Week 4 Tech. in Ed. AEDU209

Flip to the Bridge

After reading “What Does a Good Flipped Class Look Like?” by Brian Bennett, Jason Kern, April Gudenrath and Philip McIntosh, I recollected when I first heard about this type of educational instruction.  It was the last of four math classes I had to take as a prerequisite while attending College of DuPage (COD).  I was enrolled in an evening class, and the teacher was there to instruct us on the basics of Geometry.  When he introduced himself to us, he mentioned that he was also a math teacher in a middle school and part of a new process called the flip classroom.  He said the instruction to all the lessons was done on line at home by the students, and the homework was done during school and therefore flipped.   He was not really sure at that point how it was working, but was very excited about it. 

I am a visual learner, and have found that during any math lesson, I always missed the actual process of what was being delivered because I was too busy copying everything down.  I love the idea and think that if I were in a flipped classroom, I could replay, and replay and replay any, and every lesson delivered, and figure out what was going on.

I feel like teachers are leaning toward the flipped classroom without even realizing it.  The four authors in “What Does a Good Flipped Class Look Like?” mention that during classroom time there is more student-led tutoring and collaborative learning, and less prompting from the teacher.  This brought to mind another math class I took in Algebra.  After the teacher gave the lesson, he would put up the numbers of the problems he wanted us to work on from the book and have us form a group.  I remember the first time, seeing about 50 problems to do, and was aghast.  My group of five spent 30 minutes on the first problem, and worried that there wasn't going to be enough time to finish all 50, I brought my concern to the teacher.  He said to me, “but I see how you are working together and figuring it out and that is all I care about, so if you only get three problems done, you will still get the full amount of points for the assignment, as long as you continue to work”.  After I shared this information with my group, it allowed all of us to stop feeling so panicked and we were able to face the challenge with more enthusiasm in every class after that.

In “The Flipped Class is Here to Stay”, mention is made about good and bad pedagogy.  Regardless of the tried and true traditional way of teaching or the flipped classroom, pedagogy does have to come first, and I believe it all comes down to the teacher building that bridge and I would like to see that bridge lead to the flipped classroom.