Four Essential Elements of a Flipped Classroom
”I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
This proverb dates back to Confucius 500
BC. The meaning and expectations of this
ancient idea rings true in the transition to the flipped classroom.
The
traditional “teacher directed” classroom of the industrial age was absolutely
dependent upon the teacher delivering content in a streamlined manner by
lecturing to groups of students. This
was at one time the most efficient way to get information to the masses in a
timely manner. However, this method is
wrought with deficiencies. First and
foremost, it is entirely dependent upon the teacher and favors the auditory
learner who absorbs everything they hear.
Second it demands that the students maintain a passive posture, even if
they are busy taking notes. And, third, it leaves out any student who misses
the lecture, due to illness, a meeting with an advisor, or early dismissal for
sports. The list is endless.
Even
when students pay attention and take good notes, they are then subject to the
homework wasteland upon arriving home later that day. With three, five or seven classes of homework
to attack and three, five or seven lectures to revive in their minds students
are faced with the completion of assignments that in most cases are primarily
composed of busy work and repetition.
Typically there might be fifty math problems from two sections of their
math text, or balancing twenty equations in chemistry. If they can do the first five, why do they
want to do the rest, or if they can’t do the first five, they definitely will
not do the rest.
The
flipped classroom turns that scenario upside down. What was once done in the classroom is now
done at home and what was once a frustration at home becomes classroom work
with a purpose. Utilizing the technology
and connectivity of today the content can now be delivered by a variety of
means. Using the plethora of resources
that are now available at the swipe of a fingertip, students can both see and
hear the content through online texts, videos and audio texts. Students can listen to their book online,
they can read articles from around the world, they can see lectures from
colleges through iTunes U or they can watch the millions of videos available
from YouTube, Kahn Academy, Vimeo or Learnzillion, the list is as endless as
the possibilities.
But
simply having the content available does not equate to learning. This is where the classroom comes in. While the teacher no longer is the keeper and
distributor of the knowledge, it is the master teacher who becomes the docent
for the learning experience. It is the
educator who turns the content into viable and meaningful threads upon which
the students can weave their knowledge and understanding. It is the process of transferring what has
been seen and heard into a process that can solidify understanding.
The
Flipped classroom is a platform that can allow students to synthesize their
understanding of the content into a product that is real and the knowledge is
authentic.
There
are four main components necessary to execute the flipped learning model:
•
Student Centered Environment
•
Teacher as Learning Facilitator
•
Content Delivery Resources
•
Higher-Order Questions
The Student
Centered Classroom
Above all else the flipped classroom demands that the
learning environment is student centered.
Simply asking students to watch recorded lectures at home only to
complete the worksheets in class that would have been assigned for homework in
the past does not make the classroom student centered. Nor is this a flipped
classroom. The student centered
classroom focuses on the student’s ability to demonstrate their knowledge. Therefore, this learning environment demands
options to synthesize the knowledge and demonstrate understanding. Students who have a choice in the delivery
for their understanding are less likely to opt out of demonstrating what they
have learned.
It then becomes paramount that the teacher relinquishes the
role of “sage on the stage” and embraces the role of “guide on the side”. The educator becomes the mentor/coach whose
interactions with students are to assist and guide the student’s own
self-actualization. The educator is
still a valuable resource of knowledge and skill. It is the experience of the educator whose
questions and prompts are absolutely necessary as students navigate their own
course for understanding.
The Teacher as
Facilitator
It is the educator who guides this process through the
development of content libraries and options for learning. Who constructs pathways of project based and
inquiry based learning opportunities that solidify the students understanding
and format raw content and basic understanding into mastery of the objectives
and standards that will be the measures of success for their students.
The teacher facilitator model provides a framework whereby
any student at any level of ability can feel successful. To some this environment may seem less
structured but in actuality the good facilitator has created a learning
structure that is comfortable and safe for all to learn. It is in this role as teacher facilitator
that avenues for interaction with students to provide formative assessment
opportunities and the teachable moments that often appear in much more relaxed
and comfortable settings.
The teacher facilitator must mentor students offering
opportunities for students to reflect on their own understanding and self
assess their progress toward completion of a unit, project or goal. Students must
sense that they are in control of their own learning and that the knowledge
gained as come value for their life. It
is in this role that the educator has a greater opportunity to aid students in
the acquisition of knowledge.
Content Delivery Resources
Although the term “flipped classroom” has come to mean
developing or using video content online, simply recording lectures and posting
them online does not meet the needs of all students. The content must be engaging and must support
a variety of learning styles. Teachers
can develop content on their own or may team up with other teachers to create
lessons. In some cases creating
conversational style presentations that allow for questions and answers as well
as reactions to the content. Students
can be also be involved in developing content through creating their own videos
or as part of teacher developed video.
There are many ways to provide engaging content for
students. Educators can develop
simulations and educational games that can model content. Students can be asked to perform web
searches, read online articles, listen to excerpts from audio books, hear
online lectures, or interact with online simulation tools. Teachers can assign
surveys via social media, or require basic research tasks for the collection of
data.
The key to content delivery is to use digital content to
provide students with threads of knowledge that will help them to build a
framework that both supports and connects them to the content.
Higher Order
Questions
The flipped learning environment requires a shift from the
current model of training students to answer lower order questions and raise
the expectations by demanding Higher Order questioning. No longer is it acceptable to simply be able
to list, define, and order. The content
threads that can be developed through the varieties of content available
require that students become problem solvers.
Students should be encouraged to question the possibilities. To think outside the box and search for
additional means to utilize the information.
Their future employment will be more dependent upon the big picture
reasoning of the right brain than the repetitive task based thinking of the
left brain.
Give them opportunities to hear the information in a
variety of ways. Let them witness visual
formats that provide content that is engaging and authentic. But most importantly let them do what they
can to make their knowledge real, the information clear and their understanding
complete. It is in this type of synthesis
that students become critical thinkers, communicators and collaborators who can
maximize their own potential.
No comments:
Post a Comment