Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Flipped Classroom


I keep seeing more and more information about the idea of a Flipped Classroom.  The basic idea is that students watch the lessons on a mobile device at home and come to school the next day ready to work on the assignment which would traditionally have been sent home.  In this Flipped Classroom, the teacher's role is to act as a guide and coach to the students' learning, and pull aside those students who are still struggling with the concepts.  This is a concept we are already looking at as we work with Khan Academy.

Thanks to our recently awarded IDOE Classroom Innovation Grant of $200,000 (can't stop celebrating that whenever possible) each teacher and 8th grade student will have a MacBook computer to enhance their learning.  A teacher would be able to record a podcast (or vodcast) using the built-in camera and any number of Apple programs, and then upload that lesson into their own classroom folder on iTunes.  Students would then be able to log in to iTunes from their computers, iPods, iPhones, iPads, etc. and download these lessons (free) for viewing.  Since a great number of our students have iPods already, we would be making great use of technology which our students already use on a daily basis (although not at school...not yet).

Take a look at the links below and feel free to comment on experiences you have had with a flipped classroom, or questions you have about how schools might make this work most effectively for students.








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