A Better Way to Learn

Have you ever thought about flipped teaching? Flipping your classroom to introduce something new? Wondered how to do it? I'm going to try flipping some professional development (how to use a tool) because I think it's important to reach as many people as you can when they are ready to learn. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. In the meantime, here's a few tips on how to flip your classroom.

Flipping a classroom is time consuming and challenging. Done wrong, it can backfire. Even the best teacher can get lower results. Administrators will be keen to help you change what you are doing if your class test scores fall. A little planning ahead ahead of time will save you in the long run.

I'm sharing some advice from some teachers that have focused on flipping their classroom for a few years. One such teacher is Ramsey Musallam, @ramseymusallam. Dr. Musallam had a few eye-popping experiences that he shared in the STEMx Conference Keynote (the recording is listed under his name Ramsey Musallam). I really like his class website, clean, clear of clutter. Here are some of his flipping cool ideas. Click on the image to see additional information.

Notice in the image Ramsey doesn't start with the students watching the video. That's the lesson learned based on fallen test scores. You might not care about test scores but as long as Universities and Colleges ask for SAT/ACT/GRE/MCAT scores, I care. It's just that simple. There are more people that want to go to Harvard than there are spaces available. How would you select your crew?

Here's another diagram based on Bloom's to consider:

Bloom's Taxonomy and the Learning Cycle by Ramsey Musallam.

WHAT?

Ramsey pointed out some research that suggested introducing topics using an explore period (even ten minutes) makes a significant impact on how the flip video is absorbed/leaned by the students. Stanford Research: How to Flip the Flipped Classroom Protocols By Wired Academic on July 27, 2013. Here is the Stanford Report, July 16, 2013, Classes should do hands-on exercises before reading and video, Stanford researchers say. This quote at the beginning of the article is powerful, "A study from the Stanford Graduate School of Education of how students best learned a neuroscience lesson showed a distinct benefit to starting out by working with an interactive 3D model of the brain."

I think this raises questions we need to be asking. Is there an opportunity to begin with an interactive 3D models or some other hands-on activity showing real life use/demonstration?

What does flipping look like in a typical classroom? A video and some questions done at home; during the day teacher facilitated discussions or hands-on activities. It has changed over time for Ramsey. 

I always thought my learning was better when I read it, discussed it, then taught it to someone else. I felt like a master. We need kids to want to be curious and be comfortable without being told the answers for the test because we don't know the questions yet but we want to prepare students to solve those complex problems, cooperatively and collaboratively. Like many other people, I know our children have to excel in teamwork. That's their future.

One tip to wrap this post up is to include yourself in it if at all possible, your image and voice. Crystal Kirch, @cystalkirch, Flipping with Kirch, gathered feedback from her students as she ventured along this teaching strategy and she found that students did enjoy her class videos more when she was in it. Good luck. Fro some teachers it'll be a breeze to record themselves, voice and image, but for others it'll be a challenge. Try it once, twice and yes the third time and so on will get easier. I think the students are worth it. Use Camtastia ($) or Google Hangouts (free) to name just two tools to consider for creating your screencasts. 

Teaching is adapting, moving forward. Flipping classrooms is genius!