PRAIRIE GROVE — Anne Minton didn’t have to spend 25 minutes of class time teaching a grammar lesson on verbals, a class of verbs that function as other parts of speech in sentences.
Instead, she developed a series of six slides about verbals for her eighth-graders to watch on a computer at home. She sent them an eight-question quiz by e-mail to gauge their understanding of the lesson. Minton’s pupils at Prairie Grove Middle School completed the quizzes and submitted them online.
Teachers nationwide are diverging from the traditional classroom model of lectures, note-taking and homeworkassignments. Thousands are experimenting with “flipped learning,” in which they record lectures or create slideshow presentations for students to watch as homework. Sending the lectures home frees up class time for other activities.
Flipped learning can be done intermittently or as part of a daily classroom routine.
Minton, who teaches pre-Advanced Placement English, turned to flipped learning to teach the basics of grammar and literary terms, and to help address problems that appear in students’ writing. She produces a 10- to 15-minute lesson every Monday and Wednesday, accompanied by a quiz.
That allows her to devote more of her 90-minute class period to writing, reading and analysis, she said.
“As teachers, we compete with video games, texting, music, Internet, movies,” Minton said. “So rather than compete with it, why not join it?”
The videos keep her students engaged in learning outside of the classroom, teaching them that learning is ongoing, she said.
“They’re on the computer anyway,” she said. “It’s a fun way to grab their attention.”
Minton’s 90-minute class period begins with a short writing assignment. Students can watch the flipped lesson and complete the quiz in class if they weren’t able to do it the previous evening. Then they complete the writing assignment as homework instead.
If three-quarters of the students understand the lesson, they can move forward on other assignments, Minton said. She can give extra help to the 25 percent who did not. Every student has the experience of working with Minton in a small group, so there’s no stigma to it, she said.
“I can tell my time is better spent,” Minton said. “I can make sure everybody gets what they need.”
The day after students were learning about verbals, Minton pulled aside seven students, who didn’t understand the lesson, to speak with them for a few minutes while the rest of the class did other work.
BIRTH OF A CONCEPT
A flipped class allows for more learning and at a higher level than rote memorization does, said Kari Arfstrom, executive director of the Flipped Learning Network, a national network of educators. The network has grown since January 2012 from 2,500 members to 11,000 members nationwide, with 37 members from across Arkansas.
The concept developed in the spring of 2007 out of necessity for two chemistry teachers in a rural Colorado high school of 950 students, Arfstrom said. They were tired of repeating lectures for students who missed their classes because of ball games and school activities. The teachers discovered software that would allow them to record a PowerPoint slideshowwith voice and annotations, and then convert it to a video file that could be shared online.
The recorded lectures were so popular, students asked them to do more, Arfstrom said. Students then began watching recorded lectures for homework and completed their assignments, labs and tests in class. In 2012, the teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams published Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day. The book offers an introduction to the flipped classroom and describes what happens in a classroom when there is no lecture.
Teachers gain an entire class period for conducting experiments in chemistry, working on math problems or staging a readers’ theater in English, Arfstrom said. Instead of memorization and lecture, a teacher can guide students to deeper learning that involves analyzing, evaluating and creating.
Teachers now have more access in their classrooms to wireless Internet, interactive whiteboards, laptops, iPads or tablets, online tools and software, Arfstrom said. Flipped learning gives them the opportunity to use all of thattechnology.
“It’s not a news broadcast,” Arfstrom said.
Some teachers set up cameras in the front of their classrooms and simply give the lectures and notes that they ordinarily would in a classroom of students, Arfstrom said. Others record what they write, type or display on the screens of electronic tablets.
“You have to make sure all students have access to it,” Arfstrom said.
Nationwide in 2010, an estimated 71.1 percent of households had access to the Internet, according to annual survey data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. In Arkansas, 58.8 percent of households had Internet access.
WORK AT OWN PACE
Greg Biggers adopted a modified version of flipped learning several months ago for his eighth-grade math class at Harrisburg Middle School, he said. Students have the option of watching each five- to seven-minute video at home or at the beginning of class, said Biggers, who has taught for nine years at the school in Poinsett County.
Biggers has a laptop or iPad for each student to use during class. The youths access videos, assignments and quizzes through an account that they also use to turn in and share their work.
“Instead of the students trying to keep up with the teacher taking notes, they can rewatch it,” Biggers said of the instruction. “They can do it at their own pace.”
Instead of spending the bulk of his 45-minute class period teaching from the front of the classroom, Biggers spends it answering questions and working with smaller groups of students, he said. His students have time in class to finish their homework, which has increased the percentage of students who turn in assignments.
“They’re more involved in the lesson,” Biggers said. “They’re paying attention.”
Use of the videos has resulted in improved grades, Biggers said. He sees more completed homework because students have time in class to finish their assignments and turn them in. Students ask more-thoughtful questions that generate discussion and require more thought to answer.
“There’s a lot of times the kids were doing poorly,” Biggers said. “They didn’t seem to be engaged. You’re always trying to find ways to spark interest in student learning.”
Teachers operating in flipped classrooms must ask students whether they have computers or DVD players that will allow them to watch the lessons at home, Arfstrom said. Teachers have to work with the students to find waysfor them to see the lessons.
At Prairie Grove Middle School, Minton’s eighth-graders may not need to remember what gerunds, infinitives and participles are, but they need to know how to use them correctly in speech and in writing, she said.
“Flipping the lesson helps me manage my classroom because everyone has something to focus on and everyone is learning at his or her own pace,” Minton said. “The ultimate goal in my classroom is to make them effective communicators - and if a simple grammar lesson, flipped, helps them do that, well, let’s flip it.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/25/2013