While I am sure there are some teachers who do wonderful things with the "flipped classroom," one of the newest and, as such, unproven educational fads, our new state-operated school in Normandy, is going to jump into flipped classrooms all the way. Here is the release from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
As part of the new beginning for the Normandy Schools Collaborative, the tradition of teachers giving classroom lectures and students doing homework at night is being turned on its head at Normandy High School. The school is adopting the flipped classroom concept in appropriate subjects beginning next school year. Training for administrators was held on July 15, and teachers will receive training in August.
"Flipped classrooms are a growing, innovative way to improve student achievement," said Margie Vandeven, deputy commissioner for the division of learning services at the Department. "The concept allows teachers and students to maximize the time they have together in class."
In a flipped classroom, students view their teacher's recorded lessons or presentations online outside of class. They can watch the videos as often as needed, and they have the ability to write questions to let the teacher know which parts of the lesson they don't understand. Then during class, the teacher can work with students one-on-one and in a group to improve learning. Activities normally assigned for homework, such as solving problems, responding to questions, or readings, writing or projects, will be done in class so that students have the support they need. This format means that students will be actively engaged during class each day. Areas of focus for the Collaborative in the next school year include student engagement, teacher content knowledge and the efficient use of data in designing instruction.
Improving student achievement is essential to ensuring all Missouri students graduate ready for college and career - the first goal of Missouri's Top 10 by 20 <http://dese.mo.gov/top-10-by-20> initiative. The initiative is aimed at placing Missouri among the top 10 states in education by 2020.
The high school building will be open before and after school for students who do not have Internet access available at home. Internet access periods may also be available during the school day if needed.
Teachers record their lessons through CrazyForEducation of St. Louis. Once a teacher uploads a video to the service, reviewers look for clarity and content. Teachers who lack compelling presentation or technical skills can receive coaching. CrazyForEducation is totally free for teachers and districts, and there is no cost to students to view videos of their own teachers.
3 comments:
This can work really well as long as you don't require students to watch 6 lectures all at once. That's what happened with my kid.
Like all fads, this really is nothing new. All law schools use it. There they call it the "Socratic method," named after the ancient Greek philosopher, because he used it, too. Rather than lectures, the students do the reading outside of class and then have to be prepared to discuss it in class. It's something that's been going on for thousands of years, but now it has a new name and clever marketing. Whoop-de-doo.
This concept really isn't that novel. . . this is essentially how things worked when I was in school (25-35 years ago), but we read from a text book rather than streaming video.
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