Flipped Learning

Flipped learning is becoming more and more prevalent in the education world. Knewton has created a fabulous infographic to describe the main components of flipped learning. Click here to view the infographic Flipped Learning: Turning Traditional Education on its Head

In my classroom, I have begun to experiment with the idea of flipped learning. While not all of my students have access to the internet at home, we are a 1-1 school so each student has a laptop assigned to them. This year we are moving to Chromebooks which will add another layer of learning to my teacher toolbox, but we have been using Google Apps for Education for about two years so I don’t feel like there will be too many significant changes on that front.

I flipped a significant amount of my lessons last year in both math and science and I am looking forward to applying the strategies I’ve been learning through the EdTechTeam Online courses to improve the practice. For the most part, I saw students who were more engaged and active as learners in the classroom. Flipping lessons also allowed me to differentiate for the diverse learning styles and levels that come with a multi-age, inclusion model school.

Flipping lessons didn’t only benefit my students. I gained energy and excitement to create the fun lessons I’d dreamed about creating in college, but had those dreams squashed by curricular prisons and drill and kill methods. Moving schools empowered me to take risks with my teaching and move through the teachable moments, even if it wasn’t covered in the textbook or a topic on the state assessment. Flipping lessons allows me to work smarter and more creative in my lesson planning which not only keeps my students engaged, I stay motivated and energized in an often soul crushing career.

One of the things my students will be doing when school starts in the fall is creating blogs to share their research. There are a lot of articles about whether student blogs should be public or highly moderated by the teacher. I attended a session at Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Summit last year and the facilitator had a great perspective about teaching students how to be digital citizens and how to react to negative comments online. I think it is definitely a skill that is lacking in modern world of social media and the number of people who hide behind a screen to flame others. I go back and forth and know it will be a point of conversation for my staff and maybe the district about the topic, but for now, I believe the students' blogs should be public. Click here to view the lesson plan document for a flipped lesson.