The Flipped Classroom

Next week, three  of us from the math department are meeting during curriculum writing to work on the concept of "flipped classrooms."  I have been reading a book called "Flip Your Classroom:  Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day" by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams in order to learn more about it.

In case you don't know, let me explain what a flipped classroom is.  In a nutshell, it is when students learn the material at home via a video, book, or some other method and they do the "homework" problems at school with the teacher and the rest of the class there to help.

The rationale for the flipped classroom is the idea that today's youth love to watch things on the internet such as You Tube and so giving them the lesson online will increase engagement.  Another reason is that the students get help with their homework from a professional and not whomever may be at home.

I am willing to try anything that they say helps student achievement, but I have my doubts about completely flipping the whole year.  I tried it once a while ago and not one student said they preferred it over the traditional way.  They said they liked the interaction and the ability to ask questions during the lesson.

I went to a workshop once given by teachers in Byron that have been flipping their classroom and the data they gathered did not show any significant results on standardized tests and final exams.

I am wondering if maybe the flipped classroom is better than a traditional lecture format where the teacher talks the whole time and students do the homework completely at home but maybe it isn't better than the format where we go over homework from the night before, give the lesson using periodic formative assessments to check for understanding, and maybe do an activity or something else that different than a lecture.  I almost always give my class time to start the homework in class where i can help them.

Maybe I'll try a lesson or two using the flipped method next year and then survey the class or assess them to see how much it helped.  We'll see how far we get with the curriculum writing next week.