Flipped Classroom - The Basics

This post originally appeared on FTISEdtech

Background

A Flipped Class is one where the teacher develops or curates content that would traditionally be delivered in a lecture and assigns students to watch video, listen to podcasts or read articles or books so that class time can be used for projects, practice and activities.  It is also sometimes referred to as Blended Learning.  And with practice can be used as a method of differentiating instruction and allowing students more freedom to explore and learn content at a pace that meets their needs.

I first learned about the Flipped Classroom model about four years ago and delved into an extensive study of the concept.  To my surprise, it is something that unknowingly I had been experimenting with since about 2006 when I began using a Moodle classroom online with students and began recording audio lectures for students if I was going to be absent.  The concept, in my position as a librarian, really helped me create an archive of screencasted work that students could go back and play at will, pause and rewind or fast forward if needed.  In essence it let me be in a bunch of places at once and deliver content at the time it was most needed.  

In my research I learned that Jonathan Bergmann and Eric Sams were the Flipped Class gurus, and I bought their book Flipped Your Class: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day and found it to be filled with practical information.  

Let's Hear About the Basics

Hear about what Flipped Learning is from Eric Sams:

Let's get a little deeper with some information about why you would do it and some things to consider:

Things to Think About 

As the video above says, start with one lesson, one screencast, one note-taking strategy.

This infographic will give you a quick overview of strategies to construct a flipped lesson:

Ready to make your first screencast?

What do you need?

Depending on your computer set up, you may need a microphone, and a webcam is also a useful tool for "Picture in a Picture" where you show a live video of yourself in a small screen over the larger screen. If you have a laptop with a built in camera, you shouldn't need any extra peripherals, just a quiet time to record. 

PC/Windows Users 

My favorite tool for PC/Windows users is Screencast-o-Matic.  You can download the free version of the software here.  The site does allow you to record without downloading their software, but I found I often had trouble loading it.  They do also offer a subscription service for a fee that allows you to create screencasts longer than 15 minutes, but for most elementary teachers 15 minutes of recording time is plenty.

See an overview here:

 
If you choose to download the software, it will put an icon on your computer.  You can access the Screencast-o-Matic recording tool directly from your computer instead of going to the website as shown in the video. 

You will want to check the microphone to make sure it's working in a test run, and when you have finished recording, you will want to save it to your desktop or somewhere handy where you can find it when you need it. 

Mac users
Mac users can just use Quicktime, which comes with the Mac.  See how to use it here:

I would suggest option to use mouse clicks.

iPad Users
For a basic presentation from the iPad you might try IPEVO.  This is perfect for screencasting slides that include math problems.

IPEVO Basics- Creating boards:

IPEVO - Annotating

IPEVO - Making the Recording

One of the benefits of using IPEVO is that you can create a saved list of your screen recordings right on your iPad and airdrop them to your students if your students do not have wifi access at home and need to view the videos offline.

How to Share Your Video

You can share the screencasts you made in a number of ways with your students. One of the easiest ways would be to upload the video as a file to Schoology.  That way, if needed, a student could download the video to their iPad to use if they were going to be out of a wifi area.

See how that looks for the student here:

You could also create a YouTube channel and upload there, and send students the link through Schoology or by posting on your webpage, or you could just upload the videos to your school webpage.

If you need help with any of these sharing options, let me know!

For a plethora of information on getting started or for current research on the model, check out Flip Learning