Saturday, February 18, 2012

The flipped classroom

This is a slightly off topic post.  Yesterday, we had a professional development day.  EdTechTeacher came down to present a series of workshops.  I went to the flipped classroom room and had a great learning experience with others.  Flipping is something I have been reading about for the past four years.  It is basically giving students the time in class to do the most cognitively difficult work.  The idea is to help take out the frustration out of homework.

A few things I took away from the day:

  • Start small if you have too.  Flip one lesson a chapter and build. (I feel the same with new technology)
  • Record some of the lectures in current class.  On lecture days record them and then the record is there and can be refined.
  • Think small bursts of information.  No one wants to watch a 45 minute video about any topic.  This brings me back to idea that I heard long ago about 10 minutes should be max on a lecture before a check in with students is done.  Think short bits that then have them practice the topic, write down questions, journal about the concept...
  • Recording yourself is odd, but the more you do it the more comfortable you are with the sound of your own voice.
  • ScreenCast-O-Matic is a fun tool to play with.  So is the recording in PowerPoint and QuickTime. ScreenCast-O-Matic allows you to add a video of you which would give students a chance to see you as well.
  • VoiceThread is great to have others add video comments to the slides allowing some interactivity in asynchronous class time. Sounds like an oxymoron but it does work.
We got to spend time working on lessons that we have to try to flip them.  Some did examples of problems, review of rubric assessment and what would be a good example, other took some power point slides and recorded voice on them.  It was great to have the time to play and discuss with each other how to incorporate this idea and technology in our classes.  A great day was had (Thanks Rose and Justin).  I can see myself recording some scratch tutorials for the girls and placing them on our class page.

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