Today is my first day taking a course called The Flipped Classroom. I have been interested in it for several years, when I heard of my co-worker using this method. Then, I was more intrigued during my Connected Educator Month course last fall. I spent a significant amount of time reading the
blog of a fellow Spanish teacher. The idea of spending class time to use the skills learned at home is very exciting to me. I want more time for creativity on the students' end...I love teaching. I love being creative and designing fun lessons. But I think it's time to shift much of that work into my student's hands.
In my first few lessons, a teacher addressed the question "what if students don't want the videos?". Basically, they can watch them during class (assuming there is a means to do this) or they can be brought up to speed by peer learning. She mentioned that most students want to be part of the classroom activities, they don't want to be behind or stuck solo at a computer, so that is helpful.
I anticipate getting more and more interested in this method as my course continues. Stay tuned!
Update: Another teacher includes a Google Form with their video. Students take a few notes while they watch and solve a problem before submitting the form. He provides a doc to help them with their summary skills. He receives a spreadsheet with everyone's summaries and can compare them
Then he made a Wordl from their responses! They keywords popup and they can discuss how big some of the words are and discuss if they should be that big (are those terms as important as their height suggests).
Many teachers also reply their videos at the beginning of class when they are taking attendance or passing out materials.
