Flip your classroom

Encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning. Manage the process of learning rather than teach. Efficiently use face-to-face time. Personalise learning experience. Let students learn at their own pace. Just flip your classroom. “The Flipped Classroom is a learning model where students are exposed to new ideas at home–often through videos–and then work applications of that learning at school–an approach that reverses, or “flips” the old approach.”1https://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-ultimate-guide-to-flipping-your-classroom/

AJC1 [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ask yourself a question – What type of classes do I teach?

 

Class sessions take place 100% in a traditional classroom. Technology is hardly ever used.  

face
2face model

Class sessions take place in a traditional classroom, but technology is used to facilitate activities, deliver content, and/or assess students. Web-Enhanced/

Blended model

Internet-based activities comprise more than 50% of the content and instruction Hybrid model
Nearly all or all instruction, interaction, and activities take place online Online model

More here

The technique that works very well for both – hybrid and blended models, is flipping a class. Instead of teaching them and asking to practise at home, you ask them to learn/get familiar with the content independently and practice will take place in class.  

Watch a short video explaining what a flipped class/classroom is.

There are tons of tools for flipping your lessons. I would like to encourage you to familiarise with the three. This is how I rate them but it is entirely my opinion. Plus, the more you practise with the program, the more you like or dislike it so these stars might look different in the future  

***** Blendspace

**** Google Classroom

I prepared the same set of tasks that NC4 students will have to do before our 1st meeting at college in these three programs. Please, ignore the content (dates, names of teachers, the quiz is short just for demonstration).

Blendspace – this is what it looks like and you can access the class here.  It’s, basically speaking, the work that you want your students to do before a face2face class.

Pluses:

  • You can attach document in Word, pdf or directly from G-drive as google docs
  • You can attach images in various formats
  • You can attach links to videos, images, documents without worrying about breaching COPYRIGHT
  • You can make short quizzes

 

Google classroom – it is a bit similar to Moodle but more intuitive and more visually attractive.

Questions – students will be able to post their answers and/or comment on other answers

Assignments – it’s basically what you want students to do as preparation for next classes or homework. You will be able to see who did and who didn’t submit the assignment. You will be able to comment on students’ work and give them grades/marks.

Announcements – it is basically speaking communication with students, passing messages, reminding of things

Pluses:

  • You can attach document in Word, pdf or directly from G-drive as google docs
  • You can attach images in various formats
  • You can attach links to videos, images, documents without worrying about breaching COPYRIGHT
  • You can comment on and grade students’ work
  • You can schedule your posts (you can prepare them earlier and set the date they will be visible for students)

Unfortunately, as an individual teacher, I can’t use Google Classroom in its full capacity. From what I learned while preparing for Google Educatior exam, the platform is a real gem. There are a lot of google classroom tutorials so, please, watch this short clip to see what it offers.

 

So, have a look and enjoy. And if this seems overwhelming a bit, why don’t you try creating your own simple flip using TEDEd. Find a video, create a series of questions and flip it. I haven’t used this program myself but I used mini lessons prepared by others. For example this one about pronouns me, myself and I  

 

Spread the love
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  

Written by 

ESOL teacher at Edinburgh College