Teachers "Doing The Flip" To Help Students Become Learners

flip.reverseteaching.jpg

"The way we were taught is not necessarily
the way we should be teaching students."

- Stacey Roshan, HS Algebra Teacher, Bullis School

Learning for Mastery
3 Quick Videos Below

It's called "flip teaching" and "reverse teaching" or a "backwards classroom" (who knew?), and "reverse instruction." Here's how it's happening, for real:

Kids watch lectures and videos at home
Class is for hands-on work and face-to-face interaction with teacher/peers

So why has this method become such a booming topic in education?

The days of the teacher as "sage on the stage" are numbered. Instead, the teacher becomes the "guide on the side" where students are using the class/school experience as a fully interactive experience WITH the teacher - - instead of the teacher being the one-way traditional talking head. This way, students are asking questions and solving problems with the teacher or fellow students - instead of just sitting compliantly and listening - where the teacher can spend more time addressing specific questions and personalized attention, rather than just the one-size-fits-all lecture.

This is called "mastery", not unlike advancing in sports or the arts . . .one advances to the next step after having proven mastery of certain skills and proficiency, not just based upon age or grade level.

Who else thinks "being flip in education" is a good thing?

HS Science Teacher Aaron Sams is doing it (video #1 below).
HS Algebra Teacher Stacey Roshan, from the Bullis School in Md., is doing it by flipping homework being done in class with the "lectures" being watched and reviewed at home. (video #2 below).
HS Science Teacher Jon Bergman, is walking the talk (video #3 below).
Professor Karl Fisch is doing it, and calls it "The Future of Education".
Author Daniel Pink is talking about it in the UK with his Flip Thinking post.
Bill Gates is promoting it. His insight starts at the 6:45 mark.
Author Seth Godin is writing about it and suggesting we push back on mediocre professors.
You may understand it when you see videos like this.

". . . teachers who help students become learners,
who can learn FOR themselves and BY themselves."
- teacher Aaron Sams

Originally Published Jan 7, 2011 The Daily Riff

Related Posts:
Would You Hire Your Own Kids? The 7 Skills Schools Should Be Teaching Them

How The Flipped Classroom is Radically Transforming Learning

The Best Way to Reach Each Student? Private School Math Teacher Flips Learning

| Post a Comment

Carolyn

Not a single one of you address what i am supposed to do for my students who do NOT have access to Internet at home....and, believe it or not...there are students who cannot afford it, do not have it, parents won't get it, don't believe in it....(and the list goes on!).

How am I, responsibly, supposed to require ALL of my students to have viewed the content if this is the case? HOW do I serve ALL of my students? As long as even ONE student is being left out by this type of instruction....HOW do I justify it?

I would LOVE to be able to do this...however, have students who do not have the technology required to do it.

The district my husband teaches in is 70% free and reduced lunch, high level of poverty. PLEASE, tell me how, how, do we justify to parents that they must shell out for Internet access when they can't afford to put food on the table? When we are sending backpacks home with the kids on Fridays containing food so they have something to eat over the weekend.....

Yet, we are to teach these children how you are?

Really?

Yeah, it's all butterflies, and rainbows, and unicorns....

:(

Beth

Carolyn, I hope you come back to the site and see this. At my school, we put the videos on flash drives for students with computers but without internet. If they don't have a computer, we burn it to a DVD. We haven't run into a case where one of the options didn't work for a student yet.

Lisa

You can create instructional documents that walk through the same material. It's not quite as effective as watching someone work it out in real-time, but it can still introduce them to the topic and require no internet access. You can also suggest that they come to school a bit early or late and use the library/computer lab computers to view the presentations if they feel they are more beneficial than the handouts. I intend to give all students handouts as well as links to videos so they can choose which method works best for them in their situation.

Michael

I think it's a bit problematic that all three videos on this page are ads for Camtasia Studio.

Brian Steffen

I JUST started this in AP Stats as well as introductory probability.

I agree that this should be coupled with reading of texts as well and not as a replacement. I try to keep videos to under 10 minutes. This allows for a just the right amount of time for input. They follow up with a google form that demonstrates to me they actually watched the video. This gives them 2-3 minutes of processing and output from the lesson.

The kids are geeked about the reversal of time spent at home and in the classroom. "So, I can watch the video without all the class distractions?" asks one of the students. Notetaking now includes more questions about what they are watching, providing greater depth of exploration on their own.

I'm hoping to expand to include student work as demonstrations and challenge them to improve on my work. Make the learners the instructors as well.

I use Promethean and love it. We have an elementary teacher using Screenchomp on a few iPads with her 4th graders. She is finding it to be not just for reteaching, but also as an assessment tool.

Lastly, recency is primacy! If they watch it and work it correctly before they sleep, there is the best opportunity for storage of "good" data that night.