Board of Education Discusses The Flipped Classroom

Sue VanDerzee November 29, 2012 at 12:01 pm

How Integrated Day-ish:)

Laura Francis November 29, 2012 at 02:09 pm

Sounds like a good idea if applied appropriately. I think it would lead to more productive classroom time. Congratulations to the BOE and our RSD13 staff for looking for innovative ways to serve our students.

Lisa Ambrogio Szymaszek November 29, 2012 at 02:29 pm

I am all for looking for new ways to creatively teach students however I do not think we can assume that every household has access to the tools needed to make this work. The concept looks very interesting in theory however need to REALLY look at it from a practical stand point... There are so many venues in which students do their homework other than at home... On the bus, in the library, waiting with parents at their siblings games, etc... Is their always opportunity/time to sit and watch a video lecture outside of the school time allotment? Much to consider.... But forward motion is always good!

Scott Wheeler November 29, 2012 at 03:05 pm

The budget is just not there to do this unless it was a very small scale beta class. Too many items and resources are not in place for this to be launched on a large scale. The video shown is done by a third party vender, not in-house resources which means larger operation expenses for the district.
The teacher used here as an example also states that this is not a magic bullet that will solve problems for less motivated students or sweeping problems such as the poor performance in the written part of the CMTs. Cool idea that would work for a percentage of students but agreed with the authur; this is not a cure-all.

Jennifer Schulten November 29, 2012 at 08:26 pm

I think this is a really exciting prospect. In an era of You Tube education, we need to open our minds to out of the box learning. One of my children has a far easier time concentrating at home compared to when 25 kids are surrounding him in the classroom. By the time the teacher gets through to him, he may have been distracted by a kid who keeps dropping his pencil or a kid who has interrupted the teacher to ask to go to the bathroom. It's easy to check out in that type of environment. By having a more activity based approach in school, kids could become more engaged. The school environment would then mimic a project oriented work-like setting. The most difficult challenge to this method would be to get less disciplined kids to self motivate without someone standing over them while at home. I think it's more financially viable then we think. In today's socio-economic environment almost everyone has internet/cell data access. It's definitely worth a focus group.