One Does Not Simply Finish Blogging

Hello, this will be my final post for this class (I am sad that my meme sharing will be coming to an end!) My final post is going to be talking about how I specifically can flip my classroom or utilize flipped learning in the library. This is a topic that I have been thinking about for the better part of a semester and this is a question that I have been struggling with. Originally, when I was thinking about Flipping the Classroom, I was a bit caught off guard, because as a part of my job, I do not give homework or even give grades. This complicated the idea a little bit. But, I think that it could be a very effective technique that is used within my own time block of 45 minutes. I am thinking that the best way to do it for me would be to create a center rotation system. That way, when the students are in the actual lesson part of the center rotation- it would function as a small group instruction that would maximize their time and learning with assistance from me. The other rotations could be listening stations, iPad activities, or other authentic activities that supported the learning goal. This approach would also lend itself to be more of a Flipped Learning style, rather than a one time Flipped Classroom, which is more ideal as an approach. For other teachers that are specialists and are not able or willing to assign homework, you could do the same approach or ask the students to come prepared with the video already watched. I would hesitate to step on the classroom teacher's toes for homework purposes, which is why I like the idea of center rotations.

(People always think they do not have time to Flip)

(What really happens when you have Flipped Learning)

There is quite a bit of research done, and talk within the librarians community (primarily in the elementary library) that agrees with this approach, and has already implemented a similar system in their library. Here are some examples that I found:

The Elementary Librarian "Welcome to ElementaryLibrarian.com! This site was created by a certified K-12 librarian in 2012, and it has now grown into a community of thousands of elementary librarians sharing lesson plans, resources, and ideas!" 

Continuously Learning has a list of fabulous center ideas. Pop up books, research, listening, you name it, they have it! 

Learning Librarian is another long list of blog ideas, very diverse list!

Literacy Work Stations "A literacy workstation is an area within the classroom where students work alone or interact with one another, using instructional materials to explore and expand their literacy."

Flip or Flop?

Hello readers! Today I thought that I would expound upon the differences between The Flipped Classroom and Flipped Learning. So, if you are thinking that these terms are interchangeable, you would not be alone, I too was a person who thought this! I did some research and found that these terms are indeed different! I will try to explain these differences and use some quotes from my research to make it clearer. As always, I will use some delightful teaching memes along the way!

(I might need to start dancing to make this happen)

(Pauly D knows the truth)

(Ryan Gosling gets me)

As you will know from your own education classes, The Flipped Classroom is when the teacher films their lesson, assigns the video as homework, and does the conventional homework assignments in class, either in small groups, individually, or whole group depending upon what the teacher feels is necessary. The idea behind this theory of practice in the classroom rather than the instruction is that for many students they can remediate during the class time, or extend in the same way. Students are more able to direct their own instruction and go at the pace that is comfortable for them.

According to Edtechmagazine.com "Flipped learning, however, is a "pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter." To make things a little clearer and make a distinction more evident, here are their requirements that they make. They call it the 4 Pillars, and 11 indicators. This is where the Flipped Learning vs The Flipped Classroom comes in. The Flipped Classroom can lead to Flipped Learning, but this is not always the case. 

The Four Pillars and 11 Indicators of F-L-I-P 

Flexible Environment:

 F.1: I establish spaces and time frames that permit students to interact and reflect on their learning as needed.  F.2: I continually observe and monitor students to make adjustments as appropriate.  F.3: I provide students with different ways to learn content and demonstrate mastery.

Learning Culture: 

 L.1: I give students opportunities to engage in meaningful activities without the teacher being central.  L.2: I scaffold these activities and make them accessible to all students through differentiation and feedback.

Intentional Content:

 I.1: I prioritize concepts used in direct instruction for learners to access on their own.  I.2: I create and/or curate relevant content (typically videos) for my students.  I.3: I differentiate to make content accessible and relevant to all students.

Professional Educator: 

 P.1: I make myself available to all students for individual, small-group and class feedback, in real time, as needed.  P.2: I conduct ongoing formative assessments during class time through observation and by recording data to inform future instruction. P.3: I collaborate and reflect with other educators and take responsibility for transforming my practice.


So far, I have really just presented the facts of The Flipped Classroom vs Flipped Learning. Now I am going to share my view on it, and the takeaway that I have for all of this information and the distinctions. I think that The Flipped Classroom is a method for teaching a course, or a unit, or even just a lesson. I think that Flipped Learning is an overarching pedagogy, methodology, and classroom culture. Because the Flipped Learning idea does not just incorporate the flip, it also adds in the environment, learning culture, intentional content, and what the professional educator's role is. It honestly reminds me much more of what we try to do, with our affordances of what we do- rather like the differences between a Lesson and a Lesson Design Document. It is the who, what, where, when, how, and why behind your decisions of Flipping and is much bigger than just flipping one lesson. 

As anyone who reads this blog will soon discover, I love memes. A meme is a cartoon for the 21st century. It has a picture (most often the picture is reused again and again within a context of something really socially relevant) and with humorous text phrase underneath. I love memes because they say what I cannot, and in less words. They are a great communication tool, and one that I feel that students really appreciate. I also am caught up on my blogs for this course, but I wanted to take a second to share a couple of great memes with you. I am sharing these because, as educators we will not only get them, but feel they are a little "too real".

This one makes me roll my eyes every time I see it. The truth is nauseating! 

The question we all ask ourselves daily. 

I mean it worked for Dukes and Earls who taxed their peasants regardless of the growing season, so why not apply the same (horrible) logic to teaching? 

The other reason that I posted these memes is because for this week's assignment, we are going to be working together in groups to discuss something that is a problem in education. I am not a purest and know that there are many, but one of the more prevalent ones today is testing. So, to break up the sadness of testing, I decided to share some memes! :)

Flipping Out

Hello All, by now I am sure you are getting sick of reading about the Flipped Classroom, but I have some (short) further ideas for you. The Flipped Classroom is not necessarily a "new" idea, but yet there does not seem to be many people who actually do it, as you might think. No one I have ever met in education says that they are against it, but yet there are many reasons people do not actually do it. Time, software, access to materials for kids to watch at home, are just a couple. I came across one of the original articles that the authors, Sams and Bergman wrote in 2010, and I keep finding their research to be more and more compelling, the more I read it. I honestly wish that I was in a content area where this would be feasible, but alas I am not. 

One of the things that I noticed from the comments left on my blog was: How could I  make this idea work in my classroom of elementary aged students? This was a question that I sought to answer. I did some research, and here is what I have come up with: 

The best video that I found, was a man who was Flipping, but not in the way that I expected. He teaches elementary and he has 13 computers in his classroom. He has one group of 13 watch the video for the day, the other half doing practice at their seats. They switch, come together for guided practice, and then are able to go off and do individually. He said the most powerful part is the empowering of parents! Worth the watch! 

One article, from Edutopia.com says that you can modify the flip and do an "in-class flip" "An In-Class Flip works like this. Just like with a traditional flip, the teacher pre-records direct instruction, say, in a video lecture. But instead of having students view the content at home, that video becomes a station in class that small groups rotate through. The rest of their time is spent on other activities -- independent work and group work, with some activities related to the lesson and others focusing on different course content. As with a traditional flip, the direct instruction runs on its own, which frees the teacher for more one-on-one time with students." (From Edutopia.com) 
The other thing I found was that the geniuses behind the original Flipped Learning book, actually had a whole separate one for Elementary. So before I dug too hard into this, I would say read that book if it is something of interest to you, because as far as I am concerned they are the oracle on this subject. They also have books for one particular content area (science, math, history, language arts, etc.) They advise that for younger students, instead of doing an entire flip, do a lesson flipped. 

Here is another article that I found, about flipping and the benefits of it. I do not necessarily think it was any new information, but worth sharing because I felt that it paid attention to the rules of CRAP and was designed very well. 

Flipping Round Two!

My resource topic is The Flipped Classroom, and this is a really good topic to connect with Communities of Place. The two authors of the original Flipped Classroom were actually colleagues teaching at the same high school, and they both taught chemistry, and AP chemistry. Flipping their classroom started for them, as a way to keep up with the fact that they were a rural school and that their sport teams were always traveling, getting out of school early, and then the two teachers were constantly setting up other times during their planning to "reteach" what they had already taught, but the kids had missed it due to their sports schedule. I am sure there were other factors going in than that, but it sounds like from the book that it really started off slowly, and grew more and more. It was a great example of Community of Place because they were two teachers who were finding the same problem, they were not reaching their students, their students were not mastering chemistry, and they were literally learning to the test instead of actually learning anything (this was totally what I used to do for chemistry- learn as much as I could for the test and then everything would go out the window, because I never really GOT it). 

Flipping the classroom is really the epitome of teaching your students a hard subject in a way that makes so much more sense. You tape yourself doing the lesson, have the students listen and watch that (their videos are no longer than 15 minutes a piece), and then come in to do your homework in class. This does not mean that teaching is way easier, it means that you are able to meet with the kids who aren't getting it (aka me about 7 years ago). It reminds me a lot of the idea of guided reading or guided math groups. You do a mini-lesson for the whole group and then send the kids off who got the concept to work independently or in small groups while you work with the kids that struggle. But, that is not the way that high school teachers teach, even though it should be! 

So, the authors have now developed this awesome Flipped approach and have created their own Community of Place. They have a website with their lessons, and all these followers of people who agree with their approach. 

There is tons of research on this, videos, pictures, infographics, and more. I think the book is the best resource if you need a how to type of guide. I also liked this video that I found that broke things down further: 

Book Review of Flip Your Classroom

Hello, and welcome to my blog! As part of a semester-long study, the cohorters (laughing at this term I just made up) were tasked with choosing a book at random to read and be apart of our online class. No two people had the same book, which baffled me at first (how could we share?) but I feel that I am starting to get the idea now.

I read the book Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class by the wondrous Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. Now, I will start off with this review saying that I was not totally new to the idea of the flipped classroom, and had already previously felt that it was a great idea. So, I was not entirely unbiased when I started reading. This book is a book that you read like it’s a conversation. I know that is a startling and rather stupid thing to say, but you can so clearly imagine these two brainiac teachers (they both teach chemistry, for Pete’s sake) talking to their readers. They start off saying how they came to the idea of the clipped classroom, to literally giving you step-by-step directions for success with this model. They also discuss the idea of a flipped mastery program, too, along with FAQ’s

The overall message conveyed by the authors is that, they are not as focused on their students being able to test well, or retain the information to only forget it after assessment, but to actually have students who GET IT and are able to retain their knowledge of chemistry and gain a deeper meaning. Another theme that surfaces again and again is the notion that students are able to work at their own pace, rather than dragging the strugglers and holding back the achievers. The whole-group instruction thing really only works for the kids in the middle of the pack and alienates the ones who do not fit into that box.

The implications for teaching are enormous. Coming from a person who desperately struggled with chemistry, I can promise you that I would have flourished if given the opportunity to have a flipped classroom. I think that for most middle and high school classrooms, it would highly benefit the teachers and students to think about this method. I remember always having to work twice as hard at math as any of my other subjects. It was always harder for me to learn, and I was not a kid who got math on the first try. I would seemingly “get” the concept in school and go home that night with homework that I dreaded. I knew that by the time I got home I was going to have questions with no one to ask the answers from. Neither of my parents were math wizzes, especially when I got up to the high school level. I remember geometry being particularly hard for me to grasp, and I had a terrifying teacher, Mr. Rinaldi- who literally skulked around the room Professor Snape style and growled ferociously if you did not get the question right. He terrified everyone who was not awesome at math, and was not at all approachable for help. This whole situation made it the perfect storm of terror, on my part. If Mr. Rinaldi had decided to flip (and perhaps get an attitude adjustment), here is what he would have found (this is not an exhaustive list, by any means):

• ·      Flipping the classroom is actually easier for the teacher (probably not at first. It will most likely take you a year of teaching lessons and filming them to get yourself started. However, you are already teaching the material, so this is nothing new).
• ·      Flipping does not take tons of technology; you would be surprised at how little!
• ·      Once you flip, it does not matter if kids are absent. They literally can watch the video they missed either in class or at home and be caught up in a day, rather than having the plague and coming into school for fear that Mr. Rinaldi would berate you in front of your peers for not understanding.
• ·      You are able to facilitate more success with students (you are literally able to help with homework questions on an individualized approach. If they don’t get it, the opportunity to re-teach is much easier).
• ·      Students are able to actually pause you and rewind if they do not “get it”.  (Wishing I could have done this with Mr. R).
• ·      The kids that excel/struggle can move at a faster/slower pace

At this point, I am pretty sure that I have made it super clear that I am in total favor of the flipped classroom. I have a slight reservation on how it would work in an elementary setting, but I think that with some more research and thought, it could totally be done. Even kids without technology can have the video burned onto a disk, or visit their local library if they do not have internet access at home. This model makes things so much easier for teachers to help their students succeed, and become masters of the subject. I only wish that Mr. Rinaldi had considered this idea, rather than his barking approach. 

Hello and welcome!

Hello All! Thanks so much for coming to my first post. So, in this blog- I will be exploring Communities. This week, I was tasked with introducing a mission and purpose for my blog. This blog, as I said- will be used to discuss communities. In this online class, we are focusing on online communities and what makes a good community, this week. We discussed the differences between a Community of Practice (shared interests) and a Community of Circumstance (coincidentally placed together by happenstance). This blog is actually serving as my Community of Practice, as I learn to be a designer of communities that are effective in person and online. This will benefit my students immensely so that I can turn them into students as designers of communities.