Why is Everyone Flipping Over the "Flipped Classroom?"

If I could condense what I have learned at Ashbury College it would be these four items:
1.  Always Question "Why?"
2.  Don't add to my workload.
3.  We don't DO technology for the sake of doing it.
4.  There is never enough time.
Armed with these truths and given a title that includes the word "innovation," I have begun to read everything I can get my hands on about what schools like ours are doing to stay up with the times and provide the best possible learning experience for students, while satisfying the the conditions above at the same time.  Because of this, I can't get the notion of the "flipped classroom" out of my mind. 

The concept is simple:  Replace in-class lecture style learning experiences in the classroom with teacher-created videos that the students can view on their own at home.  Then use the classroom time to actively engage with the concepts and the materials and do what would normally be "homework."  Can this concept satisfy the four "conditions?"  Let's see...

1.  Why?-  With this model, teachers are able to switch roles from the "Sage on the Stage," to the "Guide on the Side."  Class time can be used to work with students individually, in small groups or to have large group discussions where students apply the concepts they learned about on the videos.  One-size fits all lectures can be replaced with truly interactive and differentiated learning experiences.  The videos are not the key to making this concept work.  Instead, it is the opportunity for individualized class time with the teacher that makes it work.  Teachers are able to increase their contact with their students and students are given a situation whereby they can truly take ownership of their learning.

2.  What will this do to my workload?  While some time will be committed to the creation of the videos (or locating ones that already exist), perhaps this can come from the time teachers set aside to plan for their lecture-style lessons.  However, it will most definitely save time in terms of helping students who are absent due to illness or sports get caught up.  Those kids will still have the benefit of "seeing" the lesson.  Perhaps it will also decrease the amount of time teachers spend giving help in the form of "extra help"- which is really just another form of the individualized attention that teachers can now give in the regular classroom.  I love this quote from the blog entitled, The Daily Riff, "Offloading some information transfer allows a classroom to develop that understands the need for teacher accessibility to overlap with cognitive load.  That is, when students are assimilating information, creating new ideas, etc. (upper end of Bloom's Taxonomy), the teacher is present to help scaffold them through that process."  (The Flipped Class Manifest, Dec. 1, 2011)

3.  We don't DO technology for the sake of doing it.  The beauty of this concept is that it isn't about the technology at all.  It does not matter which software, application, web tool, etc. that a teacher uses.  What matters is the quality of the application of the new material in the classroom.  A teacher can use older technology that he/she already knows and already has access to, or he/she can learn something new and "improved" in the process.  The technology, however, is just a means to an end.

4.  There is never enough time.  Video it once, and it's done.  Now students have the benefit of being able to go back on their own and listen to the lecture again or they can stop and start the video as needed, in order to process at their own pace.  Most teachers who are doing this have reported that they actually found they had much more time than before.  Troy Cockrum, an English Teacher in Indianapolis summarized it best when he said, "Several teachers I've talked to say they've run into the same problem:  If you're not prepared for it, you run out of stuff to do because you've never been able to deliver that much content in a year." ("How YouTube is Changing the Classroom" by Kyle Stokes, Oct. 12, 2011).

Check out these videos that might do a better job of describing the "Flipped Classroom" than I did.

 

Is this idea a good one for your classroom?  I know that at least one of our colleagues is currently working on creating some videos in order to try it out.  If you would like to do the same, I would love to help you get started!