Ouch! My Classroom Flipped Again

In the past decade or so, I've heard a lot about "flipping the classroom." Generally, this meant that teachers should consider how to use classroom time vs. outside of class time. Maybe the traditional lecture method should be retired in favor of other approaches to learning.

There's some evidence that we might do better to allow our students the opportunity to receive the informational/presentational part of the classroom experience outside of class and reserve our in the classroom time for working together in more hands-on and interactive ways.

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It's an appealing idea. If you've ever struggled to get 30 seventh graders to all quiet down at the same time and focus on a presentation for even a few minutes, you know that large group presentation is not the ideal way to convey information to students, especially not young ones.

It's an exercise in control, and even when done well, can be boring--the kiss of death in middle school.

In the twenty-first century, we certainly have other options--video top among them. Not all teachers are comfortable with the technologies, but good teachers are lifelong learners, and we learn new tools all the time. A classroom video doesn't have to be professional youtuber quality to be useful.

But if you build it, will they come?

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Getting kids to actually access and use the presentational materials and not just jump into the tasks without reading the directions (so to speak) can be a struggle, but it's one that I let go.

I provide the materials. If they *can* do the work without listening to me first, then go for it! After all, we all came in with different levels of background knowledge and experience. Some of them do already know some of the content I'm presenting. Their work will demonstrate their understanding and my feedback will help them fill in their holes and build their skills

That takes us to today: April 7, 2020, nearly a month into enforced "school from home" distance learning because of the COVID-19 or Corona Virus crisis. Like it or not, tech-savvy or not, teachers across the country are suddenly forced into providing student guidance from the other side of a computer screen.

Ready or not, ALL our classrooms have flipped.

What we gain:  

1. Self-paced: Students can pace the lesson according to their own needs. If the lecture is recorded, they can press pause and rewind on their teacher as much as they need to. No more worries about "keeping up" for taking notes, or missing something important because you had to go to the bathroom or your attention wavered. 
2. Asynchronous access: get the lecture when it works for you. Night owls can view at midnight and morning glories can watch it at the crack of dawn. 
3. Repeat and reference later. Students can go back and listen again, or if they skipped the presentation, thinking they could do the work without it, they can go back when they find they hit a snag. 
4. Student ownership: Students can take charge of their own learning more fully. 

What we lose: 

1. Nonverbal cues: If teachers cannot see their students faces, they lose a lot of nonverbal cues that we rely on to assess student understanding. A confused facial expression or floppy frustrated body language tells us so much!
2. Shared group experiences. There's a social element and a relationship element

   

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   we lose when we weren't all there. That one brave kid who asked the question everyone was thinking, or the hilarity of misunderstanding that actually becomes a memory cue, like never forgetting that embarazada means pregnant and not embarrassed because of that one time in class . . .
3. Equity: Although my district is one to one and every kid in my middle school has a laptop to use, they don't all have speedy internet access at home (or any at all). They don't all have a quiet place to work. They don't all have an adult at home to ride herd and make them focus. At school, we can make the classroom experience at least begin to approach even and fair, but there are too many elements outside our control when the kids are at home to guarantee equitable access. 

So, it's another learning curve. To me, it feels like my classroom has flipped in a whole new way: with the bulk of my teaching time being spent reaching out to non-responsive students and families and a lesser proportion going to creating the "classroom experience."  We're all learning new techniques for relationship building and maintenance. I'm looking forward to seeing how this changes how we do business in the future, when we're back in the brick and mortar classrooms!