Episode 44: What’s the Deal with Flipped Classrooms?

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Welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children and in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing what flip flipping the classroom means and how it impacts student achievement. The flipped classroom technique has been utilized for about the last 10 years. The idea is to utilize in class time and reinforce concepts by completing hands on activities. Homework would be used to disseminate key concepts through video lectures. It draws criticism and scrutiny from educators and impacts on teacher attentiveness and school and student achievement are mixed. I'll address the latest research and ideas about the flipped classroom technique in the discussion that follows. Let's get started. The flipped classroom movement was inspired partly by the work of Salman Khan, who created a library of free online tutoring videos covering a variety of academic subjects known as Khan Academy, which many of you know as a type of cornerstone of the flipped classroom technique. The approach is attracting increasing scrutiny and criticism from educators and researchers. Not unlike Khan Academy itself. The term flipping comes from the idea of basically swapping homework for classwork. Students are typically assigned to watch a lecture video for homework, essentially freeing up class time that would have been used to listen to lectures to instead focus on hand hands on activities and application of knowledge which used to be assigned as homework. Opponents of the flipped classroom technique believe that flipping is simply a high tech version of an antiquated instructional method, the lecture. They further indicate that just because you flip a classroom doesn't mean that students will watch the videos and their main concern is how students are being engaged. Further, opponents indicated that you just can't hand off the flipped classroom to an ineffective teacher and expect to transform the class. It's simply not going to make a bad teacher a good teacher. Over the past seven years, flipped classrooms have become a popular way for teachers to find more time for classroom activities and individual support during a regular school day. However, a new study by the Annenberg Organization and their created Working paper in association with Tufts University warned that the flipped classroom model could trade short term gains for wider achievement gaps. One of the issues in the study was that students in the flipped classroom on average watched only about half of the content of lecture videos before coming to class and spent no more time preparing for class than students in traditional classes did. Additionally, female Black and Hispanic students saw no real benefit from the flipped model when compared to white male students. This led to a 69% wider racial gap between white and other students in this study and a 23% wider gap between low and high performing students, especially in flip math classes when compared to traditional math classes, and these gaps held steady throughout the remainder of the courses. The model basically flips the traditional rhythm of class time by introducing lectures online so that students can view them at home while using the class time for projects and group activities that may have originally been assigned as homework. Flipped classes are supposed to give teachers more time for individual support, but that doesn't always translate to equal support for all students. Thus far, there has been no large scale research on which instructional method corresponds with increased student outcomes, mostly because teachers mean different things when they say they have flipped the classroom. For example, some teachers will send home a 6 minute video on a particular concept, whereas others will send home a 40 minute lecture video in class. Some teachers will use the time to have students solve problems individually while the teacher supervises, and other teachers will use the time to have all students working together to collaborate and solve problems. One of the drawbacks to providing access to teaching and lecture videos is that not all students have Internet access. Some teachers work to get around this by having students download the videos or while at school. Researchers at the University of Missouri will be undertaking a three year study observing teachers in order to find out which tactics of flipped instruction work best to improve student outcomes. A 2014 study provided results which indicated that the percentage of teachers who stated that they had flipped the Lesson during the 2014 school year increased from 48% in 2012 to 78% in 2014. Studies on the effects of that instruction and its relationship to student achievement show mixed results. For example, a study by Yong and Levy in 2015 did not find significant differences in student learning between flipped sections and interactive lecture sections and at Harvey Mudd College. Additionally, a study by Jensen, Kommmer, and Godoy in 2015 found that it was actually an active learning mode rather than a flipped classroom that contributed to higher learning gains. Active learning in class requires students to self learn the content within their individual learning spaces so that they are ready to apply what they've learned to solve problems independently as well as collaboratively in class. An article by Lim and Wilson in 2018 focused on self learning and that portion of the flipped learning model in particular, increasing students intellectual engagement by requiring them to answer embedded questions as they watch math videos. Questions are generally embedded to help students gain different types of knowledge. The questions are of two main forced choice like multiple choice or true false and open response like fill in the blank or essay. If the question is embedded to enhance student learning, then teachers would need to identify the aspect of mathematical knowledge or thinking to which the question is directed. On the other hand, thinking oriented questions can enhance a student's process skills. There are various pedagogical reasons for embedding questions in videos, and these can expand the teacher's repertoire of the types of questions that they might consider embedding in a lecture video. One of the several pitfalls associated with flipped classrooms is the lack of student engagement in pre assessment and in class exercises. Other pitfalls include increased time for recording lectures and redesigning course materials. Pre assessment activities tend to focus on lower level cognitive activities centered on building knowledge and comprehension. The authors of this study, Qin and Yur Austin in the Journal of Financial Education in spring of 2017 created in class activities for an introductory business finance course that focused on facilitating higher level learning and application. Many students identified in class exercises as the most prominent factor that contributed to their learning success. These authors assert that the flipped classroom does not simply rearrange traditional lectures and homework delivery through an inside versus outside classroom paradigm, but rather the classroom engages students to take ownership of their learning. The rationales for adopting in class exercises in the flipped classroom included one to give students the benefit of teamwork through personal interactions and personal feedback and 2 to engage students in critical thinking using short essays and open ended questions to reinforce important concepts. The end result of this study was that the flipped classroom model achieved a higher average score than the traditional classroom across Exam 1, Exam 2, and the final exam. In this introductory business finance course, students credited the in class exercises as significant factors for enriching their learning experience. The students rated the online recorded lectures as counting for less than 20% of the support that was most valuable in assisting their learning. Now let's switch from the higher end environment to the K12 setting to get started flipping the classroom, a teacher will generally ask four design questions 1 what type of content is currently being delivered via lecture? Two could parts of the lecture be shifted to homework via video or other web content? 3 what student centered classroom activities could be incorporated and 4 what web resources exist to support those activities? The sudden mandated shift to remote learning during the pandemic eliminated the benefits of technology driven educational strategies like the flipped classroom whose use has soared since March of 2020. The majority of teachers have become more proficient in providing instruction remotely or virtually since the pandemic. Yet some teachers were utilizing this method even before the pandemic. These early adopters indicated that their students responded positively to flipped learning. They indicated that flipped learning gives their students ownership of their pacing and their learning and it sets them up with skills that they need. For example, one third grade teacher indicated that her third graders could download reports, upload them to Google classroom and create PDFs. The third graders would be using Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets individually and collaboratively. In early adopter educators experiences, the students who benefited the most from the flipped classroom strategy are the students who are at lower levels of understanding or or slower to learn key concepts. Given this model, these students get to spend more time with the teacher and get the personalized instruction that they need. A Win Win for both Stakeholders Here are some action steps that you can take when considering the flipped classroom model as it applies to your child. Can the same technique of flipping the classroom be applied to flipping parent communication? Peter DeWitt of Education Week seems to think so. As a school leader, he decided to Send Parents a PowerPoint presentation that focused on some important things that they needed to know about the school year in preparation for Open House. He sent the link to parents and received a great deal of positive feedback. He then surmised as to other ways to flip the model in parent communication. These included PTA meetings, which was an area that I often asked about when my kids were in K12 public school. Given that I was a working parent. He suggested that you send out information about the meeting and the topics that were anticipated to be covered. In case parents were unable to make the meeting, they would at least be informed about what took place. Another area is special events where the teachers or school leaders could provide a five minute video to explain to parents what the special events were, including no Testing Week, Grandparents and Special Persons Day, or no Name Calling Week as examples. A third area where you could flip the model in parent communication is regarding state assessments where principals and other school administrators could send parents a presentation about the importance of getting their children to school on time and include sending them an explanation of how long the exam takes, both in terms of minutes and number of days. And the final area where the model could be flipped for parent communication would be covering any educational issue. Could simply use a simple tutorial or presentation to inform parents about what's happening in education like Common Core State Standards, or new legislation like the the Dignity for All Students act in New York State, the Fair Education act in California, or why certain technologies are used in the classroom. Flipping the communication with parents is not meant to take place of other forms of communication, it just enhances the tools already in use. Flipping communication with parents could also include parent teacher conferences. Typically, parent teacher conferences are more about who controls the conversation instead of providing everyone with the ability to come to the conference prepared to have a meaningful discussion. Flipping parent teacher conferences, According to Peter DeWitt, who was previously a principal and now a contributing writer at Education Week, is simply about providing parents with what they need to be prepared for the conference. This may include sending home all report cards before the conference with a letter of explanation. Providing this information ahead of time allows parents to absorb the information, garner questions, and come to the meeting prepared to have an authentic dialogue with their child's teacher. Parent teacher conferences can be intimidating for some parents because they may be walking into a situation where they are unfamiliar with their child's teacher or or in some cases, it may be the first parent teacher conference that they've ever attended. Depending on the grade of their child. Some conferences focus on one to grow on, one to go on, and one to glow on, whereas in other conferences, unfortunately, the focus may be on what the child can't do rather than what they can do. But parent teacher conferences don't always have to be intimidating. One way to make the conference less intimidating is to use the child as a facilitator. In other words, the student gets the opportunity to show his or her parents all the growth that they've made over the quarter or trimester. After the child has presented his or her work, the conference ends with the teacher discussing where the child is at present. These flipped parent teacher conferences may be a lot of work to set up. However, they are a great way for the student to be involved in the meeting and most parents and their children leave the school feeling positive and more part of the school community. The bottom line is that parent teacher conferences should not be a surprise for parents. Given this day and age of technology and enhanced communication tools, most parents should attend meetings with sufficient information ahead of time. Even if a report card is lost, the parent comes unprepared, or the parent just cancels. At least providing the necessary information ahead of time gives a parent the opportunity to be involved. Here are this episode's takeaways. The Flipped classroom model basically flips the traditional rhythm of class time by introducing lectures online so that students can view them at home while using the class time for projects in group activities that may have originally been assigned as homework. This model can be applied in the K12 setting as well as in higher ed classrooms. Flipped classes are supposed to give teachers more time for individual support, but that doesn't always translate to equal support for all students. The main goal of the flipped classroom is not to simply rearrange traditional lectures and homework delivery through an inside versus outside classroom paradigm, but rather for the classroom hands on activities to engage students to take ownership their own learning. One of the several pitfalls associated with flipped classroom is the lack of students engagement in pre assessment and in class exercises. Other pitfalls include increased time for recording lectures and redesigning course material. The flipped classroom technique can be applied successfully to parent communications as well as parent teacher conferences. This provides an opportunity for parents to be informed and for students to be involved so that everyone feels a part of the school community. The flipped classroom model is more than likely going to stick around. I think that as more teachers become proficient with using it as well as revising their teaching approaches and methods, it could certainly benefit all students by having them take responsibility for their learning. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please follow my podcast on whatever service you're listening to. This also I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a rating, a review, or a comment on apple stitcher or podchaser. You can also rate my podcast@ratethispodcast.com if you like this podcast. The best way to support me and help me grow it is by leaving a review. 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