Sunday, October 21, 2012

C4T #2

The Nuts and Bolts of Flipping

Amanda Ooten, a science teacher, describes in her post how she makes her videos that her students watch on their own time in her flipped classroom. She states that the end goal in the idea, flipping the classroom, is to have more class time, one on one, with students to dig deeper into the material through activities, labs, and real-world problem solving. So what is exactly is a flipped classroom? A flipped class consists of videos, made by student's teachers, that have the next day's lecture on them. Students watch these videos at home so that there is less lecture time in class and more one on one with students and teachers. The videos are usually 10-15 minutes in length and include everything students need to know about each chapter. Tasks and assignments are assigned during the video that the students will discuss the next day in class. Assignments help the students become more involved with the material besides just reading and watching the videos.
Many different programs are used to create the videos such as Screenflow, Camtasia, Screenium, Jing, CamStudio, and iShowU. It usually takes a total of three hours per screencast for preparation, recording, and editing. Amanda states that the product is well worth the time and hopefully the videos can be used for many years.

Comment #1

I commented and said that I have read articles and watched videos about how to flip a classroom and what exactly that meant. After learning what it means to flip a classroom, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it in my future classrooms. I guess I feel that if the students are watching a video at home and in class, students have group activities, then what is my role as a teacher?
But after reading her post, I told her that flipping the classroom seems like a great idea. I now see the benefits and different opportunities students and teachers have when the classroom is flipped. I gave her a big thank you for helping me to see that this is a more efficient way of teaching and that by flipping your classroom, your students will learn more.

My Flipped Classroom, Part 2

After two months in her flipped classroom, Amanda Ooten wrote a reflection describing the impact this new way of learning had on her and her students. She said at first, her students were overwhelmed with this new concept. They were spending more time on their "at-home" assignments and videos and weren't fully understanding all the concepts that they needed to. They were asking more questions in class, therefore, Amanda was spending more time lecturing. She did some rethinking and flipped her classrooms only 50%. She realized that some concepts need direct instruction at such an advanced level of learning. Her students still watched videos and had "at-home" assignments, but there was also lecture time and in-class discussions. She felt that she was a better teacher because of the flip. She was finally teaching her class the way she wanted to instead of the way the College Board tells you to teach.

Comment #2

I commented and said that I was really glad that she did some rethinking and decided to flip her classroom only 50%. I told her that she was definitely right. Some concepts are difficult to understand at certain learning levels and need to be taught by direct instruction from the teacher. I gave her credit for acknowledging the fact that there needs to be a balance between the amount of lecture time needed and the amount of "at-home" assignments students need to complete. It seemed as though her students really enjoyed this way of learning and so did she. I then congratulated her on her success.

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