Yikes! It has been far too long since my last fresh blog post. I have been thinking and writing, but not so much online lately. During the February Vacation week, I changed my early-morning routine to avoid computer time during breakfast. Instead, I started journaling while slurping my cereal on pages like the scrawling you see on the right. ----->
I have been teaching nearly half my life (!) and flipping for almost 3 years. However, I still feel insecurity and uncertainty from time to time. Can't imagine what this is like for newbies! In this journal page you can see my struggle to establish routines and patterns for my Social Studies class. Basically, that's the model I have adopted this month and I plan to write more about it in here soon.
I have been teaching nearly half my life (!) and flipping for almost 3 years. However, I still feel insecurity and uncertainty from time to time. Can't imagine what this is like for newbies! In this journal page you can see my struggle to establish routines and patterns for my Social Studies class. Basically, that's the model I have adopted this month and I plan to write more about it in here soon.
Anyway, the main inspiration for today's post was a recent piece by Jon Bergmann about "Why Student Centered Learning is Only Half Right." It reminded me why my colleague and I started this method in the first place. We tried for years to encourage independence with creative projects like research and simulations. We had a fervent desire for our 8th-graders to lead their own learning, while we operated as coaches and guides. However, there's some information that you just gotta know in every subject. When our students produced glossy, fancy, unique pieces of crap that showed serious misunderstandings, these self-directed experiences seemed like educational malpractice. At best we were the ignorant bystanders to a crime; at worst, we were accomplices or perpetrators. What's the point of an illustrated "travel brochure" to an imaginary island if the student can't identify the direction of north?!*
* inspired by a very true and very sad story
* inspired by a very true and very sad story
I hope Jon Bergmann doesn't mind me borrowing the image above. It's such a terrific illustration of our efforts to find balance between didactic "traditional" instruction & libertarian "free-range" schooling. The teacher DOES know things the students do not know. The student can first show understanding (provided as many times as necessary in a video or audio recording) and then the student can apply/analyze/evaluate those basics in various ways.
As Jon Bergmann concluded, "Flipped Learning is a way to foster greater student ownership of learning while at the same time valuing and encouraging curriculum." I can liberate class time from nearly all direct instruction, and I can avoid the pitfalls of textbook reading assignments (valuing and encouraging the curriculum); my students can gain ownership of learning with meaningful activities under my supervision like role-playing, document analysis, individual research tasks, etc.
As Jon Bergmann concluded, "Flipped Learning is a way to foster greater student ownership of learning while at the same time valuing and encouraging curriculum." I can liberate class time from nearly all direct instruction, and I can avoid the pitfalls of textbook reading assignments (valuing and encouraging the curriculum); my students can gain ownership of learning with meaningful activities under my supervision like role-playing, document analysis, individual research tasks, etc.
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