Flipping your classroom: Lecture at Home, Homework at School

Come discuss the pros and cons of a flipped classroom.
This will be a short presentation followed by a discussion/brainstorming session.


Karl Fisch - Arapahoe High School


Transparent Algebra: Homework - My initial blog post about my flipped plans for this year.

The Vod Couple - Article in the Journal about the work of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, science teachers in Woodland Park

Educational Vodcasting - Site/company of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams

The Flipped Class Network Ning - Ning site for folks who are flipping their classrooms to share thoughts/ideas/questions.

Learning4Mastery - Site with examples from lots of different classes.

Explanation Video - Intro video for students that Jonathan and Aaron created.

Flipping the Classroom with Learning Channels - A Google Presentation by Daniel Rezac that has some good links/examples in it.

A series of blog posts (part 1, 2, 3 and 4) by Sylvia Martinez (plus one from Frank Noschese, make sure you read through the comments as well) that makes a strong argument about not flipping your classroom. I agree with about 95% of what Sylvia and Frank say in their posts. And yet . . . I still think there's a place for flipping in some classrooms for two main reasons:
  1. The reality of our curriculum. There is simply not enough time to "cover" the curriculum we are tasked with and do it with a completely constructivist, inquiry-based approach. While I certainly am involved in discussions to try to change our curriculum, in the meantime I'm trying to split the difference - have inquiry and exploration as much as possible in the classroom, but freeing up time for that by assigning the videos outside of class. Certainly not perfect but, without the videos, I wouldn't have time for much inquiry at all.

  2. I think there are some algorithms that it is helpful to know pretty well and master, even if they are algorithms that students have not completely constructed themselves (standing on the shoulders of giants idea). I think flipped videos can play a role here. (For example, the idea/algorithm of doing the inverse operation in Algebra in order to solve equations.)
I could be wrong about both of these, so read Sylvia and Frank's posts carefully - they are both pretty smart.

Technology I Use:

You need some technology to do this, but you don't necessarily have to spend a lot of money (or conceivably any money, I used stuff we already had).

  1. You need a way to record your computer screen. I use Camtasia, which is a high end software solution, but you don't have to (we already had a copy of it for creating tutorials/screencasts). Since every building (LPS) has at least one Smart Board, the Smart Recording software that comes with it works and would be free. The downside is you don't have any editing capability.

  2. You need audio input capability. I use a $30 USB headset (which, again, we already had), but you can get away with using the microphone that's built into many computers. If you want to record live lectures (in front of a class), you'll probably want to get a high quality, wireless lapel microphone.

  3. I use Smart Board software for what I do on the screen, but you can record anything (PowerPoint, Google Docs, whatever is on the screen). I did everything on my computer for the vodcasts, but you could of course actually use the physical Smart Board. A tablet computer would be nice in order to create with handwriting/sketching without being at the Smart Board.

  4. You need a place to host the videos. I chose YouTube and Wikispaces, which cost nothing. You can also deliver the videos to students via flash drives/DVD's.

  5. You most likely need a place to host the class in general (to post not only the videos, but all other stuff). This year I chose a Blogger blog, but you could choose a Google Site (or Wikispaces) instead.

  6. Additional technologies to consider if you want to have online office hours: webcam, skype, elluminate/whiteboard/other, tablet-type device, Google Apps, etc.

Salman Khan TED Talk