Traditionally, teachers use the classroom-based time to deliver the content and the underpinning knowledge needed to learn a new topic. A lecture, tutorial, some textbook reading, or videos to help students grasp a new topic or understand a new concept.
Your classroom time is spent ensuring you deliver all the information the students need to ‘get it’ and all the information they need to complete the assignment you are going to give them at the end of the day for homework, right?
But what if in reality that isn’t really what happens, I’m not sure about you but occasionally, I’m stumbling my way through the information too quickly at the end of the day to make sure the students have all the details they need to know to get their homework done….
Perhaps the students have asked a lot more questions than expected so time ran away.
Maybe everyone arrived late, and you lost the first ten minutes of your lesson.
Perhaps you were losing the class and you had to keep trying to get back on track
Or maybe it was just one of those days!!
Now, this is tricky because we want to give the students time to digest the information we are giving them, we want to encourage participation in class through questions. Hey, if it’s a little off-topic but everyone is invested and participating, that suits me just fine.
Now, let’s take students who have low achievement levels. Perhaps it takes them more time to digest information? Perhaps they have a lot going on in their life? Holding their concentration for a thirty-minute lecture is not going to happen. In fact, maybe some are only in lessons half the week. You get the picture.
Well, this is where flipping the class can be worth a try.
The ‘What’ and ‘Why’
A flipped class does exactly what it says on the tin, flips the teaching model.
Traditional:
Instruction and delivering concepts: In Class
Applying the learning through practice: Homework
Flipped learning:
Instruction and delivering concepts: Homework
Applying the learning through practice: In Class
So essentially, you are delivering the concept elements of your class online…think of recording your lessons, using videos to show examples, assigning textbook reading on a new topic. The day after, the classroom-based lesson will commence with a quick teacher recap of the concept, followed by an opportunity for students to ask questions about things they don’t understand. A chance for an in-depth discussion on areas that people have lots of questions on.
Once you’ve got that covered, you can then move on to doing the assignments in the class. They can work in groups, or individually. Ideally, whatever works best for the topic. But the idea behind this model is that the classroom time remains more active and engaging for the students while allowing you to check each individual’s understanding and provide 1-to-1 support.
If students are struggling to understand something, they often don’t know it until they are trying to apply or use it. If that happens when they are at home doing their assignments then frustration sets in and they hit the wall, unable to move forward without support.
The Benefits You Can Expect When You Flip a Classroom
With students with significant achievement deficits, the flipped lesson can hold even more benefits:
- It allows students to spend as much time as they need to understand the concept. They can rewind and re-watch lectures, read additional resources provided, or even use google (let’s face it, we know they will).
- Students with regular absences can catch up on their classes and not miss all the theory and concept development elements.
- It allows you to observe how they are trying to tackle assignments, perhaps through watching you can see a simple way to help them.
- The format keeps it interesting, no one likes sitting still at a desk and listening to lectures, so this allows them to do that element in the comfort of their own home and be active in class.
Of course, ensuring everyone has access to virtual learning opportunities is essential… so resources need to be accessible on phones, and provisions put in place for those who need them.
The ‘How’
Now is the time to run with this concept if you want to flip a classroom. Our students have become more familiar with online learning this year. So, here are your steps:
1. Choose a topic
Look at what you have coming up over the next few weeks and see what topic this could work best for. Start with something that is a little simpler for students to pick up, let’s not roll with the most complex mathematical equations right yet! Decided? Great, onto the next step.
2. Decide on what kind of resources to use
Now your recent experience as a virtual learning teacher throughout this year has probably been a good trial and error training base for what kind of resources your students respond to. Think about what technology they have available, and what they will engage with.
3. Create your lectures and videos
Now it’s time to get creative. Record your lessons. Keep them short so that people can access them in bitesize chunks. Look online for suitable supporting videos and resources to make sure there is a mixture to keep it interesting.
4. Be transparent about what you are doing.
Tell the students (and parents if relevant) about what you are doing. That you are letting them have the concept information early to that they can digest it, think about it, gather questions if they have them, and then use the classroom time to make sure that they ‘get it’ and to work on the tricky bits where you as a teacher can be most useful – no more banging your head against a wall trying to do your homework.
5. Get your students on board.
Getting your students on board comes in two stages. You need to do well in the previous step, being transparent about what you do. They need to understand why you’re switching it up, and they need to realize that if it goes well there will be no more sitting in boring lessons trying to keep their eyes open (just teasing, I’m sure you’re much more engaging than that, but you get the drift).
Secondly, let’s face it, it’s always good to put a little task in place to help encourage them to actually do it. So, I would set homework of ‘Write down three key facts of X and 3 questions you want additional information on… something like that.
6. Evaluate
See how well it all goes. Look at the results. Evaluate class engagement. Look at how much of the theory and concept was digested and how much you had to re-teach and go over. And ask the students how they felt it went? Did they like that approach? What worked for them and what didn’t.
There is of course concern that students won’t watch the lectures, the videos, or read the resources, we all know that….in which case, it’s not the right route for that class. But, just maybe, having the extra time to watch the video, research the concept, and having the hands-on support with the practical application of learning in class might just leapfrog them over the hurdles they’re stumbling at.
Go on, give it a try. And if you want a little help along the way you can always visit the Flip Learning Network here for plenty of hints, tips, and resources: https://flippedlearning.org/
