Today I learn, today I question. (Flipped classroom)

  Last week, Sakirah was presented her topic about flipped classroom. She explained the flipped concept very clearly, thanks for her explanation. Last two weeks, before the presentation of Dee, when I, Te and Yee Hui were searching some materials in the library, we saw Shakirah and Dee were seriously preparing their presentation. Last week we met Shakirah again , she alone working so hard from morning until night sitting in the UM library, still ‘ flipped’ with her topic. Oh, so pity with her. But after her Saturday presentation, I can make a conclusion that she actually put efforts to doing well in her presentation. There is new and old concept to us to learn ‘flipped classroom’. Why I said ‘new’, because I really don’t know we can ‘flipped’ like that in our classroom. I said ‘old’, is because we actually have done it in traditional way or offline teaching and learning process in our classroom before.

         But indeed, there has been a lot of interest and controversy about the flipped classroom. Most people are currently defining the flipped classroom as a class in which the teachers are watched at home and the class time is used to work on what used to be assigned as homework. The flipped class is not a narrow methodology, but rather a philosophy, which has many different applications and modifications.

         Is the flipped class the future of education? Does it have serious flaws? As we see it, there are several misconceptions, which contribute to the controversy.

Below is what I can found in the web, share with you all: 

http://flippedclassroom.com/

• Fear that the flipped class would lead to less engaged students who simply look at videos:

The finding is, the writer discovering that what actually happens is that student engagement and student-teacher interaction increases.

• The flipped class will lead to huge classes with little engagement:

 This is what the writer said:                   

The thinking here is that you could have many more students in a class if the video was doing the direct instruction.  This would make education cheaper because you would be able to hire fewer teachers.  One thing I say whenever I share the story of the flip with people is that I talk to every kid in every class every day.  One of the hallmarks of how I have flipped my classes is this statement.  But, if I had class sizes which were too large, even this methodology will fail.  The key to the flipped class is actually not the videos, it is the freedom those videos give the teacher to have engaging class activities and interaction with their students.

• The flipped class is just bad lecture on video:

       This is what the writer said:

 The assumption by some is that if ALL we do is move the lecture online, we are only using     technology for bad pedagogy. Their argument is that we need less lecture and more hands on, problem based, student generated, and inquiry learning. And I agree with these folks.  However, I see the flip as a stepping stone for teachers who have lectured for all of their career.  For them the idea of moving to an inquiry, problem based learning model would be very difficult.  But the idea of simply recording what they already do and then move that to outside of the class is not a huge step.

• The flipped class hurts students who have limited access to technology:

      This is what the writer said:

 I am surprised at how often I continue to see this objection.  When Aaron and I started the flip in 2007 we had a number of students without both computers and access to high speed internet.  We HAD to solve this problem.  We simply took 4-6 videos  and burned them onto a DVD and handed the DVD’s out to students.  Some students who had a computer at home but not high speed internet brought in flash drives and took home the videos that way.  If you really want to see an example of how the flip is working with a school with low SES, watch this video of Greg Green’s school on the outskirts of Detroit. 

There was a lot of argument about applying flipped classroom after Shakirah’s presentation. But I still believe that the flip are a good concept, so it depend on how the teacher implemented it in their class.  Flipping the classroom gets the student to become more independent learners, if we implemented it well, it not only can, but can changes the lives of many students, helping students become better learners and preparing them for their futures.

            

           Although flipped classroom concept can help students to do better in the future, but many   teachers are still struggling to ‘flip’ or not ‘flip’ in their classroom. My question is, honestly, do we really  can ‘flip’ it in our classroom?