Category: Flipped

Posted on

Alpha Centauri Flipped Lesson

Prompt: Students were asked to design a flipped lesson and then write a blog post that showcases their flipped lesson and reaction to designing it. 

Alpha Centauri is the precursor to the Civilization games, and, in my opinion, is one of the greatest games ever made. This video is less of a specific lesson, although it does introduce you to some of the general features of the game. A true lesson would be hours long, dissecting all of the particulars of multiple different strategies, factions, and more. Instead, I hope this video is just enough to whet your appetite and get you excited to play this phenomenal game.

In regards to the flipped lesson itself, I’ll be very honest. I hate the sound of my own voice. Furthermore, I hate the act of recording itself. It’s like talking on the phone, a prime chance for me to stumble over myself, use far too many ums, and generally make a fool of myself. It was perhaps the single most reason I put it off until now. At least when speaking in public, I can feed off the cues of my audience. When I’m alone, I can only hear the thoughts of my own worst critic – you know who that is.

That being said, I definitely see the benefits of this model. I don’t believe it is satisfactory as a complete substitution for the traditional classroom model. There are too many students who, whether it be an issue of motivation or some other factor, not complete the assignment and be ready for class. However, if it is something introduced early on, and scaffolded towards, it may become an important tool in a teacher’s repertoire

Posted on

Flipped Lessons, Changing Roles

flipped classroom

Prompt: Students were asked to design a flipped lesson and then write a blog post that showcases their flipped lesson and reaction to designing it. 

During this week’s class, I had the opportunity to create a flipped lesson using the TedED Lesson generation program. I created my lesson around a video from the YouTube channel Crash Course American History, hosted by John Green. Find my flipped lesson here.

The TedEd Lesson tool is a great resource. It allows teachers to either choose their own video from other sources (including TED talks and YouTube videos) and generating questions/discussing feeds, all with a useful statistics function to track the students that have watched the video and answered the questions.

TedEd is definitely a resource I will use in the future. I think thing about flipped lessons that I am most skeptical about is making sure that students are actually doing the tasks and learning the content at home. However, TedEd solves this problem by giving teachers the statistics for their lessons and see which of their students have completed it. The goal of completing these lessons at home is to introduce the content to students and get them thinking about the types of topics they will discuss in class. This also opens up class time for authentic activities and allows teachers to check-in with students, rather than the traditional model of delivering content to students in class and expecting them to complete a check-in assignment for homework. The biggest strength of flipped lessons is giving teachers more time to interact with students in completing assignments, and makes it the responsibility of the student to learn the content and ask questions when needed.

As we discussed in class, flipped lessons change the role of both the teacher and the student. For this reason, many teachers are skeptical about implementing flipped lessons into their instruction. However, changing this classic understanding of what a teacher’s job is and what a student’s responsibility is allows for greater classroom involvement and student motivation, which are crucial in creating valuable learning environments.

Image Source: Library of Congress

  • Title: Schenectady, New York. A section of a blueprint reading class at the Oneida School
  • Creator(s): Bonn, Philip, photographer
  • Date Created/Published: 1943 June.

 

 

Posted on

Flipped Class with Screencast

Citation Needed
Citation Needed

Prompt: Students were asked to design a flipped lesson and then write a blog post that showcases their flipped lesson and reaction to designing it. 

Last class we explored the flipped lesson and the means in which it could be used to move a lecture from the class into homework and the tasks that would be commonly relegated to homework into class time. I explored the options and opportunities that screecasting gave me in moving instruction from the classroom to homework. I found this to be most useful for reinforcing pieces of an assignment or paper that are important throughout the class. I can see me creating a screecast for different methods of citations that would be a reference material for students if they are not confident in their abilities in citing. Since providing correct citations are becoming an increasingly important part of writing a paper I think that providing students a means to check their work with a step by step guide would be used to help students using a citation style. The problems of access or if students don’t watch the videos are reduced if the videos aren’t needed for instruction. I think that the determination to use a flipped classroom more often will depend on whether or not I think that my students have access to a computer at home or that they are responsible enough to do the flipped lesson at home. It is at times like these that knowing my students is a determinant factor in how the class works.

Image Credit: [Citation Needed] Retrieved from: http://ringling.libguides.com/content.php?pid=179647&sid=4649364

 

Posted on

Possibilities of Flipped Learning

The basic structure of TEDed Flipped Lessons.
The basic structure of TEDed Flipped Lessons.

Prompt: Students were asked to design a flipped lesson and then write a blog post that showcases their flipped lesson and reaction to designing it. 

I found creating a TEDed flipped lesson to be both challenging and interesting. As a future teacher, websites like TEDed present the possibility for students to take their learning into their own hands, especially when showing that they can be responsible for what they learn content-wise.  Flipped lessons, while versatile, don’t easily lend themselves to those students who do not have internet access. I do find it to be an interesting site in terms of supplementing content and classroom time. I feel like it would be great for reviewing information.

In my lesson, I used a Crash Course US History video on the American Revolution as my flipped lesson. This particular lesson was challenging, because the video is 11 minutes long, and making sure that the “Think” section had different multi-choice questions on each part of the video was difficult. I feel like TEDed works perfectly if you have the precise video and have gone over the information in class before.

While I find that these flipped lessons give me the chance to think deeply about what I believe to be important information for my students to know, it is also difficult to create. The difficulty comes in part from having to watch these videos and having to scrounge for the exact points I want the focus to be on. While it might not sound difficult, it actually is, as  I noticed when working on my previous mentioned flipped lesson. The particular video I used contained a lot of fast talking and a lot of information.

If I were to use TEDed in my classroom, I would want it to be used in a situation where it would serve as review or prove to be supplemental. I believe that TEDed could be well used more in the supplemental area, because it would allow those students who might not have understood in class the chance to hear information from a different source and manner. In that manner, students also become enabled to work at their own pace, which is especially good for those students who like working at a slow pace.

While it might not be my first choice in creating new kinds of interactions in the classroom, I definitely look forward to the possibilities created by the use of TEDed flipped lessons.