EDU@YourBest

What to do in the classroom

Here is where we actually get the most common failure among young flipped classrooms, failing to appropriately plan for the group space. To this point, we have talked about planning for what should happen in the individual space. However, the key to the flipped classroom is to evaluate what portions of the learning need to happen in the individual space and which need to happen in the group space. Once we open up this group space, we need to make sure that we have positive, productive, and meaningful learning opportunities ready to be put in the group space.

In this episode I recount my failure and give a few options on how best to utilize the group space.

A very common initial misstep for recently minted flipped classrooms is a teacher who is not fully committed to reorganizing their class in a meaningful way.  In most cases, this is evidenced by flip teachers reteaching the flip lesson in the classroom space. This is a scenario that I guarantee every flip teacher will see or have seen.

A teacher assigns a component of learning to the individual space and the following day the students come to the classroom having not completed the learning component. At this point the teacher doubles down on failure and re-teaches, re-lecturers, or repeats whatever learning component the students were responsible for the night before.

We talk in this episode about ways to address this situation.

This, hopefully short, series highlights various ways that you might cause  yourself problems when planning or implementing a flipped classroom. 

Flip Fail #1 is confusing who the focus and beneficiary of the flipped classroom needs to be. I relate my story of starting my flipped classroom with the wrong motives and wrong mechanics.  While my flipped classroom still benefited students it was in spite of my efforts not because of my efforts. 

We focus in this episode about the tendency we all have, but specifically that young people have, to believe that we can efficiently multitask. While classrooms need to include variety and choice, the ideas that a single student cam effectively accomplish multiple disparate tasks concurrently is patently false. The problem has always existed in the classroom when we ask students to take notes, listen, and participate in discussion, but with the all of the tech students have within reach during their day the fracturing of attention becomes even worse. We talk about how to juggle multiple tasks and meet individual needs while maintaining a clear focus for students.

In this episode we discuss some of the many ways behavior and achievement can be combined or separated. Much like our previous discussion of extra credit, this discussion takes us afield into a variety of education areas and grading constructs. We discuss how we address this issue in our own classes, while still working within the procedures and policies of our learning community. We also do a bit of wishful thinking as all concrete change begins with just such an exercise. While policies regarding behavior and achievement marks are mostly above our pay grade we try and bring our combined experiences to bear on the issue.

In this episode we tackle Bryan's topic of "extra credit". This lightening rod topic begins what has turned out to be a multi-episode thread on the nature of grading and assessment. From the term itself, to the implied impact for both students and teachers, this seemingly simple concept has deep significance in our local learning community. I am willing to bet that anyone who has been a teacher for any reasonable amount of time has encountered a request for, or desire to award, "extra credit". We discuss our personal views, and how this concept is more a symptom of deeper education issues, including classroom funding.

In this episode we do attempt to give you a small picture of who we are and what we are up to in our classrooms. We talk about the rise of tech in the classroom.  We discuss the changing expectations with regard to differentiation.  We also lay out a few goal we are working on throughout this school year. Although we all teach math, as veteran teachers we are involved in many broad areas of education as members of teams, team leaders, and local iconoclasts.  Also I am a full on flipped educator and Ross uses flipped elements, Bryan reflects a more traditional classroom format.   The Flipped Learning Network has been kind enough to team with us in launching this podcast but conversations will not be limited to the flipped model. 

This is the audioblog form of the Flipped Learning Myths series at flippedlearning.org  In this episode I discuss a few lessons about flipped learning and my profession I learned from my other hobby.

"I know what flip is"
As the cycles of education ideas and vocabulary wax and wane it is easy to confuse familiarity with an education term with understanding.of that methodology.   Flipped learning has now been in education circles long enough that most have heard the term. Many have heard the term often enough they feel they have reached a thorough understanding. As a flipped educator for nearly seven years I still feel I have more areas to understand and explore.  Join us for this audioblog version of the article available on www.flippedlearning.org

Okay so if flipped learning can be adapted to students on the two tails or extremes of the normal curve, and if flipped learning is malleable and effective enough to be customized to various student groups, is there anyone for which flipped learning does not work best?  I think that answer has a definitive yes. In this episode we talk about the "Just tell me how to do it" student and the troubled relationship they have with flipped learning.