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The Flipped Classroom: Professional Development Workshop

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Module One – Powerful Learning Experiences

During this module, we will think about, explore, and discuss these areas:

  • Qualities and characteristics of epic learning.
  • Building a community and student engagement as prerequisites for a successful flipped classroom.

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion: Discuss an Epic Learning Experience.
    • What is an epic learning experience you had as a learner or facilitated as an educator?  This is a  learning experience that you would classify as a peak experience, being in a state of flow, and/or an epic win.  (Note: It need not have occurred within a more formal educational setting. Learning occurs all the time in all types of settings.)
    • What made your learning experience epic?
    • Add a slide (image and statement) about your epic win to our Google Presentation at http://goo.gl/LS0DD
  2. Activity: Choose an artifact (photo, symbol) that represents peak learning experience or epic win (as related to #1).  Be prepared to show and tell about it.
  3. Discussion: Brainstorming “What Questions Do You Have About the Flipped Classroom?” after reviewing resources.

Resources:

Module Two – Experiential Engagement

During this module, we will think about, explore, and discuss these areas:

  • Characteristics of Engagement
  • A Rationale and Methods for Experiential Engagement

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion: “How do you define and promote meaningful learning engagement?”
  2. Discussion: “How do you define experiential learning and how can you facilitate it in your own educational setting?” Experiential learning is loosely defined as authentic, hands-on, multi-sensory learning.  Expand on this to include how you would define it in the context of your learners, educational setting, and content area.  What are some general strategies you can use to facilitate experiential learning within your learning environment.
  3. Activity: The first phase of The Flipped Classroom – The Full Picture is engaging learners through an authentic, engaging experiential activity.  Locate and list at least 10 experiential activities that you could use in your setting to engage your learners and motivate them to learn more about the content/topic.  These can be activities selected from the resources found below, ones you’ve created, and/or other activities you’ve heard about/located.

Resources:

Experiential Activities

Module Three – Conceptual Connections

During this phase, learners are exposed to and learn concepts touched upon during Experiential Engagement.  They explore what the experts have to say about the topic.  Information is presented via video lecture, content-rich websites and simulations, and/or online text/readings.  In the case of the flipped classroom as it is being currently discussed, this is the time in the learning cycle when the learners view content-rich videos.  This is where and when videos are used to help students learn the abstract concepts related to the topic being covered. The role of the teacher, during this phase, is to offer the learners choices of video and related online content to learn the concepts being covered.

During this module, we will think about, explore, and discuss these areas:

  • The Purpose and Function of Conceptual Engagement Within the Cycle of Learning
  • The Role and Characteristics of Video Lectures and Other Online Material to Support Concept Development

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion-Activity:  “What purposes do lectures service in the classroom?” Be prepared to have a debate during  around the question, Should lectures be used in face-to-face learning settings?  A Mentormob playlist has been prepared with resources about this topic – http://www.mentormob.com/learn/i/lectures-in-the-classroom.  A forum on Debate.FM has also been set up – http://www.debate.fm/745454938/should-lectures-be-given-during-facetoface-class-time.  (Note:  Sometimes it is an interesting intellectual challenge to take what is known as a reasonable opposite, this is a position that is opposite of your own belief, but one that you can argue.  It provides a prospective from the other side).
  2. Discussion:  What are the characteristics or qualities that define a good video lecture?”
  3. Activity:  The second phase of The Flipped Classroom – The Full Picture is assisting your learners to learn the concepts related to the topic being explored.  Locate and list at least five videos or other online resources you could use in your setting to help your students learn more about the content/topic.  These can be videos selected from the resources found below, ones you’ve created, and/or other activities you’ve heard about/located OR use a screencast tool to create a short video about your topic.

Resources:

Module Four – Meaning Making Through Critical Reflection

During this module, we’ll discuss the third phase of The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture Based on an Experiential Cycle of Learning:

During this phase, learners reflect on their understanding of what was discovered during the previous phases.  It is a phase of deep reflection on what was experienced during the first phase and what was learned via the experts during the second phase. Learners develop skills for reflective practice through discussing, reviewing, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing key learning through their experiential activities and exploration of expert commentaries.

I discussed the importance of reflection in a blog post, Where is reflection in the learning process?

Learners do not just receive information only at the time it is given; they absorb information in many different ways, often after the fact, through reflection. The most powerful learning often happens when students self-monitor, or reflect.

Students may not always be aware of what they are learning and experiencing. Teachers must raise students’ consciousness about underlying concepts and about their own reactions to these concepts. ETE Team

Learning Activities:

  • Discussion:  Discuss the following questions in a way that makes sense to you.
    • What does it mean for you to be accountable? How do you demonstrate your own accountability in your educational setting? To your students? To your colleagues?  To your institution?  To your profession?
    • What do you do to encourage students to be accountable for their own learning?
    • How do you assess student learning?
    • How to do assist your learners in identifying and acknowledging their own learning and progress?
  • Discussion: Using the follow table as a guide, discuss your own philosophy regarding constructivism and how you promote learners constructing their own meaning in your educational setting.
    http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index_sub1.html
  • Activity:  The third phase of The Flipped Classroom – The Full Picture is assisting your learners to reflect on what they experienced during the first phase and what they learned during the second, the concept exploration, phase.  Discuss what reflective strategies you can use in your learning environment based on your content area interests-grade level.

Resources:

Module Five – Demonstration and Application

During this phase, learners get to demonstrate what they learned and apply the material in a way that makes sense to them.

When students have multiple choices in ways to demonstrate their knowledge, the evidence of their learning is more accurate. We wanted the students to actually become the experts through the learning process. This assessment isn’t just a fancy term for a presentation at the end of a unit. To actually engage in an authentic celebration is to witness a true display of student understanding. (http://education.jhu.edu/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Assessment%20Alternatives/meyer_glock.htm)

This goes beyond reflection and personal understanding in that learners have to create something that is individualized and extends beyond the lesson with applicability to the learners’ everyday lives. Opportunities should be provided for students to, at the very least, make concrete plans how they will use the course content in other aspects of their lives.

Learning Activities:

  1. Contribute to the discussion, “How do you assess if your learners developed new habits of thinking and/or doing?”
  2. Contribute to the discussion, “What techniques do you use/can you use to assist students in transferring what they learned in your class to apply to other settings?”  Discuss at least two.
  3. Complete Week 5 Activity: Celebration of Learning: Demonstration and Application of Learnings from This eCourse.

Resources:

Module Six – Exploring Your Own Topics, Concepts, and Connections

During this module, we’ll discuss and develop a foundation for The Flipped Classroom Lesson.  The foundation is driven by essential questions and over-reaching concepts.  This serves two purposes.  First, it  helps to insure that the concepts, as opposed to the technologies, are central to the learning process.  Second, essential questions and over-reaching concepts provide touch points as the instructional activities for The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture are established.

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion: Purpose of Essential Questions – Drawing from your own understanding and the unit resources, how would you describe essential questions and concept driven curriculum?  How do or can essential questions drive your lesson planning?
  2. Activity: List two essential questions for the lesson you want to develop or modify for the flipped classroom the full picture.
  3. Assignment: Develop and post a concept map for your lesson. Include all the essential questions, and major concepts and skills you want you learners to acquire.  Either through hand drawn or web tool (Inspiration, Creately, Mindomo), show the major connections of between the essential questions and major concepts.

Resources:

Module Seven – Lesson Planning: Developing a Natural Cycle of Learning

During this module, you’ll be putting the learning activities you located and developed in the first half of the course into the Flipped Classroom: The Full Classroom framework.  The result will be a lesson based on a natural cycle of learning using videos and media to support student learning.

Learning Activities:

  • Discussion: What obstacles do you foresee facing when trying to implement The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture based on an experiential model of learning?
  • Activity: Using the template,  flipped%20classroom%20template.pptx, list the learning activities for the lesson you began in the previous module.  List activities for each phase of The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture.  Substitute your learning activities for each of the “directions” within each quadrant.  It is a PPT slide as it permits easier use of graphics.  Upload your PPT slide or as a PDF.

Resources:

Module Eight – Lesson Planning:  Embellishing on Your Learning Activities

As you discovered when you were working through your flipped classroom lesson, there are phases of the cycles that caused you some problems.  Most educators have some problems thinking about, locating, creating learning activities in one or more of the phases.  As such, this week, using checklists and peer evaluations, we will examine how your learning activities can be expanded and enhanced.

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion: As you discovered when you were working through your flipped classroom lesson, there are phases of the cycles that caused you some problems.  Most educators have some problems thinking about, locating, creating learning activities for one of more of the phases.  Which one(s) gave you some problems?
  2. Discussion:  This week you will get some feedback from your peers about your lesson plan.  Where and how in your everyday work setting do you bounce ideas and get feedback about your instructional strategies?
  3. Assignment: Using the checklists provided, provide feedback for two of your co-learners.  Insure that you address each phase of the cycle in your feedback,

Resources:

Module Nine – Assessments, Evaluation, and Developing a Change Mindset

Implementing The Flipped Classroom:  The Full Picture is obviously more complex than some to the simpler lesson plan models that teacher use.  As such, when implementing this lesson plan, you should build in formative assessments and evaluations throughout the cycle to help insure that:

  1. The learning activities are achieving desired results.
  2. Students are getting ongoing feedback about their performance.

Experiential Engagement

  • Group Satisfaction Assessments
  • Self-Assessments
  • Exit Tickets
  • Journal Entries
  • Drawings

Conceptual Exploration

  • Research Notes
  • Outlines
  • Graphic or Visual Notes
  • Developing Questions
  • Use of Graphic Organizers
  • Exit Slips

Meaning Making

  • Self-Assessments
  • Peer Assessments
  • Interviews – Being Interviewed
  • Documenting Processes
  • Evidence of Personal Meaning/Usefulness
  • Analysis of Use of Resources
  • Exit Slips

Demonstration and Applications

  • Rubrics – both teacher-generated and student generated.
  • Creating, Collaborating, Verifying, Summarizing
  • Publications
  • Exhibitions
  • Synthesizing Performances
  • Error Analysis

(Ideas gathered from 4MAT)

http://4mation-web.com/aboutlearning/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=10

Learning Activities:

  1. Discussion: What does authentic assessment mean to you?  How do you build authentic assessments in your daily lessons?
  2. Discussion: The use of technology and the flipped classroom methods often ask the educator to try out new things in the classroom.  How do you/will you evaluate the efficacy of the learning activities during the cycle of learning?  What will/can you do if you find the learning activities are not achieving desired results?
  3. Assignment:  Implementing The Flipped Classroom:  The Full Picture is obviously more complex than some to the simpler lesson plan models that teacher use.  As such, when implementing this lesson plan, you should build in formative assessments and evaluations throughout the cycle to help insure that:
    • The learning activities are achieving desired results.
    • Students are getting ongoing feedback about their performance.

    For this assignment, identify the types of assessments you plan to use during each phase of the cycle.

Resources:

Module Ten –  Personal Integration and Celebrating Integrations

It is the final module of the workshop.  It is a time for reflection and establishing the “What’s Next”.

Learning Activities:

  1. Assignment: Develop a personal integration plan for future lesson planning that includes significant learnings from the past nine modules.  What specific action steps do you plan to take to enhance your lesson plans due to things you discovered during this course?  Please list at least 10.
  2. Assignment: Use one of the following Web 2.0 tools to visually/metaphorically describe The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture –

Resources:

Written by Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.

November 8, 2012 at 9:32 pm

Posted in Education

Tagged with , , , , , ,

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One Response

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  1. Have long believed that there is nothing new to education except the people.
    Therefore every innovation for better learning in a circumstance of poor or bad learning is to be celebrated.

    At the same time I am personally delighted with the affirmation…[flipped or unflipped, we received, almost 50 years ago – and some lucky ones of us have been able to give, as well] an education that addressed every one of the items of grace mentioned above and more. The affirmations are that –

    Effective learning experiences are life changing.
    That learning beyond the classroom is the hugest part of the relevance.
    That contemporary empowerments have to be used in order for today’s children and students to connect
    That a classroom-bound relationship goes nowhere.
    Whereas freed from the rooms and into teacher homes, or outdoors, at coaching nets or learning to catch fish or listening to music in the music room to appreciate it and learn its evolutions or at stage or deep into the silence of the wilderness – that’s where the learning and sharing and growing really takes place.

    Privileged students and teachers have benefited from such liberty in terms of an immensity of reflection; of a bonding for life and a means of a reckoner for living. To offer this to the ‘unprivileged’ is the particular success of a time and its movements. Cylical, repitive, spiralling or gyroscopic, this is what it is all about.

    Great stuff. Brilliant initiatives.

    Kabir Mukerjee-Mustafi

    Kabir Kumar Mukerjee-Mustafi

    November 17, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Reply

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