Find my original posting on flglobal.org by clicking HERE
One of my favorite movies growing up was Gene Wilder’s, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In that movie, the character Veruca Salt wanted everything: an Umpa Lumpa, the magical boat, a golden goose, and when I heard her belt out the line, “don’t care how, I want it NOW,” I can remember thinking, ‘What a brat!’ The same thought rings through my head whenever I think about the idea of instant gratification. Today’s society is built on the ideology of instant gratification. We no longer send letters through the mail (and sometimes an e-mail takes too much time), so we text directly. We have “On Demand” television programming, and “On Demand” music programming. “Alexa, what’s the weather. Alexa, play the Moana soundtrack. Alexa, set a timer.” Unfortunately, we “don’t care how, we want it NOW!” It is time, though, to end the need for instant gratification in the classroom. Many teachers feel the pressure of making sure students have been exposed to all of the instructional standards due to the weight of standardized testing. Teaching can be a rather daunting task, especially when we think through everything that has to be done. Toss in a few calamity days and all of a sudden we, as teachers, feel like we are drowning under the pressure of getting through everything. Even though there is a lot of pressure to get through it all, we have to slow down and realize that it isn’t about quantity or even how quickly we get to the finish line, but quality and the journey of getting there. Trying to ensure that all students master all content RIGHT NOW can be one of the most frustrating aspects of teaching. We need students to demonstrate a mastery of the standards in such an immediate manner that we tend not to “care how,” we just “want it NOW!” The truth is, we need to slow down and focus on the how, and be patient with the TIME it takes students to master the standards. Instant gratification is not an ideology that applies to only one particular group in education. Students, teachers, administrators all want results RIGHT NOW! Students want instant gratification: I finished the assignment, so what is my grade. Students focus on what grade they received on an assignment rather than the learning that took place. Due to the technology age that they have grown up in, gone is the journey to their experiences. Everything is immediate; from access to information on the internet to publishing things on the internet. Teachers want instant gratification: I taught it so they should have understood it. If we don’t get that instant gratification, we are frustrated due to a lack of patience in the learning. We want to see immediate progress out of our students. Administrators want instant gratification: Often there is little time to explore instructional practices because administrators want to know that what you are doing in the classroom is effective. There isn’t time in the year to “explore”. We need to do education right and do it right now. After all, these kids have a test to pass. The pressure to produce data that demonstrates how are students are doing can be very overwhelming. ‘Don’t care how, I want it NOW!’ The elusive educational element that everyone wants, but very few seem to have is TIME, and that is what Flipped Learning gives us all. As a flipped educator, I am able to focus on the quality of the education I am providing rather than the quantity of standards that are covered. The depth of the learning produces great traction for future lessons. One way to think about it is in regards to a tire. Does slamming down the accelerator make the car move, no. The tires just spin in place and start to smoke. Sounds kind of familiar to the classroom. We slam down the accelerator on the standards and then we tend to get frustrated because our students are not making the progress we expected. We wanted immediate progress. Because Flipped Learning moves instruction to the individual space, teachers use the group space for ACTIVE learning. Due to the additional time this gives us when we are face to face with our students, we are forced to go slowly. We can be patient and long tempered with the mastery of standards. We have time for students to be active with their learning. The more active they are with the content, the more connections they are able to make with the content. Slow and Steady Wins the Race When we look at our curriculum, we need to be able to identify those standards that are foundational or non-negotiable. In other words, these are the standards that must be mastered first. If we go slowly with these foundational standards, it makes the others flow more smoothly. If we do not take the time to ensure mastery at the lower levels, we are going to continue to spin our tires and be frustrated because we do not see the progress we want or need. Having the right materials to build with make this process simpler, but knowing what holds it all together is even more important: patience. Flipped Learning provides educators with the ideal formula for slowing down, creating active learning spaces, and checking for mastery. Here are some simple things that we can do to slow down, gain traction, and make progress. First, present content in the individual space. This allows your students to come to class and practice what you just taught them. This does not mean that they should or will be at a level of mastery from being exposed to a concept once. You can work with the students to see where they may need more support as you progress through the concept. This enables you to help your students gain traction. Second, create an active learning space for students to demonstrate their knowledge. Students need to DO something with the information they have been presented with. It is one thing to memorize and spit back that memorized piece of information, but it is something altogether different to ask students to apply that information to a new scenario. Truly, this is going to challenge EVERYONE in the classroom. Third, ask your students to create something based on the pieces of information you taught them. This could range from developing their own story problems to the integration of project based learning. This solidifies the content for the student when they have to engage with the content in more of a personal or individual manner. Fourth, teachers need to revisit the information that they taught to the students based on the previous three steps. Revisiting this information enables you to clarify misconceptions and further check for mastery of content. The fifth and final step is actually assessing students, and that is only if you feel that they are ready. As I stated previously, going slowly, especially through foundational standards, enables you to have greater traction on future lessons.
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Originally posted on my flglobal.org blog. Check it out HERE
The topic of rigor is a focus of many administrators throughout the world. Administrators want to ensure that classrooms are being conducted in such a manner that students are getting the most from the curriculum while being challenged to engage higher order thinking skills. When we approach the idea of flipping our classes, administrators want to ensure that rigor is not going to flounder. I believe that Flipped Learning creates an environment in which rigor thrives. A fellow Master Flipped Educator, Peter Paccone, asked the students and teachers in his high school to define rigor. The results of that poll were revealing. He said the students viewed rigor as the number of hours spent outside of class on graded, challenging homework. When the teachers were polled, they said that rigor was a class with a foreboding name (Chemistry, Calculus BC), only a few A’s, slightly more B’s, and lots of C’s. These results made it clear that there is confusion about what rigor actually means. Google defined it as the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate, but it lacked the qualities I felt administrators were looking for in classrooms. After much discussion with other flipped classroom teachers, a definition of rigor emerged. One that I believe is challenging, yet foundational for a quality education. Rigor is the act of engaging higher order thinking skills within an active learning environment to generate a thorough, exhaustive, and accurate engagement with classroom content. My search for a connection between Flipped Learning and rigor began with a question: Does Flipped Learning produce rigor in the classroom? The answer seemed to be a resounding NO, which did not make sense. Martha Ramirez, a fellow Master Flipped Educator, told me that Flipped Learning could lead to rigor, but it does not guarantee it. As I pondered that statement, it became apparent that rigor is not guaranteed because the quality of Flipped Learning that is being delivered has great variance. Reza Najjar, a Master Flipped Educator from Iran, shared his list of the characteristics of an effective flipped classroom:
If flip is being implemented well, it harnesses the potential for an extremely rigorous learning environment. Merely flipping a class does NOT guarantee a rigorous classroom, just as having the right ingredients to make a cake (eggs, flour, oil, milk, etc) do not guarantee the cake will taste good. The teacher or cook must use the ingredients appropriately to ensure a quality product. When educators are well trained in Flipped Learning and are given the support necessary to create a positive flipped classroom, rigor has a much greater potential for developing. Though flip may not “guarantee” rigor, it can be argued that flip sets the stage for rigor to occur more efficiently than in a traditional instructional model. Nothing in education can guarantee results, because everything in education has the potential to be done poorly. There isn’t a 100% guarantee, but there can be a high probability. So as I revisit my initial question: Does Flipped Learning produce rigor in the classroom? The answer depends on the quality of the flipped education that is being delivered. Great flipped teaching leads to a rigorous education through:
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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
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