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.