Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The Flipped Classroom

   I have to admit, when I first heard of the flipped classroom , I was skeptical. I figured that not only would the face to face interactions between students and teachers be lost, but it would be more work for the students to have the lecture portion of the course outside of class on their own. Then I read "Seven Things You Should Know About a Flipped Classroom", and learned that the benefits students receive from this instruction far outweigh the costs. Although more of the responsibility for learning is placed on the student in a flipped classroom, when the students watch the video lectures on their own at home, they can rewind and pause to capture exactly what they need rather than have to try to capture it as soon as the teacher says it. In a flipped classroom, the teacher takes on a more collaborative and co operative role as opposed to the typical head of classroom role; so the face to face interaction is not lost, just slightly different.I definitely prefer the former role as a teacher.
  To comment briefly on the homework article, when I was in high school; homework was always one of my biggest complaints. I would always come home and say "I was just in school all day, what do I need homework for." Perhaps for a student who feels this way(As I am sure many do) the flipped classroom would be a better model. Perhaps if the "homework" was to watch the lecture videos and the in class time was used for more hands on, collaborative activities and in depth discussion of the lectures,students would enjoy school more and get more out of it.

1 comment:

  1. A flipped classroom concept is beginning to catch on. However, whether it is useful or not depends on how it is implemented. We'll see what kind of information we find as more teachers use it.

    ReplyDelete