learning style and preferences
-students being responsible for their own learning and at times, students can be the teachers too.
The benefits of flip learning is nicely curated and summarized in the table below:
Pace and level of learning
Learning of content
Skills and learning products
Use of classroom time
Use of home time
Feedback
Learners readiness and mindset
Teacher's preparation
Old
New
One pace and difficult for differentiation and no say for the students
Usually repeat of learning for students at a slower pace
Frontal loading only and teacher assumes that students all learn at the same pace and what is helpful for students
Students consume, critique,
Teacher is given the main centre of attention where teacher tries to get through the materials.
Students are consumer of content.
Complete homework and assignment, often unguided and often done at home.
Often summative feedback is only often given at the end of the practice
Not given the autonomy
Learners have limited information about what to expect
Teachers preparation of resources, lesson packages and homework for teachers
Paced at learner readiness
Allows deepening of learning at various pace of the students
Increase personal and personalised contact time between students and students and students and teachers
Can be front loading and/or at the same time incorporate other elements of self-exploratory tasks, and timely and relevant information for sharing
Because teachers know what the students are thinking, teacher can adjust lesson according to the pace
Students learn to create, search, critique, practice, discuss
student created content
independent problem solving
inquiry-based activities
Project Based Learning
Both students and teachers can be the centre of attention at any time of the lesson. Mini lectures are conducted and more bitesize for learners. Students can also sometimes take the role of teaching the class.
More engaged in learning
Clarification of doubts and misconception through discussion
Watch videos, online discussions, searching for information, Facilitated and guided by teacher in the classroom and students
Can be both formative and summative assessments as feedback can be given along the way and also do at the end of the lesson.
Students have specific questions in mind to guide their learning.
More preparatory work involved than traditional classroom setting.
May require teachers to provide more structure might be needed to guide the students
Immediate feedback
May need consolidation of students preliminary inputs.
3. Designing, developing, evaluating, and managing flipped classrooms
Designing
Guiding philosophy and principles
- Start small think big
- Start with passionate teachers and more ready teachers even if it means only a small pool of us
- Gear planning and implementation with students learning in mind
- Share success stories from others and continuously read up and be up to date with the latest trends and research updates
- Do not give up and just do it!
Communication from SL and MM to.....
Teachers
- Requires a change of mindset and role in both teachers and learners
Establishing common understanding:
Changes the role of the classroom teacher and the learners
Content creation focus is different and teachers must be prepared for the change
Flipping may require teachers to plan and prepare more, the rationale allows the quality of teaching and learning.
In line with MOE directives of the c2015 and infusing 21st century skills, flip learning allows a greater opportunity skills building and also life long learning.
that this method is not prescriptive and there is no one fix way to do it but to continue to experiment for the best delivery method that suits oneself.
Basis for the success of this flip classroom
- Teacher dependent factor
Teacher's readiness: must be ready to put away the attention on them and put squarely on students and their learning. Start where they are at and attend sharings and conferences for new insights
Focus on classroom time face to face and keep lecture short and straight to the point
Communication to parents and students of expectations
Not rush into it
Unlearn old habits and relearn progressive pedagogies
Give some classroom time back to learners when time is spent at home to complete part of the work.
Professional development
Build in professional learning communities and sharing
Training and open classroom observations
Whitespace and time for professional dialogues and lesson planning
Encourage resilience
Parents/guardians
- Inform them about the approach through formal briefings and letters
- Establish the common goal and outcomes for flipping
- Managing expectations of their child/ward
- Expect certain level of understanding and support from parents
Leading
- Professional development through training, invitation of guests speakers, opening up classroom for observation, sharing of best practices
- Dialogues with teachers and students
- Seeing the value in proposal and to counter the fatigue mind that the teachers are facing from many changes in schools.
- Teacher's readiness, interest, their roles, ability and profile to champion this initiative.
- Teachers concerns are sometimes centered around readiness, time, and fear of the upcoming changes.
- Buddy system - for teachers to build confidence
- Give teachers some autonomy and freedom and space in exploration
- Keep intention of flipping transparent for teachers
Sustaining flippers
- Reinforcing the objectives of going flip
- Monitor and continuous effort of teachers through peer observations and RO observations
- Use intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and encourage teachers to keep their resilience going
- Measure outcomes and celebrate success of teacher's hardwork
- Enculture flipping into the culture of the school through infusing into meetings and briefings whenever/wherever appropriate
- Integrate into SOWs and curriculum of the subjects
- Form professional learning circles for flippers
4. Flipped classroom issues and solutions
Classroom management and discipline issue - Check if instructions to them are clear or check the class readiness and reduce confusion between multiple platforms for certain classes. Set up possibilities of free access to complete their work in school before leaving the school. If this habit persist, of course there might be a need for disciplinary action. As a teacher, it is important to plan for students to work on interesting flip lesson instead of giving them content to consume. For example, instead of just watching videos, students can be given the responsibility to teach the class or a heavy responsibility task.
Lack of understanding of Pedagogical, technological affordances for flipping - sharing and exploring of tools and carrying out research of the effectiveness among teachers. Sharing by master teachers. Giving opportunities for groups to form with master/lead/senior teacher, ICT champions, beginning teachers and experienced teachers in the school to form dialogue or lesson studies teams.
Managing time for teachers and students - Create a whole school plan on flipping or manage flipping within department if it starts to affect teacher and student personal life e.g. set a time limit for the flipped tasks at home e.g. not more than 20 min per subject. Students to understand the rationale of flipping where it allows more opportunities for clarification of homework class thus, certain part of the reading and preparation have to be done before coming to class. Managing teachers expectations of themselves for flipping such that they are able to cope with the pace of work and not burn out quickly.
Lack of confidence that flipping and afraid that this method might affect results in a long run - assure teachers that it is to give students the ownership of learning and not immediately looking at results. Back up with some sharing or readings that others have done to gain confidence had keep teachers going. Allow teachers to share their setbacks and have a dialogue around them.
5. References
https://ctl.utexas.edu/teaching/flipping_a_class/what_is_flipped
5 Things I wish I knew when I Flipped my Class (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JPdGlyt6gg)
Part B: Flipped Classrooms in My Context
Outline a plan for mobilizing a group teachers who will flip their classrooms. You might:
Background
XYZ secondary school
Co-ed mainstream school more NA classes as the main bulk of the students population
A level of Sec 1 students (120 students)
Teachers (30 teachers)
All content areas
Current problem faced by the school
Poor attendance rate from certain classes
Disengaged students
Teachers feeling frustrated using their current pedagogies to engage studentss
Proposed intervention by SL and SMCs
Flip learning
Introducing flip learning to students
Devise plans for communication, buy-in, professional development, evaluation, etc.
Make a whole school plan
Vision of FC
Due to the problems that is currently faced by the school there is a need to....
Instill sense of ownership in learning in students
Create a more student centric learning environment for learning
Champion teachers and key drivers
ICT champions/mentors/committee
HOD ICT
SSD
Keen IP HODs
Pool of Sec 1 keen and more ready teachers
Timeline
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.
Dear all,
As my context is not flipping a subject but a level in my school, please feel free to give your opinion and feedback if "my great plans" are POSSIBLE.:)
Thanks for your time!
Pei Yun