Post:  Discuss your thoughts about flipping the classroom.  What are the benefits, challenges?  How might you overcome them?

                                                                                           

     Kids get bored when they hear the same voice and see the same things.  They get frustrated when their minds are not visually stimulated by light, color, contrast and action.  They “blow out” when they are bored, tired and hungry all at once.  Maybe it's a visceral reaction to lack of control.  Maybe they expect to get what they want when they complain. Is the solution to flip the classroom?  When I think about the idea of flipping the classroom, I get really sort of pumped up and excited about the implications, the possibilities and the potential outcomes. Discipline problems could quite possibly become eliminated.  Students who don't like reading at home may never have to do it in a traditional way.  They could see it and hear it from the light source they ultimately desire, an iPod, a tablet, a lap-top or even a Smart TV.  Their minds could be stimulated by music and images that are vivid and visually pleasing.  Kids could download their teachers’ lectures onto thumb drives or burn them onto cds. Students could weigh in on wikis, blogs, podcasts and what’s more, when they need help in the classroom, the expert is there to guide them.  Students can work collaboratively, as well and they can get help from students in different blocks or teams.  In addition, students could work at their own pace, conferring with each other electronically.   Further, an increase in the number of students completing major assignments becomes the norm since kids have class time to collaborate with their peers. 

     In a perfect world…A digital Utopia…an electronic Nirvana…—This is the phraseology of an ideal before it is put into practice.  The truth is that the caveats could be so plentiful that the ideal is veiled. The challenges include availability of devices, connectivity to the internet and the sense that the same boring lessons are being taught the same way as they are in the class room but with an added dimension of the electronic device (Novemberlearning.com). For me the latter is the gravest concern.  You Tube has countless videos on the subject and the concept is growing in popularity; however, I think the lessons need to be more interactive and the same principles of engagement need to apply to flipped lessons.  The availability of the teacher as the expert is realistic but its emphasis overshadows the importance of the on-line or the flipped lecture.  I believe teachers need to import the relevance of the flipped lecture so that students have something to which they can refer during the collaborative time with teachers and other students.   Some teachers are asking students to meet via Skype to confer about lessons or projects.  In any case, anticipatory set and closure are key in concretizing the essential elements of a lesson.  The importance of engagement in the classroom is such that students will retain the essential learning by the end of class.  Therefore students need evidence of the relevancy of a flipped lecture.  Hand in hand with relevancy is rigor.  What evidence can be provided by the student to show that he or she can demonstrate the relationship between the digitally transmitted material and the class work?  Cornell notes or interactive journals may be some old school solutions, but students can also journal online or email teachers. Perhaps the answer lies in a wealth of survey sights which teachers ask students for their feedback intermittently or by responding through Twitter, etc.   Students can respond in chat rooms, even on Facebook or Instagram.  I say, therefore, flip the lesson when students can understand and demonstrate relevance, thus providing rigor.