Fulton, K. (2012). Upside down and inside out: Flip your classroom to improve student learning . Learning and leading with technology, 39(8), 12-14. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Upside_Down_and_Inside_Out.aspx
Fulton's article introduces the concept of "flipped classrooms." Simply described, students receive their initial instruction through videos created by their teachers. When they arrive to school, they then apply that knowledge to the ssigned daily activities. Fulton describes it as homework at school and school work at home. The idea of flipped classrooms is a manifestation of school districts that were faced with the problem of no money in the budget for new or more updated and adequate textbooks. Initial test score data indicates that this is having an overall positive impact on student learning. Teachers reported that, while it was an immense amount of work initially, the efforts have been rewarded. The major drawbacks that implementing schools have faced included: building trust with parents who found it hard to comprehend this as a legitimate form of instruction and the fact that this format does require students to dominate a large portion of the computer time, this is difficult for multiple student households. The paradigm shift also produced the need for students to re-think their classroom roles and for teachers to re-structure their perspectives and approaches to classroom discipline.
While the delivery comes in a different package, I would venture to say that the flipped model, is not unlike my experiences in school as a student in the 70's and 80's where the instructions was assigned as a reading at home and then activities were followed up on the next day in class. I think that teachers used this as a way to gauge interpretation of information and as a way of letting students develop a small sense of background knowledge to bring into the lesson. However, I find it so interesting that this is the result of desperate times. I also am fascinated how this change in teaching delivery model resulted in a positive increase in teacher/staff collaboration. For the past 10 years, I have been involved in working with my site to increase collaboration efforts amongst staff as well as to build a collaborative culture into our school. My particular emphasis and staff development is around collaboration between general education and special education teachers. My work has been hard fought and many efforts have had to be made just to get people to acknowledge and speak to one another. I feel that while my efforts have developed an overall forward progression, I know that the site is stagnate in its overall ability to implement forward thinking practices of more deliberate collaboration. It is a fascinating observation to me that these school's seemed to transition more effectively and with an overall sense of integrity for success, based on the fact that this appeared as their only option. I didn't see anything about anyone filing a grievance with their local teachers union in protest of the request to change!!
I see this as an excellent option for some of our "struggling learners" whose real "stuggle lies in the fact that they feel no connection to school. I feel that education is misguided in thinking that those who are not showing success are struggling learners. In my observation, these are the students who have not had a life full of many conections to anything. School represents another place that really doesn't want them. Three periods of six in a English class probably is not going to develop a love for learning! Also, every deemed "struggling learner" is not suffering from cognitive deficits but perhaps they are reacting to a lack of variety and challenge to their curriculum.
Question #1: If I were to propose the idea of the flipped classroom to my site, what would be the obstacles I would need to be immediately prepared to face?
Answer: I always find that when preparing to introduce anything new to staff, I need to make an effort to initiate smaller conversations around the subject to get a feel for the overall thoughts. I may find that several teachers and administrators agree that a flipped classroom would be a fabulous delivery option that we could offer. I would like to encourage a small cohort of teachers to begin the implementation and a small group of students whom it is decided with a team, that this may create success for. Each student considered would be a part of the team cohort planning as well. Using Fulton's article as a guide, I would take example from the obstacles that the schools in the article faced and begin a pro-active approach to dealing with them. My site would need to be able to open access to You Tube. We would need to create a Moodle or Edmodo account for submission of assignments. I would need to host and facilitate parent information meetings in Spanish and English to educate parents and to provide a forum to discuss concerns. In addition, for my particular site, I would need to see if there was some way to get computers in the households of many of the students. If not, them perhaps we could maintain an open lab? I also think that because this model will place students in a less traditional atmosphere, we would need to consider weaving in some lessons on success strategies and self-advocacy.
Question#2: How would this flipped classroom approach meet the needs of my students whose first language is other than English?
Answer: I do have a concern that without proper frontloading, many students who still do not maintain a proficiency in English, would struggle. Students who are still learning English, may not have the resources at home to help them with understanding what they are listening to. This is already a problem with the traditional model of teaching and the result is that students do not do their assignments. I would think that when producing these lessons, it would be crucial that the needs of second language learners be considered. I also think that as a mainstream teaching model, it should be considered that classes are heterogeneously mixed so that when there are collaborative opportunities the next day, students who are struggling have like peers to work with and help them to problem solve data. in these class sessions, it would be my thought that some time is spent on providing students with vocabulary frontloading and background knowledge.
Fulton's article introduces the concept of "flipped classrooms." Simply described, students receive their initial instruction through videos created by their teachers. When they arrive to school, they then apply that knowledge to the ssigned daily activities. Fulton describes it as homework at school and school work at home. The idea of flipped classrooms is a manifestation of school districts that were faced with the problem of no money in the budget for new or more updated and adequate textbooks. Initial test score data indicates that this is having an overall positive impact on student learning. Teachers reported that, while it was an immense amount of work initially, the efforts have been rewarded. The major drawbacks that implementing schools have faced included: building trust with parents who found it hard to comprehend this as a legitimate form of instruction and the fact that this format does require students to dominate a large portion of the computer time, this is difficult for multiple student households. The paradigm shift also produced the need for students to re-think their classroom roles and for teachers to re-structure their perspectives and approaches to classroom discipline.
While the delivery comes in a different package, I would venture to say that the flipped model, is not unlike my experiences in school as a student in the 70's and 80's where the instructions was assigned as a reading at home and then activities were followed up on the next day in class. I think that teachers used this as a way to gauge interpretation of information and as a way of letting students develop a small sense of background knowledge to bring into the lesson. However, I find it so interesting that this is the result of desperate times. I also am fascinated how this change in teaching delivery model resulted in a positive increase in teacher/staff collaboration. For the past 10 years, I have been involved in working with my site to increase collaboration efforts amongst staff as well as to build a collaborative culture into our school. My particular emphasis and staff development is around collaboration between general education and special education teachers. My work has been hard fought and many efforts have had to be made just to get people to acknowledge and speak to one another. I feel that while my efforts have developed an overall forward progression, I know that the site is stagnate in its overall ability to implement forward thinking practices of more deliberate collaboration. It is a fascinating observation to me that these school's seemed to transition more effectively and with an overall sense of integrity for success, based on the fact that this appeared as their only option. I didn't see anything about anyone filing a grievance with their local teachers union in protest of the request to change!!
I see this as an excellent option for some of our "struggling learners" whose real "stuggle lies in the fact that they feel no connection to school. I feel that education is misguided in thinking that those who are not showing success are struggling learners. In my observation, these are the students who have not had a life full of many conections to anything. School represents another place that really doesn't want them. Three periods of six in a English class probably is not going to develop a love for learning! Also, every deemed "struggling learner" is not suffering from cognitive deficits but perhaps they are reacting to a lack of variety and challenge to their curriculum.
Question #1: If I were to propose the idea of the flipped classroom to my site, what would be the obstacles I would need to be immediately prepared to face?
Answer: I always find that when preparing to introduce anything new to staff, I need to make an effort to initiate smaller conversations around the subject to get a feel for the overall thoughts. I may find that several teachers and administrators agree that a flipped classroom would be a fabulous delivery option that we could offer. I would like to encourage a small cohort of teachers to begin the implementation and a small group of students whom it is decided with a team, that this may create success for. Each student considered would be a part of the team cohort planning as well. Using Fulton's article as a guide, I would take example from the obstacles that the schools in the article faced and begin a pro-active approach to dealing with them. My site would need to be able to open access to You Tube. We would need to create a Moodle or Edmodo account for submission of assignments. I would need to host and facilitate parent information meetings in Spanish and English to educate parents and to provide a forum to discuss concerns. In addition, for my particular site, I would need to see if there was some way to get computers in the households of many of the students. If not, them perhaps we could maintain an open lab? I also think that because this model will place students in a less traditional atmosphere, we would need to consider weaving in some lessons on success strategies and self-advocacy.
Question#2: How would this flipped classroom approach meet the needs of my students whose first language is other than English?
Answer: I do have a concern that without proper frontloading, many students who still do not maintain a proficiency in English, would struggle. Students who are still learning English, may not have the resources at home to help them with understanding what they are listening to. This is already a problem with the traditional model of teaching and the result is that students do not do their assignments. I would think that when producing these lessons, it would be crucial that the needs of second language learners be considered. I also think that as a mainstream teaching model, it should be considered that classes are heterogeneously mixed so that when there are collaborative opportunities the next day, students who are struggling have like peers to work with and help them to problem solve data. in these class sessions, it would be my thought that some time is spent on providing students with vocabulary frontloading and background knowledge.
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