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The Flipped ClassroomPosted On 25 Jun, 2013 ­ With 3 Comments

By Edwige Simon, Foreign LanguageTechnology Coordinator at theAnderson Language & TechnologyCenter, the University of ColoradoBoulder.

By Courtney Fell, Foreign LanguageTechnology Specialist at theAnderson Language & TechnologyCenter, the University of ColoradoBoulder.

In the “flipped” model of instruction, a portion of what istraditionally covered in class (mainly the grammar lessons) isdone at home, often through short instructional videos, whilewhat is usually assigned as homework is done in class. Thereare many flipped models, not all of which rely on videos. AsBergmann and Sams explain: “Flipping the classroom is moreabout a mindset: redirecting attention away from the teacherand putting attention on the learner and the learning” (11).

Note that the flipped model is different from the blended (or hybrid)model. In the hybrid model, the work conducted online is often used

to reduce the amount of face­to­face time with students while the flipped classroom takes advantage of the extra time freedby moving direct instruction out of the classroom to have more engaged, student­centered classrooms.

In 2007, chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams from Woodland Park High School near Denver, Coloradostarted recording videos of their PowerPoint lectures and posted them online for students who missed class to review. Theysoon realized that all students could benefit from these videos. Soon, the videos replaced in­class direct instruction and theteachers used the freed up class time for those hands­on, project­based and collaborative projects that teachers rarely havetime for. Enabled by the technological advances of the last decade, especially the advent of video sharing sites such asYouTube, the flipped classroom model started spreading quickly.

To get a better sense of how big a phenomenon the flipped classroom is today, wespoke with Kari Arfstrom, Executive Director of the The Flipped Learning Network™,a non­profit organization whose mission is to “provide educators with the knowledge,skills, and resources to successfully implement Flipped Learning”. According toArfstrom, the movement has been gaining serious momentum; the network nowcounts over 13,000 members from all over the world, and the June 2013 conferencesold out a week before it even started.

BENEFITS OF THE FLIPPED MODEL

In addition to freeing up class time, teachers also find that their flipped classrooms have improved learner­control andstudent engagement, provided more opportunities for differentiation than traditional models, and for some, improvedlearning outcomes.

More time in class

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Heather Witten, Spanish teacher at Elizabeth High School,CO interacting with her students.

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April Burton with her students at Francis Howell Central HighSchool in St. Charles.

Moving direct instruction outside the classroom makes room for engaging and communicative activities based upondiscussion and interaction in the target language. As Heather Witten, Spanish teacher at Elizabeth High School, CO noted,“now we’re doing projects that interest them (…) They want to do skits and they want to make movies. And the flipped modelmakes room for those.” Such engaging activities help keep students on task, and reduce discipline problems. Ellen Dill,French Teacher at Ashland Middle School, MA, was looking for ways to increase students’ engagement: “It’s not that I wasnot successful teaching the old way, but I always felt like there were kids sitting there, bored.” After flipping, she notedsignificant improvement in her classroom dynamic. Gyanam Mahajan, a Hindi­Urdu instructor at UCLA, has found that classtime is much more productive when students spend time at home watching the YouTube clips, video recorded lectures andother materials she uploads to the course management system.

Learner control and differentiation The flipped classroom is seen as more learner centric thanthe traditional classroom because students decide when andhow they watch the lessons, and they can pause and replaythem at will: “I am not distracted by things going on aroundme. I do it at home where I can concentrate,” says one ofEllen Dill’s students. Another student commented that, “Iwatch the videos at the end of class on my phone, or I watchvideos at my soccer practice while […] waiting for everyoneto get there.” Mahajan teaches large classes with heritagestudents at various levels of proficiency. The flipped modelallows her to meet the needs of lower level students whilekeeping the more proficient students engaged.

Students learn at adifferent pace and the flipped model allows students to manage their study time. Asclasses become more and more crowded, the flipped model introduces an element ofdifferentiation, especially when combined with other models such as mastery learningand the Universal Design for Learning principle (Bergmann and Sams, 2007). Wittenfor example, was asked to combine her upper level Spanish class with her AP classand therefore needed to find ways to meet the needs of students at various levels ofproficiency. The flipped model allowed her to do so and she also found out that itprovided more time to assist struggling students who also benefited from the ability towatch and re­watch lessons at will, instead of having to catch it all in class. As PamBenton, current President of the Florida Foreign Language Association and Spanishteacher in Pinellas county, Florida, puts it, “of course, all struggling students can learn a foreign language just like anyoneelse can learn a foreign language, but maybe not within the same time parameters, so the idea with getting rid of the timebarriers is creating a system where the students can do a lot of their learning in an independent way, supported by a modellike the flipped model.”

Increased learning outcomes One teacher reported increased learning outcomes: “I was able to reduce the number of D’s and F’s from 27% to 19% andstudents think it’s a fun class.” says April Burton, French teacher at Francis Howell Central High School, Missouri. Bentonconcurs that preliminary results from a multi­classroom comparative study she conducted with fellow teachers showedsignificant improvement in the students listening and speaking skills of the flipped group. At this point however, thesefindings remain anecdotal and further research is needed to clearly establish a connection between improved learningoutcomes and the flipped model.

CHALLENGES OF THE FLIPPED MODEL

Initially, the flipped model may encounter resistance from students, parents, andadministrators who are used to direct instruction. By proactively educating all partiesabout the flipped model, the teachers we interviewed alleviated concerns and oftengained support from their community.

Parents and administrators Instruction through pre­created video may initially create the impression that theteacher is no longer ‘teaching’ in the classroom. Speaking about her personalexperience

with the flipped model, Burton says, “as far as parents go,most of them love it. The only parents who really resisted itwere the parents who were into pen and paper types oftraditional activities.” Another teacher of middle schoolersinitially encountered resistance from parents concerned abouttheir children using the Internet. However, in the end, theparents and the school supported the teacher with a grant topurchase more computers and tablets for her flippedclassroom. In response to parents or administratorsconcerned that this model increases the time students spendin front of a computer screen, Bergmann and Sams arguethat the flipped model is, in part, about meeting students ontheir own turf: “Isn’t it about time we embraced digital learningand used it to help our students learn, instead of telling themthey can’t learn with today’s tools?” (21). In order to minimize

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Ellen Dill’s French students at the Ashland Public Schools,MA.

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resistance and maximize buy­in, teachers may consider educating parents and administrators on the affordances of theflipped model.

Student resistance Students may resist the flipped model because it requires them to take responsibility for their own learning. Students willneed to manage their time accordingly and come to class prepared; sitting and listening (or “playing school”) is no longer anoption. Instead, class time is spent engaging in discussion, refining understanding, and demonstrating mastery of the newlyacquired skills. Although students may initially be thrown off by the absence of direct instruction, they often quickly realizethe benefits of the additional practice time they now have with their peers and their teacher. However, regardless of the timeand effort put into preparing their students, some teachers find that many students still lack the self­discipline required forthis model to work.

From sage on the stage … Teachers need the support of their community, but more thananything, they themselves need to be comfortable withrelinquishing control of the learning process over to theirstudents. Rather than being the performer standing at thefront of the class, the teacher’s role shifts to that of a learningcoach. Although most of Witten’s students watch the videos,some prefer the textbook or other online sources. “As longas they are getting it and as long as they are learning it, whocares where it comes from,” says Witten, who is happy tohave more self­directed students who are aware of how theylearn best. “The flipped model gave me the confidence towalk away from the book. The day you walk away from thebook is the scariest and the best day of your entire life.”

THE TECH SIDE

There are many tools available to create your videos and tutorials. The list below summarizes some of the most commonlyused resources.

YouTube: As long as you have a webcam, you can created your own YouTube channel and record and edit your videosdirectly within the YouTube site. It is free and easy to use.

Camtasia: This is one of the most popular tools amongst flipped classroom teachers.This software is developed by TechSmith and costs $299 for PC and $99 for Macusers (the Mac version has fewer features than the PC one, hence the pricedifference). It is both a screen recording software and a video recording software witha number of features such as sounds effects, transitions, and quiz questions.Remember this route will be much more time consuming than just recording aYouTube video of yourself.

PowerPoint: Microsoft PowerPoint lets you record voice over your slides and saveyour work as a movie.

Captivate: Adobe Captivate is the tool of choice for professional instructionaldesigners. A teacher license costs $299. It is a powerful solution but not necessarily easy to learn. It does meet accessibilitystandards and offers several interactive features and assessment options.

VoiceThread: Although not conventionally used to create tutorials, VoiceThread offers a cheap and easy solution to createand share online tutorials. You can upload any type of material, including PowerPoint slides and record audio or videocomments over each slide. It also comes with a handy doodling feature that lets you underline key aspects of your lesson.Then, students can leave text, audio or video comments onto the slides, a practical feature for feedback and practice. Asingle educator license is $79/year.

Screencast­o­Matic: This is a free online screen recording tool (up to 15 minutes). You can upload your screencast toYouTube or download it to your desktop for students to watch offline.

Prezi: This free online presentation tool lets you create engaging presentations in a rather unique format. Prezi is not aslide­based program but rather a canvas­based tool that frees the presenter from a linear approach to concept explanation.You can upload a wide variety of media including YouTube videos, pictures, graphics and text. You then have the option torecord a narration over your content. It is more time consuming than PowerPoint and in a way more engaging. Remember touse the path feature sparingly or your presentation will more like a roller­coaster ride than a learning journey.

CREATE YOUR OWN MATERIALS OR RECYCLE?

Before taking the time to author your own educational materials from scratch, investigate the online resources that arealready available in your language (if you have to create your own, pair up with another teacher!) Open EducationalResources (OER) are becoming easier to find and recycle for our own purposes.

Online consortiums such as MERLOT are a good place to find tutorials you can use with your own students. In MERLOT,users can customize searches according to language, student population, peer review ratings, or Creative Commonslicenses. Language centers, such as the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Open Educational Resources andLanguage Learning (COERLL), have a wealth of material for students and teachers in a number of languages that are highlyscaffolded and ready to use. Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative Elementary French One course has a series of

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Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, FlipYour Classroom: Reach Every Student inEvery Class Every Day (ISTE, 2012).

video filmed in Montreal with supplementary materials that are shared under aCreative Commons license permitting the resources to be copied, distributedand transmitted. French educators could link directly to these videos or othermaterials in this course as raw material for language instruction from home.

There are many considerations when working with OER. Be sure to assess thecontent for accuracy and level, always keeping in mind the needs of yourstudents. Do not rely on the permanency nor immutability of the materials youfind online. Web pages come and go and their authors often change contentregularly, so semester to semester, revisit any resources that you used in thepast to make sure that they are still available and that the content has notchanged dramatically. If you wish to customize OERs in any way, consult theoriginal author of the material and always pay close attention to any license orremix stipulations provided. Many OERs are released under a license by thenonprofit organization Creative Commons. If you see a Creative Commonslicense on any OER, click on the license to learn more about the ways in whichthe author intended that the material be used. For an example, see the end ofthis article.

A HOW­TO GUIDE FOR TEACHERS

Educate yourself on the modelRead Flip Your Classroom, join the flipped classroom network, find a localteacher who is flipping and buy her coffee in exchange for some tips, ask if you can observe a class. If thereare no local resources you can tap into, consider becoming the local resource yourself. Benton for examplewas not able to find local resources on how to flip so she created her own Professional Learning Community

to learn about the model and try it for herself with the help and support of interested colleagues.

Get your administrators’ approval and inform parentsMost of the teachers who are successful with thismodel have the full support of their school administrators and parents because they took the necessary stepsto educate all key stakeholders about the flipped model. Dill publishes a parental survey in her Wiki, Wittencreated a video for parents. Although the model is increasingly popular, it is still new to many. Make sure to

explain what a flipped classroom is, state the benefits, point to the Flipped Learning Network website, link to short articlesand make yourself available to discuss this model with parents and administrators. Feel free to choose from the resources

listed at the end of this article and make sure to emphasize that students will greatly benefit from thismodel. Decide what to flipStart small, identify a unit that lends itself well to this model and make sure you’regiving yourself time to prepare for this unit. You can start with easier grammar points or you can choose morecomplex ones, as students will benefit from being able to watch the lesson as much as they need to. Createyour flipped lessonFirst choose your medium. If you opt for the use of video, remember you might not haveto create them yourself.Choose your medium: You don’t have to use videos; your lessons can combinehandouts, podcasts, webpages, tutorials, graphics with questions, etc. After creating videos, one teacherrealized that some of her students were simply using the textbook while other students opted for videos

made by another Spanish teacher at another school. Thus, there are many ways to combine resources and save yourselfsome time. If you do choose to use videos, consider using existing ones. If your textbook has an online component, reviewthose materials and see what you could leverage. Search the Internet for videos, activities or Open EducationalResources (OER). See the section on OER below for more information on where to look for materials. Next, make sure allstudents have a way to watch the videos. Conduct a technology inventory prior to flipping your classroom and find outwhether your students have regular access to a computer with an Internet connection. Distribute the videos accordingly:post them online, copy them on flash drives or burn them to DVDs. Arrange with your school library or computer lab tohave a few hours reserved for your students to watch the videos or direct your students to a public library with a computerlab. In addition to letting students bring their own devices to class, several of the teachers we interviewed wrote grants orcreated a donation program to increase the number of computers/tablets available for their students. Note that althoughwe should not assume that all students have access to a computer with an internet connection, access is less and less ofan issue these days. As Benton related, none of her Title 1 students needed to take advantage of the use the extendedlab hours she had arranged at her school, or any of the other measures she took to ensure technology access.Makingyour own videos: If you decide to make your own videos, try to keep them short (under 10 minutes), engaging and to thepoint. It is probably a good idea to only teach one grammar point per video. Making videos is time consuming and manyteachers feel paralyzed by their desire to create perfect instructional videos from the start. As with everything, the first fewones might not be perfect, but they will get better with time. It is better to jump in and create several videos in a row, lateryou can revisit the first ones using your students’ and your colleagues’ feedback. If possible, try to avoid the talking headmodel and use slides with illustrations, examples and add a voice over explanation. See the section titled The Tech Sideon how to create tutorials. If you want to be in the video, enlist a colleague and make it a conversation. It will be moreappealing for the students to watch a dialogue than a monologue and you’ll probably feel more comfortable than on yourown. To save yourself time, team­up with a colleague (at your school or in your network) who instructs a similar level orlanguage to share ideas or materials. Finally, remember that the videos are not the most important part of the flippingprocess. As Witten pointed out, “people focus a lot on videos and the technology aspect of it and really that’s the smallestpart of it. It’s not how to have the best videos in the world it’s about what are you going to do with the time that pulling thegrammar out of the class allows you to have.” Train your studentsStudents need to be trained on how to use the videos

to effectively learn on their own. Watch the first video together as a class and coach the students to eliminatedistractions and to use the pause and rewind button as much as they need. Explain that this model allowsthem to watch the explanation as many times as they need and gives them additional time to process theinformation. This is very different from classroom lessons where time is limited and students are expected to

start using the newly acquired forms right away. Make sure you have a system in place to ensure that students watch andprocess the videos. There are many ways to do this:

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Note­taking: Bergmann and Sam’s trained their students on the Cornell note­taking system. Burton who also uses thisapproach emphasizes the importance of reserving class time to train students on effective note­taking practices. You canthen randomly collect the notes students take. Benton’s group of teachers encourages their students to take what they call“juicy notes”­ students are asked to write down questions and examples showing they understand the grammar point andcan use it correctly and to conclude with a reflection on what they learned and what they still need to practice.

Assessment: You can use your Learning Management System to create a short assessment that students have to take todemonstrate they processed the content. Burton’s students take a quiz in class. The first five questions are to ensure thatstudents watched the video and then she incorporates a few application questions.

Re­organize your class time

Start by re­organizing your space. The transition to the flipped modeloften requires an alteration of the classroom space. As Bergmann andSams transitioned to this student­centered approach, they moved away

from the loaded “classroom” designation and opted for the name “learning space”.They rearranged the desk configuration to better accommodate student­centeredlearning groups, creating clusters of tables with collaborative spaces and positionedSMART boards along the sides of the room (82).The final and yet most importantstep is to decide what to do in class. Each class should probably start with a briefseries of questions and answers to clarify any misconceptions about the flippedcontent, then ask for student feedback on the effectiveness of the video. With regardsto the rest of the class, many teachers use the freed up time to do fun activities thatused to be left out because they were too time­consuming (e.g. role play, skits, video projects, student presentations,cultural explorations, personalized assessment, helping students who struggle on a particular unit, collaborative activities).

DOWNLOAD THE HOW­TO GUIDE

CONCLUSION

For many teachers, flipping makes sense given the conditions in which they teach language, whether they have mixedlevels or large classes. For Mahajan, it allows her to “balance in class and out of class work in a way that makes effectiveuse of the tools of the digital age.” Flipping however is not for everybody. It comes with strong pedagogical underpinningsthat teachers must agree with in order to successfully deploy and use the model. Teachers who place a lot of emphasis ongrammar accuracy for example might have difficulty moving grammar lessons out of the classroom. For Ellen Dill, it was aneasy choice: “I never felt like grammar was the most important thing. When you go to France, or when you go to Quebec,you’re not gonna down write on a piece of paper making sure its spelled right, how do I get to such and such a place. You’regonna have to ask somebody, and you’re gonna have to understand them and follow directions. The language is a livingthings, it’s not all about did I add an –e or did I add an –s.”It is probably worth adding that many teachers who assigngrammar reading and exercises prior to teaching the concept in class feel that the flipped model is nothing new. Bergmannand Sams would probably agree with this assessment but the flipped movement did help formalize the concept and offerstrong companion practices that help ensure that the model works effectively.

Meet the teachers we interviewed:

Kari M. Arfstrom is aneducational consultant andcurrently serves as theexecutive director of theFlipped Learning Network:

http://www.flippedlearning.org

Pam Benton is a Spanish & Frenchteacher in Pinellas County SchoolsHospital Homebound in St. Petersburg,Florida. She’s been teaching for 24 years.She’s currently the President of theFlorida Foreign Language Association.Visit her site at:

http://wlflipped.blogspot.com/

Heather Witten is aSpanish teacher atElizabeth High School, CO.She’s been teaching for 7years. She currently serveson the CCFLT board. Visither blog at:

http://spanishflippedclass.blogspot.com/

April Burton is in her 14th year as a highschool French teacher at Francis HowellCentral High School in St. Charles. visither site at http://MrsBurton.com

Ellen Dill is a Frenchteacher with the AshlandPublic Schools in Ashland,Massachusetts. She’sbeen teaching for 15 yearsand has flipped herclassroom for 2 1/2 years.

Visit her site at mme­dill.wikispaces.com.

Gyanam Mahajan is a Hindi­Urdu instructor and a LanguageProgram Coordinator of the South & Southeast Asian Languages& Cultures Program at UCLA.

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LEARN MORE

Professional Organization:

• The Flipped Learning Network: This non­profit organization has the mission to “provide educators with the knowledge, skills, and resources to successfullyimplement Flipped Learning”. The website offers free archives of webinars (free registration), access to a large network ofeducators (13,000) organized by academic discipline, information about their annual conference and soon, an annotatedbibliography of the flipped model.

Lit Review

Noora Hamdan, Patrick E. McKnight, Katherina McKnight & M. Arfstrom. The Flipped Learning Model: A White PaperBased on the Literature Review Titled a Review of Flipped Learning. Flipped Learning Network 2013.<http://researchnetwork.pearson.com/wp­content/uploads/WhitePaper_FlippedLearning.pdf>

Books/Articles:

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.

• Flip Your Classroom, Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day By Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams. This is ashort but concise read. Every page is worth it. We especially recommend the section on mastery learning and how theflipped model gave a new life to this approach.

•A practical guide full of tips and strategies on how to effectively flip your classroom.

Bretzmann, Jason. Flipping 2.0 Practical Strategies for Flipping your Classroom. United States of America: 2013 TheBretzmann Group, LLC, 2013. Print.

• 7 Things You Should Know about Flipped Classrooms (Educause): a very short (2 pages) summary of the flippedclassroom phenomenon.

7 Things You Should Know about Flipped Classrooms. Educase Learning Initiative. • “Flipping the Classroom” for Language Learners: a brief overview by voxy.com.

• My Mistake Thinking in Flipped Classroom: An article by Lynn Burton, one of the teachers with interviews to write thisarticle.

• 6 Expert Tips for Flipping the Classroom: A short how­to­guide by Campus Technology.

Examples of Video Tutorials:

• Spanish articles (Tutorial with voiceover) • Spanish definite articles (Video lesson)

Teacher Blogs/Sites: • A Spanish teacher’s blog • A French teacher’s class site

Infographic: • An infographic by the adaptive learning company Knewton

camtasia and flipped language classroom , captivate and flipped language classroom , differentiation in the languageclassroom , flipped classroom , Flipped learning , flipping the language classroom , prezi and flipped language classroom ,screencastomatic and flipped language classroom , the flipped language classroom , voicethread and flipped languageclassroom , youtube and flipped language classroom

This Post Has 3 Comments

courtneyfellMay 1, 2014 at 3:41 pm

For those of you who are questioning your flipped classroom model, this article from The Chronicle of Higher Edmay offer some insight: http://shar.es/SmVrB

For more difficult concepts, I personally like the idea Talbert proposes of presenting the basic side of theconcept in the flipped tutorial and then covering the advanced aspects in class together. Another highlight thatEdwige and I mention above as well is the importance of the having meaningful f2f classroom experiences thatcompliment the flip.

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Happy flipping and happy reading!

Ana Ban MNNovember 8, 2013 at 12:08 pm

One of the very useful How to’s that I have read on the Flipped Learning module. Well­worded! Thanks forsharing! Regards.

djernigan0001July 23, 2013 at 4:09 pm

Many helpful ideas for me as a beginning online course teacher.

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