The Flipped Classroom

March 30, 2012

The Flipped Classroom

The flipped model refers to the classroom/homework paradigm where the instructional process is shifted where class sessions are for hands-on work and face-to-face interactive interaction with laboratory and in-class activities with teacher/peers tutoring, direct and targeted instruction, and outside of class students watch videos and lectures at home. This new approach enables students to ask and solves questions, and allows teachers to be guides and provide personalized attention addressing specific problems students might be experiencing instead of them being lost and frustrated working at home on their own. To view more on this topic see The Flipped Classroom .

Pros:

21st century learning .Students are actively engaged in problem solving and critical thinking that goes beyond the traditional scope of the course. It also allows students to collaborate more closely with each other and their teachers, provide time for creative, hands-on activities and engaging discourse

Personalized instruction. This allows for more time to individualize instruction in the class time and keeps content alive for remediation, review, or other reference when needed.

Interaction. Establishes dialogue thus the overall interaction in the classroom increases

Facilitates multiple intelligences. It’s a way to reach students who are at varying levels of understanding and skill and enables students with multiple learning styles and abilities to access content at their own pace.

Assist teachers.  It can also save the teacher from having to cram overviews, explanations and homework review into a single class period

Technology utilized wisely and effectively. The flipped classroom does not layer technology onto the current program; it models the selection of technology that achieves instructional goals.

Self-paced learning – Students are able to view the lectures on their own benefits students in that they can watch as many times as they need to understand concepts etc., allowing them to learn at their own pace

Assist Absentees.  Students who are absent from class are able to catch up to speed easier.

Cons:

Lack of internet. Students who lack internet access can be at a disadvantage

Difficult to monitor. It may be more difficult to monitor curriculum content.

Less input from students for lectures. As there will be less face to face lectures there will be fewer instances for Instructors to engage students in discussion and allow students to ask questions to better process the course material as they are receiving it.

Can be time consuming. It takes time to produce the instructional videos.

Below are a few articles that provide interesting and insightful discussion on this classroom/homework paradigm:

1. This article  is about how Stacey Roshan’s, a calculus teacher, went about incorporating this Flip concept into her advanced  Calculus class and it’s effect on her students learning process.
   “Flipped” classrooms take advantage of technology
2. This discussion is about how two Chemistry teachers  in an effort to provide assistance for their absentee students started to record their lessons and then post it online. They soon realized that not only their absentee students were using these lessons, but so did the other students.  These teachers soon realized the opportunity that existed to affect change in the use of class time. The Flipped classroom
3. This article highlights how  an “effective” flipped class looks like. It also provides examples of teachers who have successfully incorporated this concept in their classrooms and how it was done. The Flipped class revealed
   

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