One day this semester, we had a guest speaker come in named Jon Palmer. Mr. Palmer is known for his "Flipping Physics" videos that he has created. Before coming into this program, I had never heard of flipped classrooms, and it was only this semester that I started to really understand how they work. In a flipped classroom, students actually learn the material at home, and then do their "homework" while they're in class. When they're at home, students might watch a video or a Powerpoint lecture, depending on how their teacher sets it up.
Mr. Palmer first started teaching in a traditional classroom. He then decided to videotape his classes, as a way of gathering information about his teaching. Eventually, he started creating videos that are now used in others' flipped physics classroom! His videos are highly entertaining, and often he goes out and completes real world tasks, such as riding a bike, to explain different concepts like acceleration. Mr. Palmer said that students usually have trouble understand how you can have a negative acceleration, and that actually showing them what this looks like by taking video of himself riding a bike, the students are much more apt to understand and remember the concept.
Mr. Palmer's lecture really got me thinking about what it takes to flip a classroom. I first thought about what a flipped classroom would look like in my current student teaching placement. My biggest concern would be access. While my students are very good at navigating their smart phones (especially during class) I don't know how many of them actually have internet access and computers at their homes. Many of them have spoken about the struggles that they have in their home lives, and the demographic of our school does not guarantee that students have luxuries such as computers. I know that Mr. Palmer and others have said that if they don't have computers, you can have the students watch the videos on their phones. However, I don't know that I believe the students would learn as much trying to watch a lecture on a screen that's only a couple inches big. Furthermore, I have no idea what number of my students have cell phones and data plans. I know that two students in the MAC program are in a flipped classroom together, and they said they pre-load lectures onto laptops for students to take home, so that they can watch them without internet access. I think this is a good idea, but I worry about the liability of allowing the students to take laptops home. Many of our students can't remember to bring a pencil to class, let alone be responsible for a laptop!
Then I started thinking about whether or not I would use a flipped classroom in the future. A lot of this, for me, would depend on my students. If I have students who consistently do their homework and who I trust would watch the videos each night and take notes, I would consider doing a flipped classroom. However, if the students don't watch the videos, then not only do you have to take the class time to explain the new material to them, but now you've wasted the time in which they're supposed to be doing their "homework" therefore you've just gone back to a traditional classroom setting. Also, if I were to flip my classroom, I would want to make sure that my video lectures were of a high quality, and were not just powerpoint slides thrown together. I know this would take a lot of time, so I would have to make sure I'm willing to dedicate that extra time to creating the videos and making it worthwhile for my students. Lastly, I am concerned about how school districts generally feel about flipped classrooms. Is this something you need to get permission about from administration? Does every school district allow it? Is there a lot of push back from parents? These are all questions that come to mind when I think about flipping my future classrooms. Overall, I like the idea of a flipped classroom, but I'm not sure that I believe the benefits of flipping my math class would outweigh the struggles I would run into by doing so.
Would you flip your classroom?
Hi, Morgan,
ReplyDeleteI think you an I share similar views on flipping a classroom. I think that for Jon Palmer, his videos are perfect for flipping a classroom, but I worry about how video I make would turn out, and I don't know if I would be charismatic enough to make videos that students actually want to watch. Additionally, Jon has his flipped classroom be for a class that is not required for every student, so presumably, most students who take his class are interested in the subject and are sufficiently motivated to put in the time to learn. I think this line from your post captures this:
"If I have students who consistently do their homework and who I trust would watch the videos each night and take notes, I would consider doing a flipped classroom."
I think that for Jon's classes, he has students that fit this description, which might contribute to the success he has had with flipping his classroom. I would be interested to see how a required class that is flipped compares.
As of this moment, I do not see myself wanting to flip my future classroom. I think that if I were to try something like this out, I would maybe start with just doing one lesson flipped, and then I would see how it turns out and how the students react to it. If it turn out that few students can fully grasp the material in the lesson at home and I have to do the whole lesson in class anyway, then I would think twice before continuing with the flipped classroom.
Morgan, I've been thinking a lot about Jon's visit and the project that he's undertaken. There's no reason to expect that any of you are likely to be able to churn out videos of this kind anytime soon, even if you thought that the idea was brilliant and it fit with your creative spirit. To me, there are two questions that are suggested by Jon's work that may be more productive to consider. The first is one that Jon alluded to, and that was nicely framed by Griffin when he spoke of "flipping teacher expectations"...what can we borrow from this idea to make small steps forward in the direction of helping our students to take more ownership over their work in our classes *and* to help them to build their confidence, and their arsenal of tools, so as to help them get there? In this connection, I was thinking about what you noticed about Jose Vilson's ideas regarding wait time. It seems to me that this is a capacity-building move on his part, with an implicit message: "I have faith in your ability to wrap your brain around this question, and it's worth taking a few seconds to let you do that so that YOU CAN SEE that you're able to do it."
ReplyDeleteThe second (and related) point is that it could be that making a video or a screencast could be a useful way to model for your students. I'm thinking about those students in Ms. Hooks' Math class who might benefit enormously from seeing how a mathematically expert person goes about tackling a problem...sometimes the "how do I start?" question trips us up before we even get in the game.
Nice post, Morgan...lots to think about.