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.