Flippers are fake teeth used by pageant princesses to hide imperfections in their smiles. Missing a tooth? Crooked bite? No problem. Pop a flipper in.
In the same way, Flipped Classrooms hide imperfections in pedagogy. While everyone is so excited about digitizing lectures, they often fail to neglect that they are still... lectures.
Good lectures have their place - think Lynda.com or Ted.com - but the difference is with those types of lectures listeners follow their interests. In a classroom setting, with a teacher directing the lecture path, student interest is not much of a factor. Viewing the lectures is mandatory, despite the learning style of each individual.
I don't lecture often in my English classes. I'm not a fan of Powerpoint or the sage on the stage. Instead, I prefer to structure my classes around projects that engage student interest while guiding them to construct their own knowledge. I want my students to develop into motivated self-learners.
Flipped Classrooms have highlighted the learn anything/anywhere principle, which is a positive. I do want to applaud that. But please do not think Flipped Classrooms are a panacea for revolutionary teaching, because that they are not.
The question you need to ask is: What's the best use of your precious time in class with your students? Is it lower level delivery of content when students sit passively? Or can we remove the lower level content and do higher order thinking with the instructor present and engage each student everyday? Flipping is just a tool to use. Its not the be all and end all. You're just leveraging technology in a useful way. How did I learn how to use Google docs???? YouTube!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned YouTube, fredcouples. It's a great place to learn! The difference however, is that when you were learning how to use Google Docs with YouTube, it was learner driven. The game changes when we give our students mandatory videos to watch outside of class. If all teachers flipped their classrooms, would we really expect students to go home and spend hours watching video to prepare for the next day of class? I suspect many of them would fall asleep and eventually stop doing it. I don't like homework, anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do like, is Project Based Learning. I try to construct my classes in a way that students build their own knowledge through creative, meaningful, sometimes collaborative projects. I think students learn best when they actively engage in the process. I don't lecture during class or during homework time.
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"[G]ive our students mandatory videos to watch outside of class" is not the definition of a Flipped Classroom. A better definition would be leveraging technology to deliver asynchronous instruction in order to maximize individual instruction time in the classroom. I use PBL and Inquiry methods the majority of the time in my Flipped Classroom. They actually go quite well together. I would suggest you research the Explore-Flip-Apply model as I think you'll find it much more dynamic and engaging than "digitizing lectures" you seem to confuse with Flipped Learning.
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