Flipping the Classroom

1. Flipping the Classroom • Dr. Lori L. Petty • May 15, 2012

2. History • Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams Woodland Park High School in Colorado, 2004 • Missed a lot of school • PowerPoint slide-show including voice and annotations, began to record live lessons using screen capture software and posted our lectures online so our students could access them • The Flipped Classroom began - No longer in front of our students and talk at them for thirty to sixty minutes at a time

3. What flipping is NOT.... • A synonym for online videos • When most people hear about the flipped class all they think about are the videos.  It is the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important • About replacing teachers with videos • An online course • Students working without structure • Students spending the entire class staring at a computer screen • Students working in isolation

4. What flipping is... • A means to INCREASE interaction and personalized contact time between students and teachers • An environment where students take responsibility for their own learning • A classroom where the teacher is not the "sage on the stage", but the "guide on the side" • A blending of direct instruction with constructivist learning • A classroom where students who are absent due to illness or extra-curricular activities such as athletics or field-trips, don't get left behind • A class where content is permanently archived  for review or remediation • A class where all students are engaged in their learning • A place where all students can get a personalized education.

5. Khan Academy • http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/06/khan-academy-inspired-flip-of-doctor-office-visit/ • http://www.khanacademy.org/

6. Characteristics • Discussions are led by the students where outside content is brought in and expanded • These discussions typically reach higher orders of critical thinking • Collaborative work is fluid with students shifting between various simultaneous discussions depending on their needs and interests • Content is given context as it relates to real-world scenarios • Students challenge one another during class on content • Student-led tutoring and collaborative learning forms spontaneously • Students take ownership of the material and use their knowledge to lead one another without prompting from the teacher • Students ask exploratory questions and have the freedom to delve beyond core curriculum • Students are actively engaged in problem solving and critical thinking that reaches beyond the traditional scope of the course • Students are transforming from passive listeners to active learners

7. Benefits • Flipping helps busy students • Flipping helps struggling students • Flipping helps students of all abilities to excel • Flipping allows students to pause and rewind their teacher • Flipping increases student–teacher interaction • Flipping changes classroom management • Flipping educates parents • Flipping makes your class transparent • Flipping is a great technique for absent teachers • Flipping can lead to the flipped-mastery program • Students move through the material at their own pace. Not all students watch the same video on the same night

8. Teacher Use • St. Gregory math teacher, Leanne Kuluski • is using screenflick to prepare narrated PowerPoints   • has more time for meaningful discussions and for working on problems • students find the PowerPoints so valuable because they can refer back to them and listen to them multiple times if necessary, great for absences • Don’t take her all that long to prep, and she works to keep them to 20 minutes or so  in length • Embed into them funny parts, with jokes and silly accents and things which surprise and amuse her students.

9. Teacher Use • Shelley Wright is a high school educator in Moose Jaw, SK  • Posted to our wiki - In total, maybe about 25 minutes of work • a Khan Academy video • a couple of TED talks from leading neurologists to explain some of the purposes neurons have and cutting edge research that’s being done in the field. Students are now being taught by leading neurologists.  Shouldn’t all of our biology students be able to say that? • Versatility and flexibility of it - Students can watch, pause and re-watch portions of the lecture. • More time for hands-on experiments, labs, projects, and other activities

10. Teacher Use • Dr. Scott Morris, a Chemistry instructor, • He shares both podcast lectures and narrated PowerPoints with students, and lectures in class much more sparingly than he used to: “much of lecturing now is outline and reiterating the problems of the day and how to approach them” • His flip teaching employs the technology of  Webassign to assess students in how well they have learned the material in the online lectures, and he says students love getting that “green check mark” when they get the Webassignproblem correct • Class time is spent presenting challenging chemistry problems and watching as students work in groups • Dr. Morris advises other teachers considering this approach to not sweat the details • ”The key is to not get too bent out of shape about production quality; just bang it out.  It is more important to get it out there and online than that it be perfect.”   • He works to keep his lectures to 15-20 minutes per segment

11. Teacher Use • Must also specify to students how this model should work • For example, the first time I had students review an online lecture I had created, I noticed that while students did have a better familiarity with the content (probably similar to actually reading the chapter prior to coming to class) • I noticed that they had almost blocked out the majority of the information, examples, and anecdotes I had included in this online lecture. • explain to students that if I had wanted them just to copy down text from the slides I could have just posted or emailed them the presentation • Teach students to find that hard balance between listening to your instructor and writing down important information • We must prepare our students to understand how to maximize flipped instruction as a way to get a basic understanding of the content, replay, revisit, and construct critical questions that will foster powerful classroom discussion

12. Getting Started • Start to think about seat time differently • What will you do in class when you make the students responsible for content? Where does homework fit it? Could this be part of the replacement for traditional homework? Again, be careful of the” course and a half.” • Be careful you don’t create a “course and a half” • If you truly flip, and push content out of the classroom, consider how you will use your face to face class time differently. • Leverage both synchronous and asynchronous technologies when working from a distance • Try to avoid the “lecture” as a way to deliver content from a distance • Allow for experiential learning, interactions and collaboration. • Artifact of understanding • This is something that the student creates that captures the student’s level of understanding through synthesis of the material. This can be anything from a reflective blog post to videos, sound recordings, media presentations, artwork, creative writing, collection of images with reflective text etc. Match the artifact of understanding with the nature and complexity of the material being explored. • Use the tools that you have available • You don’t have to purchase expensive tools to flip your classroom

13. Lectures • The idea of the flipped class started with lecture and direct instruction being done at home via video and/or audio, and what was once considered homework is done in class • Provide more class time for learning/hands-on • Allows for varied forms of instruction (differentiation) • Determining the best pedagogical strategy - this decision-making is a vital part of providing a constructive learning environment for students.

14. Another way to flip... • ‘Flip’ the Teacher • Students can incorporate content into explanatory videos on curricular topics, posting them on a class blog or on School Tube. • After watching each other’s videos on their own time, they can practice the skills involved, or do a group project, when they come to class. • Example: • Students creating presentations about how to use technology effectively and responsibly might draw on articles and blog posts • In class, after watching their classmates’ videos, students can put selected suggestions into practice under the teacher’s guidance and reflect on the process. They can even put together a class  presentation that provides highlights from each video.

15. Resources • The Khan Academy: With the backing of the Gates Foundation, Sal Khan’s organization has become widely recognized as a premier source of free tutorials in dozens and dozens of subjects, over a wide range of grade levels. • The OpenCourseWare Consortium: According to Makeuseof.com, “Simply put, the OpenCourseWare Consortium is the best place to begin looking for free online video lectures”. • TED: The hundreds of inspiring talks from this “Technology, Education, and Design” non profit organization are of an intellectual level best suited for High School or Higher Education students.

16. Resources • CosmoLearningSimilar in structure to the Khan Academy, CosmoLearning collects a whole host of video lectures ranging across a wide variety of subjects. If you need a video to cover a particular aspect of astronomy, there are over 2000 to choose from. Math? Nearly 1700. The major difference between the Khan Academy and CosmoLearning is that multiple instructors do the lecturing here as opposed to one man. • LearnersTV.comThis science-centric video lecture collection is significant due to the breadth of available content through their site. If you click on the “Basics of Biodiversity” for example, you get a series of 10 videos each lasting 2-5 minutes each. Click on the “Fundamentals of Biology,” however, and bear witness to over 57 videos lasting anywhere from 9 to 27 minutes each. • Academic EarthAcademic Earth’s claim to fame is that they only possess online courses from the world’s top scholars. Lectures covering chemistry, economics, engineering, history, law, literature, math, philosophy, physics, and writing are all led by instructors teaching at Ivy League universities and other high ranking academic institutions. If you want your students to have a taste of Harvard level learning, this is your chance.

17. Resources • Teacher Tube • Show Me app • voice recording tool • Teaching Channel • YouTube EDU

18. Resources • Slideshare (www.slideshare.net) • Slideshare is an easy, popular, and free tool for putting PowerPoint slides, as well as many other file formats like PDFs and Word docs, online. The viewer doesn’t need to have PowerPoint or whatever app the original file was created with, they only need web access (free Slideshare accounts only allow for public uploads, meaning they will be available to everyone. For private uploads, one needs to upgrade to a Pro account, which starts at $20/mo.). Of course, simply putting a slide presentation online may not make for particularly exciting delivery of content, but there are ways to improve on this. It is certainly possible for a slide-deck to constitute good delivery, as in this award winning presentation (about Cigarettes, great for a health class or even some science lectures), but your slides may need some work to play better as a stand-alone presentation. Another common technique to take your presentation to the next level is to add voice over, but this requires different tools (more on that next week). For a quick introduction to using Slideshare to share course materials, check out this 4 minute Youtube video from instructor D. Caskey. • Google Docs (docs.google.com) • Another easy way to put pre-existing digital content online is to upload and share them via Google Docs. Google Docs is free and accepts many different file formats. There are plenty of advantages to using Google Docs, including collaboration capabilities. Check out this overview or the “Get Started” page to learn more about Google Docs. For a more in depth examination of Google Docs, here’s a great series of Webinars and videos focused on Google Apps for Education (these also get into other free Google apps that are being used in education). • Wikis • Many practitioners of reverse instruction utilize a Wiki website for delivery of course materials. While this may sound complicated, there are plenty of easy to get started with wiki sites, and it’s not as challenging as you might think. This video, “Getting started with Sites as your class wiki” explains how to get started using Google Sites as a classroom wiki where you share materials, and gradually build on that over time to create a more robust course participation web site. For some great examples of wikis being used in the instructional setting, check out “Best Educational Wikis of 2010”, from Wikispaces

19. Resources • http://webassign.net/ • Skype in the Classroom • Embed Plus • Present.me • Live Binders • MyBrainshark • Screenr • Huffduffer • PodOmatic

20. Precautions • “If you structure your class exactly the same way you have always done but employ it flipped, effectively what you have done is added an extra hour of class for every hour of class the student has. Respect the students’ time.” Richard Talyor, CMO for Echo360 • Video itself will not help kids achieve more in your class. The flipped classroom is about making connections with learners and differentiating your instruction. • If videos are a part of that multi-faceted plan

21. Best Practices • Need to know - basics • Engaging Models - hands-on, activity • Technology - best type • Reflection - Reflect on lessons • Time and Place - keep learning manageable

22. Wrap-Up • Questions • Contact Information • lori.petty@utb.edu