3 ms·

What about "flipped" classes, where students learn independently with electronic media, so at whatever speed and level they can handle, while teachers support t

What about "flipped" classes, where students learn independently with electronic media, so at whatever speed and level they can handle, while teachers support them by reviewing their work, mentoring and tutoring?

mlyle 4y ago
Flipping classes is interesting, but it has problems. Even trying to rely on outside media, it's still much more labor intensive for teachers. And you need a more motivated student body than the typical middle school or high school student. The small quizzes you include to make sure that students consumed the flipped content beg for exploiting and cheating, even with randomization. Finally, it's not really clear how well it works. In general, K-8th work away from teacher supervision shows no evidence of benefit, and the educational research we have on the flipped model is mostly of poor quality except for a couple of good studies of undergraduates. Education tends to have big "trendy ideas" that have some plausibility that they'll work and excitement around them and a whole lot of administrator support and profe$$ional development services spring up around them. And then you have people endlessly debate the merits based on personal experience. (I'm about to teach a microeconomics class where I'm going to flip 1/3rd of the lessons in a private high school environment with a relatively motivated student body; the motivation is so that I can fit more simulations into an already-very-dense AP curriculum without an infinite homework load. I've become a relatively successful middle school teacher of engineering and mathematics enrichment classes over the past couple of years and I struggle to see how I can flip much successfully-- so much of my success is around social pressures that come from interaction of students with each other and their teacher).
- malloryerik 4y ago
  Thanks for this answer, it's quite illuminating.

mlyle 4y ago

Flipping classes is interesting, but it has problems. Even trying to rely on outside media, it's still much more labor intensive for teachers. And you need a more motivated student body than the typical middle school or high school student. The small quizzes you include to make sure that students consumed the flipped content beg for exploiting and cheating, even with randomization. Finally, it's not really clear how well it works. In general, K-8th work away from teacher supervision shows no evidence of benefit, and the educational research we have on the flipped model is mostly of poor quality except for a couple of good studies of undergraduates. Education tends to have big "trendy ideas" that have some plausibility that they'll work and excitement around them and a whole lot of administrator support and profe$$ional development services spring up around them. And then you have people endlessly debate the merits based on personal experience. (I'm about to teach a microeconomics class where I'm going to flip 1/3rd of the lessons in a private high school environment with a relatively motivated student body; the motivation is so that I can fit more simulations into an already-very-dense AP curriculum without an infinite homework load. I've become a relatively successful middle school teacher of engineering and mathematics enrichment classes over the past couple of years and I struggle to see how I can flip much successfully-- so much of my success is around social pressures that come from interaction of students with each other and their teacher).

malloryerik 4y ago
Thanks for this answer, it's quite illuminating.