Originally posted HERE Recently, I was asked the question, “Can you just do a flipped classroom and not have it be a flipped project-based classroom?” Truly, this question comes out of a lack of understanding as to what it means to inject flipped learning into your classroom. My response was in line with my previous blog post: The Method Behind the Madness. I asked this individual, “Well, how do you teach, now?” He looked at me perplexed. And then it hit me; he was looking at flipped learning from a flipped 1.0 perspective.
When flipped learning first began, it was seen as its own thing. You could be a flipped classroom teacher or a traditional classroom teacher. This idea is referred to as a flipped 1.0 perspective. Educators viewed flipped learning as something that would require them to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Many saw it as a “new way” to teach. This perspective is one of the reasons why some teachers are slow to move to flipping their class. Most teachers do not want to “start over” in the way they structure their class. They just don’t. They would instead tweak what they are currently doing and continue to tweak it, and tweak it again, and tweak it again and again and again until the teacher believes that he or she has developed the right strategy for getting their students to learn efficiently. The problem is that no matter how much we tweak our approaches, we are still left with a lack of time to do those approaches in a way that would, indeed, make them as effective as we would like them to be. Flipped Learning 3.0 is a perspective that says, “Let’s take what you are already doing with your students, and add to it the time needed for it to be effective.” Time is an elusive element in education. We all want more of it, but we struggle to find it. I use a project-based learning methodology in my classroom. Before I flipped my class, there was never enough time to do PBL with every unit, even though I knew it was a way to engage 21st-century skills as well as higher-order thinking skills. Because I wasn’t working through a flipped model, does that mean that PBL was a terrible way for me to engage my students…NOPE! What flipped learning does, though, is it gives me the time to do it well. I was able to take what I was already doing, and amplify its impact by adding flipped learning to it. Let’s go back to the original question that sparked this post, “Can you just do a flipped classroom and not have it be a flipped project-based classroom?” It would be like having the best operating system on a computer with no programs installed. Flipped Learning is the operating system in a classroom. However you teach your students, flipped learning makes your instructional methods more effective. I could do PBL without flipping my class, but if I know that flipping my PBL class would increase the amount of time I can work with my students, and it will provide me with the time to deepen my students understanding and mastery of the content, wouldn’t I be doing my students a disservice by choosing to not flip the class? I want to encourage you to begin thinking about how flipped learning works with your instructional approach. How could infusing that instructional approach with flipped learning improve your time with your students? Let’s chat…
0 Comments
Originally posted HERE Listen to my story in the video above, and then leap into the blog post. The nature of teachers is to teach…I know, shocking, but what is surprising is the number of teachers that don’t use a specific instructional method to meet the needs of their students. The question needs to be asked, “How do you teach your students?” Many teachers would answer that question by saying that they use a variety of methods: small groups, one on one, activities, etc. The truth is, though, small groups, one on one, and activities are not instructional methods. They are groupings for instruction. For years, I delivered content to my students in ways that I thought were effective. I taught, or so I thought. I presented information through lecture, reading, and sometimes we did an activity. These are the most passive and least effective means of teaching students according to the Edgar Dale “Cone of Learning.” It wasn’t until I took FLGI’s Certification Level II course that I realized that there were so many instructional practices: Mastery, Project Based Learning, Peer Instruction, Gamification, Socratic Seminars, Inquiry, Genius Hour, and Station Rotation. I learned so much from this course. I knew about Project-Based Learning, it is kind of “MY THING,” but it was so refreshing to learn about so many other ways of structuring a class. When I first began teaching, my classroom did not have structure. I was always trying to decide what the best way for delivering a particular lesson would be. It wasn’t until I decided that I was going to develop a Project-Based Learning environment that my instruction started to become more effective. All of a sudden I had a focus regarding how I was going to prepare every lesson. Integrating a methodology into your classroom is critical. It allows students to make sense of the content in a constant fashion. When I decided to run a PBL classroom, it worked great sometimes, and then there were other times that it was terrible. Something was still missing: Time. It is the one argument against PBL; there just isn’t enough time to do it and do it right. When flipped learning comes into the equation, everything changes. Flipped learning provides teachers with time. It wasn’t until I flipped my class that Project-Based Learning became a genuinely effective instructional methodology. The fact that I wasn’t trying to balance my instructional time with project time solved everything that had once made Project-Based Learning a challenge at times. Regardless of the instructional methodology you use, flipped learning is the meta-strategy that makes it work even better. I want to encourage you to take a look at your instructional practices and ask the question, “How do you teach your students?” Are you using one of the methods I discussed: Mastery, PBL, Peer Instruction, Gamification, Socratic Seminars, Inquiry, Genius Hour, or Station Rotation? How has flipped learning made your instructional methods more effective? |
Mr. Dan JonesMaster Flip Educator with 13 years experience in the classroom. FLGI Faculty Trainer who trains based on the Gold Standard of Flipped Learning 3.0. Expertise in project based learning. Archives
October 2018
Categories |