Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jonathan Bergmann received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching in 2002 and was named Semi-Finalist for Colorado Teacher of the Year in 2010. Along with his coauthor, he is cofounder of the Flipped Learning Network (flippedlearning.org). He also serves on the advisory board of TED Education.

Aaron Sams is the Director of Digital Learning and Director of Admissions at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. Prior to this, he was a chemistry teacher. He was awarded the 2009 Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.

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flipped classroom transitions to deep learning
Carolyn Duriey's Story

Carolyn Durley, a biology teacher in Kelowna,  British Columbia, Canada, burst onto the flipped learning scene when she wrote a blog post entitled, “Excuse Me:  I Think I’m Having a Revolution.” In that blog she stated:  “I knew the world was changing. I knew it … but no one,  no one, told me how to move from here to there.” Through flipped learning, she found a way to move her students to deeper learning. She has continued to add to the conversation by training other teachers to implement flipped learning. She and her colleague Graham Johnson have started a Canadian conference on flipped learning. Enjoy her transformative story.

If you had asked me five years ago to describe what student-centered learning looked like, I would have struggled to come up with a description. I wouldn’t have been able to describe “deep learning” (see Table 8.1) at all. With over 20 years in the classroom, my expertise was teaching and my focus was there, not on student learning. I had believed that if I organized, planned, and delivered the curriculum to students in their seats, learning would occur. I now see that I was encouraging what I call “shallow learning.” At the time, I felt a strong sense of responsibility to deliver the curriculum; from my perspective, this meant teaching to students. The action part of the class was owned and operated by me, the teacher. This mindset had kept my classroom in the shallow end of student learning and prevented deep learning from developing and flourishing.

Teaching Changes from a Revolving door to an evolving door
Each September, I found myself trying to solve the same problems—again. I would enter the classroom and, as if it were a revolving door, find myself facing the exact same problems as the previous year, with no significant growth to my teaching practice. Despite my annually renewed commitment to organization, preparation, and new practices, the same challenges would surface and produce little lasting or impactful change to student learning. The time and energy needed to evolve my teaching practice threatened my ability to cover the curriculum for my Grade 12 students, many of whom required a specific grade  point average to get into a post-secondary program.

Table 8.1  Comparison of Shallow and Deep learning
Shallow learning
Students do activities out of habit rather than from self-knowledge.
Students are highly dependent on the teacher for specific instructions.
Students dislike trying new activities, as lack of success may negatively impact their success.
Students are disconnected from the learning process; learning seems impersonal and irrelevant.
Students focus on strategies to acquire points (marks).
Students are passive and compliant.Students are active and engaged.
Students find it difficult to explain or find connections between topics or units.
Students view evidence for learning as a grade or mark.
Students lack self-knowledge or awareness on specific areas that they find challenging.
Students see topics as lists of facts to be memorized and quickly forgotten.
Deep learning
Students can articulate and identify what learning activities best suit their learning goals.
Students are interdependent and work peer-to-peer as well as with the teacher.
Students see value in taking risks in their learning, are able to learn from their mistakes, and reflect and take appropriate action.
Students take pride and ownership of the learning process.
Students focus on strategies and habits to improve their learning.
Students can explain connections between units and explain how topics relate to the big picture of the course.
Students view learning as an ongoing process.
Students are able to articulate specific areas of both strength and weakness in a course.
Students can relate topics to the bigger picture of the topic (why and how does this relate).

I was investing increasing amounts of time and energy towards developing “better” school and departmental policies that maximized the time students spent in their seats. Misguidedly, I thought that if my students were in their seats, the rest of the learning equation would be easy. These policies did not focus directly on improving student learning, but instead on superficial managerial procedures involving matters such as writing tests on time, students leaving class early, and excused or unexcused absences.

This narrow focus kept my teaching practice and perspective of student learning superficial and shallow. My teacher skill set was built around content organization, behavior modification, class control, entertainment, and engagement. While well-suited to test preparation for high-stakes exams, these skills did not facilitate deep student learning. And yet I had a rewarding teaching practice, excellent rapport with students, and positive feedback from students, parents, and administration; I felt proud of my work in the classroom. This success had reinforced my definition of student learning: that students gain the ability to move at my predetermined pace, follow instructions closely, and process large amounts of content quickly without discussion or reflection. I could not imagine exploring inquiry, metacognition, or any new teaching or learning strategies—such as Understanding by Design (UBD), problem-based learning (PBL), Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—until I had more time. After all, there wasn’t time to complete what I was already doing, much less time to explore or add anything else.

This lack of time is what got me in the flipped classroom door. My initial motivation for using the flipped classroom was the increased time it would make available in class. I started with Flipped Class 101, creating and archiving screencasts of my lectures for my students to watch at home (see Table 8.2 for tips on successful screencasting). The newly created class time allowed me to do justice to the curriculum. I was now able to incorporate labs, do science rather than just talk about science, talk to every student every day, help students who needed help, and challenge students who had previously been bored. As I started with Flipped Class 101, I admit my goal was simply to create more time for my students to be in their seats, delving into the curriculum. Flipped Class 101 quickly solved my superficial problems, but just as quickly, it produced new ones.

Table 8.2  Screencasting Smarts
Time
Maximum 10–12 minutes in length.
Format
Create a screencast template and use the template for each subsequent screencast.
Instructions
Provide direct instruction on how to watch educational screencasts.
Note Organizer
Provide note organizers for students so they know what they are watching for.
Cooperative Watching
Encourage students to watch screencasts with a partner or in groups.
Flex Time
Provide time during class where students  can choose to watch videos.
Teacher-made
Videos made by teacher demonstrate that teacher is committed to student success and establishes trust.
Download Videos
If you have computers in your room, download screencasts to hard drive of each computer to avoid lack of access on days when connection is slow or unavailable.
Provide alternatives
Have an alternative ready in the event students say they don’t want to watch videos or videos don’t work for their learning.
earphones
Have earphones available in the classroom and encourage students to bring their own.

Flipped Class 101 
Reveals Paradigm Deficiencies
The archived screencasts, which I produced over the course of the first year, provoked a shift in my focus away from my teaching and onto student learning. Using the screencasts provided “white space” in terms of time and energy both inside and outside of the school day. Most significantly for me, using the screencasts lifted the mental responsibility I had felt to deliver and cover content—a responsibility that had inadvertently promoted shallow learning. However, this white space provided unforeseen insights and new challenges in regards to student learning.
As content delivery moved out of the face-to-face time, I now interacted with my students on a daily basis; I was able to have meaningful conversations with each student in every class. Although this in itself was rewarding, I became aware that many students lacked basic skills that prevented them from becoming independent learners. Students were well trained at “playing school,” but did not have the skills to “play learning.” Before we were able to move to deep learning, we needed to purposely develop habits and skills that would facilitate students’ success in a different classroom dynamic than the one they had been programmed to exist in previously.

I also came to the realization that students were not ready for drastic overhauls to classroom practices: they needed time to adapt. Many students initially felt resentful and angry at me for “not being their teacher anymore.” Their reaction was hard for me, as I was used to strong positive relationships with students. I recognized I needed to find a way to maintain student trust by using a graduated introduction of new activities. I also observed that students needed targeted support to map out action plans to overcome areas of challenge, whether it was with work habits or specific content topics. Students wanted to learn and had their own personal long-term goals in place, but they struggled with time-management skills and connecting their day-to-day habits to these goals. The timeline for student ownership to develop was longer than what I had anticipated. However, when students did make choices for themselves, it was with stronger commitment than when I had made the choices for them. Given time and space, students could learn to make appropriate choices for themselves and their success.

Learning is not linear, and students can self-pace. Talking with my students every day about what they were learning and thinking about, I quickly discovered they were self-pacing regardless of the pace I set for them. More amazing to me, I discovered students could accurately identify areas where they struggled, especially when learning targets or standards were made clear to them on a regular basis. I used to think some students were not learning because they went for long periods of time with little or no apparent growth. In flipped learning, however, I have observed many students experience rapid periods of growth and change. This observation helped me to realize that many students can be responsible for their own learning. For students to self-regulate, they need targeted support to map out a plan of action to overcome their specific areas of difficulty, whether with work habits or content areas. Some students struggled with time-management skills and aligning work habits to long-term goals. Because of the time I had available for each student, I was able to individually target their challenges and provide them the responsive assistance they needed.
Another issue I discovered is that many students were unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the self-reflection and self-direction skills they needed to support their learning. Metacognition (thinking about thinking) was, from their perspective, not valuable as a key component to enhance their learning. These students viewed any activity that was not done for points as extraneous and a waste of their energy.

from flipped Class 101  to flipped Learning
Flipped Class 101 revealed cracks in my old paradigm and  helped me imagine a learner-centered education. I had two main goals when working towards flipped learning: to create a self- sustain ing learning community in the classroom (see Table 8.3) and to empower students to become self-regulating. Therefore, the transition to a new classroom dynamic required building a strong sense of community among the students and helping students develop skills that fostered self-regulation rather than external regulation. In a self-sustaining community students worked together both cooperatively and collaboratively. Both these ways of learning enhanced the sense of belonging and team approach in our classroom. Collaborative learning was especially important because it made students feel valued regardless of their skill set or ability level.

Table 8.3  Key Components of Class Community
Collaborative learning
Commitment to co-create with others a tangible project where each learner has a specific and interdependent role in the creation of the project.
Cooperative learning
Commitment to co-learn with others and be part of a community that is trying to make sense of a topic.

Creating a self-sustaining  Learning Community in the Classroom
I identified actions I could employ to help students become successful and active members of a classroom learning community:
Create policies together. I actively involved students in developing class routines and policies. For example, we created our personal electronic device policy as a class and all signed the document. arrange the physical space. I arranged classroom furniture to facilitate both group and individual work. I wanted to reduce the focus on the teacher as the center of the class. One way I did this was to set up three small conversation areas, each with comfortable seating for group discussions.
Normalize group work. I spent the first several weeks of each semester establishing classroom routines that required and built teamwork and skill differentiation.
make groups responsible. I assigned regular and repeated group tasks to develop ownership and independence. For example, I gave each group a weekly task and rotated these tasks through  the groups over the course of the school year.
develop class culture. In the past, the culture of the class was derived from my personality and energy. Class culture derived from students is not as immediately obvious in a class that is student-centered. A student-driven culture takes longer to develop and requires a more purposeful creation. Once it is established, a class culture is self-sustaining and extends beyond the classroom walls. An example of something I did to encourage a student-created class culture was to use a class Facebook group where students could interact and ask each other questions.
solicit student feedback. I asked for student feedback on a regular and ongoing basis. I then responded openly to their feedback and their constructive criticisms. I tried to implement their suggestions wherever I could and explained why if I could not.

students as self-Regulating Learners
Because my students were used to being externally regulated, I needed to activate the following in order for self-regulation to be an integral part of the class culture:
Promote regular guided metacognition. Students needed regular and guided practice to think about their thinking. Many, at first, saw this activity as pointless. “Why are we doing this?” was a common question. With time, students did become better at this process and began to self-select this activity without prompting. Student comments included “Reflection helped me sort out what I needed to do” and “When I was overwhelmed and stressed reflection helped me to break down what I needed to do into smaller chunks.” Students used soft-cover, inexpensive copy books as learning journals. They could leave these in class and easily access them at any point during the day. See Table 8.4 for further activities to promote class culture and self-regulation.
model metacognition. Students need to see the teacher as the  chief learner in the room. To this end, I would write my own reflections about our classroom on my blog during classroom reflection time. I wanted to model that I am a learner who is thinking about my learning and that it is a valuable and important activity.
set goals on a regular basis. Students were asked to set both shortterm and long-term goals on a regular basis and record them in their learning journals. For some students these goals were as simple as asking for help or completing a small project. Some students already had this skill internalized; for others this was helpful in allowing them to develop ownership of their time and learning. For certain students this quickly became an authentic habit they began to use without prompting.
make goals visible. At the start of the year we developed class goals together and students made personal goals. We publicly displayed these goals in the classroom for the duration of the semester.
make goals public. Students would share goals in their groups and with me as well during “hot seat” (described in Table 8.4). I found that verbalizing and talking about goals worked to reinforce student ownership of their day-to-day choices as learners.
Provide choice. I gave students physical space and time in class to complete work as needed. Students have off days and we need to honor them when they say they need personal space. I provided what I term “flex time” every class, and during this time students could self-select what they needed to get done to best meet their personal learning goals.
Introduce new activities repeatedly. I encouraged students to try new activities (see Table 8.4 for possible activities) but ultimately I trusted them to choose to be involved in a new activity when they were comfortable and ready to do so. When students saw a new activity as “fun” they would choose to give it a try the next time we did it in class. Tweeting in class to answer questions or using Poll Everywhere are examples of such choice activities.
Respect personality differences. Some students are introverted and prefer to contribute in less publicly visible ways, such as online. Providing a choice of how to contribute allowed students to feel comfortable and valued. Whenever possible I would give students a choice of how they could best contribute. For example, some students are comfortable contributing in an online forum, such as our Facebook group, but not publicly in front of the entire class.
Trust students. In the past I had always put pressure on students to keep up, get their work done, and come in for help. After much discussion with students I realized that students do not enjoy being micromanaged. Moreover, for some students it has the reverse effect and shuts them down. Although this was a hard habit for me to break, I made every attempt to trust students when they said: I can do it alone.
allow for supported failure. I found some students respond more quickly and positively to change if they experience supported failure first. This does not imply you let a student fail. Rather it means that you provide opportunities for them to show their learning when they are ready to. I accomplished this by providing opportunities for retests and for alternative assessments. For example, I used both exit interviews and portfolios.

Table 8.4  Possible activities in the Flipped Classroom
learning journals an inexpensive copy book that remains in the classroom to provide opportunities for metacognition, goal setting, and private communication with the teacher.
learning packets a handout made up of the possible learning activities for each unit with the optimal unit deadline, along with note organizers for screencasts and the learning standards (or targets) for the unit.
Hot seat Time in class before a test where each student has an interview with the teacher. The student presents his or her evidence for learning, and student and teacher have a conversation about what is going well and where the student is struggling.
Redo application an application that students complete and submit if they wish to apply for a redo (retest). Parameters are set for specific criteria students must meet before they are eligible for a redo.
Flex time Time provided in class during which students can select the activity they need to best suit their individual situation. at the start of the semester, time provided is 10 to 20 minutes. The amount of time is slowly increased related to the specific personality of the class. During this time many students watch the screencasts.
Traditional activities at the start of the semester I do a small standand-deliver lecture component every day to put students at ease and to prove to them I am still their teacher. as students become more comfortable and familiar with the flipped classroom structures, I extinguish this whole-class lecture portion but may still do small group review sessions or mini-lectures to smaller groups as needed.
Community time This is time where the whole class works on the same project. In Biology this is usually a lab activity that the entire class does at the same time. However, if a student has fallen behind, they may forgo the group activity to catch up. This is negotiated on a student-by-student basis.

fail fast, fail frequently, and fail forward
To change means to try something new, whether it is going to the gym, cooking new recipes, or working with a new phone. Mistakes will be made. Changing a learning environment, as I now know, involves failure—specifically, making mistakes in front of 30 teenagers.

Being ready and willing to embrace failure was the hardest part for me. As an “older” teacher, I was used to my classroom running smoothly, without any hiccups or fuss. The transition from a stable predictable environment to making small mistakes every day for the first several months was very uncomfortable. I felt stressed because it was not perfect; it was messy and chaotic. I had to embrace failure, learn from it, and move on to the next mistake, which was waiting right around the corner. So my words of wisdom would be: fail fast, fail frequently, and those failures will propel you forward! Failure is not an ending but a new beginning. If we don’t learn to fail we fail to learn. Flipped Class 101 allowed me to fail, but to fail safely and slowly forward, in a direction that helped me design a classroom centered on students and their deep learning.

ending up at flipped Learning
My flipped classroom journey began with making videos. I was able to use the lecture and organizational skills I had developed over the course of my 20-year teaching career to be a successful Flipped Class 101 teacher. Once the screencasts were made and archived, I was freed from repeating the content explanation; my time was repurposed. Wear and tear on me was diminished and my time was now focused on how to differentiate the classroom and develop a student-focused classroom. This happened slowly over the course of several months, with daily reflection and discussions with other teachers who had flipped their classrooms. Throughout this time of transition, my focus shifted to working with students where they were at, allowing students to drive their learning, make choices, and take ownership of both their successes and failures. This design evolved over the course of the first year.

When I started with Flipped Class 101, I could not have imagined how it would shift my classroom so dramatically and irrevocably. I was not aware of the possibilities that would emerge when I began with my initial desire to have more time in class to do justice to the curriculum and prepare students for post-secondary education. Flipped Class 101 caused me to shift from a highly teacher-driven and externally regulated model to one that was student-focused and student-centered. I had become a flipped learning teacher. Though I have room to grow, I would never go back to the old way. My teaching, my students, and their learning are all forever changed.