Have You Flipped Your Classroom Yet?

Guest Blogger: Safro Kwame

Have you flipped your classroom or, rather, class – not physically, by rearranging the furniture, but conceptually -- yet? If not, why not; if you have, what are the results? I would like to know.

Here are some news reports on the flipped classroom:

Flipped Classrooms Provide a New Way of Learning, by Dean Reynolds, CBS News, January 19, 2014

There’s a new way for school kids to do their homework -- and perhaps, a ray of hope for the parents who frequently get called on to help. Check out the flipped classroom. At Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Ill, science teacher Collin Black helps kids do homework in class and sends his lectures home. Black and others who've embraced what's called the flipped classroom condense their lectures into a brief, homemade and often light-hearted video.  Students can digest the information outside of class whenever they like. The next day, they get their questions answered and apply the lesson with the teacher in the room. Educator Jon Bergmann, along with partner Aaron Sams, came up with the flipped classroom concept. It was originally designed for football players who missed class while on the road. Three percent of teachers are flipping classrooms now, 18 percent have expressed interest and 28 percent of school administrations want to do it, according to Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit group. (read more...)

The Condensed Classroom:"Flipped" classrooms don't invert traditional learning so much as abstract it, by Ian Bogost, The Atlantic Monthly, August 27, 2013

 This year, more university students and professors will encounter a trend that has come to be known as "flipping the classroom." It's been largely associated with massive open online courses (MOOCs), that edu-tech vogue committed to delivering classes to large numbers of students all at once via video lectures and automated assessments conducted over the Internet. (read more ...)

Turning Education Upside Down, by Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times, October 9, 2013

Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates. Clintondale was the first school in the United States to flip completely — all of its classes are now taught this way. Now flipped classrooms are popping up all over.  (read more...)

Flipped Schools:Homework At School, Lectures At Home, by Tom Ashbrook, On Point, NPR, November 5, 2013

Some teachers, even whole schools, are now “flipping” their days — doing homework in class, watching lectures at home. Is this the future of school? (read more...)

More Teachers 'Flipping' The School Day Upside Down, by Grace Hood, NPR, All Things Considered, December 7, 2012,

Welcome to the 21st century classroom: a world where students watch lectures at home — and do homework at school. It's called classroom flipping, and it's slowly catching on in schools around the country. (read more...)

Using Groups to Introduce Black History and Reading in the Classroom

Guest Blogger:  Jean Waites-Howard

Last fall I taught Social Policy.  I always want to introduce relevant Black Historical events that impact on Social Policy. I had recently learned about The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. This is a very long text which chronicles the Great Migration from the South to the North from 1915 to 1970. The book focuses on the adventures and trials of three migrants: Ida Mae Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.  The book includes individuals and families seeking a “better life,” as well as those who played a major role in the transformation of America’s landscape. I really wanted the students to have an opportunity to read this well-documented, informative report of our history.

My Social Policy class was very large (37 students). I divided them into six groups. I divided the text into six sections. Each group was to read their section and respond to seven questions about the text. The students had to prepare PowerPoints for their group presentation and a two-page summary.

The student presentations were excellent. The students shared equally in the presentations. They worked together and really covered their assigned material. Several students encouraged me to use this book again for this course. Leaving the “Jim Crow South” and confronting racism in Chicago was eye opening for our students.

For instance, Ida Mae Gladney had attended a neighborhood watch meeting in Chicago where she had the opportunity to hear a young state senator named Barack Obama.  That led to the question of what the impact of the Great Migration was on Obama’s presidency. The students could connect this history with current events, as they could the fact that “the first black mayors in each of the major receiving cities of the North and the West were not longtime native blacks but participants of sons of the Great Migration.” (p. 529, The Warmth of Other Suns)

Group projects can reinforce learning and build our students’ skills. This is a creative manner to introduce important subject matter.

Worth a Thousand Words?

by Linda Stine

This week—when I wasn’t stuck on snow- and ice-covered highways or shoveling said snow and ice out of my driveway—I have been putting together a lesson for one of my classes on how to create effective PowerPoint presentations. Up till now, I had always focused mainly on getting students to stop putting whole paragraphs of text onto their slides and then simply reading them to the audience during their oral presentations. “We can all read,” I reminded them.  “Use bullet points.”

Imagine my confusion, then, when I read an article entitled “Improve Your PowerPoints” and got to this section:

The good news is that 90% of the problem can be solved by following one simple rule: No bullet points. Reread the rule again (and again, and again) to make sure that it sinks in. Bullet points are the primary source of Death by PowerPoint. Bullet points are basically ugly wallpaper thrown up behind the presenter that end up distracting and confusing the audience. The audience is getting a message in two competing channels running at different speeds, voice and visual. It's a bit like listening to a song being played at two speeds at once. The audience member is forced to ask themselves: Do I listen to the presenter (which is running at one speed), or read the bullet points (which I read at a different speed)?

The author, John Orlando, argues that the main role of a PowerPoint slide should be to present a visual that focuses audience attention on your main issue.  This is true, he argues, not only for an oral presentation but also for a PowerPoint posted on the web.   He recommends software like Jing (see Bill Donohue’s earlier blog on this topic) or Audacity to explain the content of the presentation while the audience is looking at visuals—not written words—that reinforce the main points of that content.

What do you think?  What advice do you give to your students about making effective presentations?  Do you use PowerPoints in your own class presentations, whether face-to-face or online?  What, for you, makes an effective PowerPoint?  Do those bullets really cause death by PowerPoint? 

Teaching with Jing

Guest Blogger:  William Donohue

My blog post this week is a demonstration of the screencast software called Jing.  This software enables a user to take video of their computer screen and record audio. I have used it to enhance communication with students in my composition classes to further explain assignments or feedback on student writing.

Click here to view my Jing demonstration:

http://screencast.com/t/sfv4csXP6

 

How have you used screencast software? What would you use it for?  What other similar programs exist? 

If you are interested in trying it out, you can download the free Jing software at http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html.

Blurred Lines: An Invitation to Discuss Boundary Formation and Management for Teachers

Guest Blogger: James Wadley

In spring, 2013, Robin Thicke, Pharell, and TI released the chart topping song, “Blurred Lines” which discusses the courtship intentions for a woman who is currently in a romantic relationship with another man.  The premise of the song suggests that the woman is a “good girl” but that she wants to get “nasty” (sexually provocative) and be with the relevant suitor.  The concept of blurred lines also extends itself to teaching and education.

Some teachers struggle with their own blurred lines as it relates to their role as an educator for their students.  Because of the personal, emotional, institutional, programmatic and sometimes financial investment in students, teachers may become attached to their students in a manner in which they may not have anticipated.  This attachment pattern may come in the form of potentially inappropriate boundary violations including hugging students, giving gifts, curricular (e.g. discussion of morally and emotionally charged issues with vulnerable populations) and temporal infractions (e.g., providing one or more students with more time than others), emotional and power infringements, or improper communication (e.g., discussing or offering advice on personal issues) with students. 

Typically, colleges and universities address traditional boundary violations with policies that may address various forms of sexual harassment, coercion, and debilitative interpersonal relationships.  Oftentimes though, the teacher-student relationship evolves beyond conventional expectations and teachers find themselves extending their educational relationship beyond assumed parameters within and outside the classroom.  Policies typically don’t address the complexities of emotional and social navigation including dual relationships, codependence, and relational extraction.  Teachers are typically left to manage the educational, social, emotional, and cultural assumptions of themselves, their students, and the teacher-student relationship. 

In the light of the potential blurred lines that can develop between teachers and students, I extend an invitation to you to reflect and share about any of the following questions:

1. How do you build and maintain rapport with your students?

2. What personal information do you feel comfortable sharing with students?

3. Based upon your experience or what other teachers have shared with you, when do lines become blurred with students?

Finally, for amusement, below is a video link of last summer’s sensation, “Blurred Lines.”  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU