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.