It's been a while since my last flipped lesson - report writing, assessment time all played apart but, also, I felt my class had reached a saturation point with them. Therefore, I decided to take a break, do some more research and reconsider where to take the project.
I found that fewer and fewer of the children were watching the flip videos and I wondered why this was. I believe it was partly due to there being too many in too short a time but also because I wasn't using the lesson time as effectively as I could.
I read a book called Flip your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams and this really helped refocus my flipped teaching project - the flipped lesson itself has to be creative, stimulating or, at least, challenging. I think my videos became just another way to impart information than as a way to preserve time for an exciting learning experience in school.
Reading the book reignited my enthusiasm, but also made me more conscious of picking the lessons which I chose to flip more thoughtfully.
So, this week, I made a video all about the Water Cycle for our science lesson. All but 3 students watched it (it was exciting again!) and we spent our science lesson making dioramas about the cycle. The ones who missed the video had to go through the flipchart with me, while the others brainstormed everything they could remember from the video.
I would never have had the time for this in a traditional lesson. It was great - all on-task for the last 2 hours of the last day of the week, superb high-level conversation using scientific language, collaboration, creativity...we had a great time!
I found that fewer and fewer of the children were watching the flip videos and I wondered why this was. I believe it was partly due to there being too many in too short a time but also because I wasn't using the lesson time as effectively as I could.
I read a book called Flip your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams and this really helped refocus my flipped teaching project - the flipped lesson itself has to be creative, stimulating or, at least, challenging. I think my videos became just another way to impart information than as a way to preserve time for an exciting learning experience in school.
Reading the book reignited my enthusiasm, but also made me more conscious of picking the lessons which I chose to flip more thoughtfully.
So, this week, I made a video all about the Water Cycle for our science lesson. All but 3 students watched it (it was exciting again!) and we spent our science lesson making dioramas about the cycle. The ones who missed the video had to go through the flipchart with me, while the others brainstormed everything they could remember from the video.
I would never have had the time for this in a traditional lesson. It was great - all on-task for the last 2 hours of the last day of the week, superb high-level conversation using scientific language, collaboration, creativity...we had a great time!
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