Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Dunn on April 23, 2011 at 11:57am

I totally agree Clay.  When i first heard of the flipped classroom and its "reverse methods," i thought to myself, "This is pretty much what my intent has always been...students read the material before class and we discuss it in class and create activities that extend what is learned after reading."  Of course the struggle has always been to get the kids to read and have a basic foundation before we begin the discussion and extension activities.  Since the students are not always prepared, i end up in effect re-teaching (spoon-feeding) through lecture/discussion as you mentioned in your post.

 

Maybe the key is the Mastery approach.  The active project work is specific to the objectives to be mastered.  Some of the active project work can only be completed by reading required material.  The reading becomes part of the "checklist" to master the objectives.  Other active project work might require viewing a vodcast, so the reading and viewing vodcasts are intertwined to some degree.  Maybe the students are prompted to pause the vodcast and read a selection from their text.  I am still brainstorming the possibilities.

Permalink Reply by Larissa Wright-Elson on April 23, 2011 at 12:03pm

I would incorporate more of the Socratic method into it. And I wouldn't replace reading with videos. My thought would be to have videos that help illuminate the text, demonstrate annotation, notetaking, and questioning ie. interaction with the text. Then they can bring those questions to class to use in coaching groups leading up to whole class seminars.

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Dunn on April 23, 2011 at 12:16pm

Larissa,

 

Yes, your ideas are what i am thinking about.  The videos become modeling the "self-talk" that good readers do as they read texts and primary source material.  I get tired and i know students do as well, of answering questions as they read.  I often "flip" and require them to ask questions as they read to help them interact with the text more.

 

Real quick if you don't mind :)...what are "coaching groups" and what do "whole class seminars" look like in your classroom?

Larissa Wright-Elson said:

I would incorporate more of the Socratic method into it. And I wouldn't replace reading with videos. My thought would be to have videos that help illuminate the text, demonstrate annotation, notetaking, and questioning ie. interaction with the text. Then they can bring those questions to class to use in coaching groups leading up to whole class seminars.

Permalink Reply by Clay Burell on April 23, 2011 at 12:24pm

Jeffrey,

Yes. A checklist working up ye olde Bloom's taxonomy (or ye shiny new one), from the factual to the interpretive, done in class.

 

The key, then: to resist caving in to the temptation to do whole class lecture of assigned readings, and to instead have the activities that scaffold students' comprehension (and more) of said readings in class.

 

Then those who "don't get it" can point to where, in the text, they lose it, and suddenly we've got 1-1 reading instruction going on, ideally identifying weaknesses in textual decoding (vocab? syntax? grammar? idiom?), instead of dumbed-down "teacher tells the answers."

 

Whole class seminar as culminating wrap-up, Larissa, seems a good icing for a unit.

 

Helpful conversation, thanks!

 

Jeffrey Dunn said:

I totally agree Clay.  When i first heard of the flipped classroom and its "reverse methods," i thought to myself, "This is pretty much what my intent has always been...students read the material before class and we discuss it in class and create activities that extend what is learned after reading."  Of course the struggle has always been to get the kids to read and have a basic foundation before we begin the discussion and extension activities.  Since the students are not always prepared, i end up in effect re-teaching (spoon-feeding) through lecture/discussion as you mentioned in your post.

 

Maybe the key is the Mastery approach.  The active project work is specific to the objectives to be mastered.  Some of the active project work can only be completed by reading required material.  The reading becomes part of the "checklist" to master the objectives.  Other active project work might require viewing a vodcast, so the reading and viewing vodcasts are intertwined to some degree.  Maybe the students are prompted to pause the vodcast and read a selection from their text.  I am still brainstorming the possibilities.

Permalink Reply by David Dillon on July 9, 2011 at 10:21pm

Check out the following sites for some foundational videos to help teach historical literacy:

 

http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/

http://historicalinquiry.com/

http://sheg.stanford.edu/

I try to locate a few others I use, based on the work of Sam Wineberg

 

Permalink Reply by Amy An on July 11, 2011 at 8:51pm

Hi all -

I just discovered this group. I think that both videos (either for basic content or as an active reading model) and online reading (in addition to the textbook) are both great ways to flip the history classroom.

 

But as many of you have pointed out - when students don't prepare, we wind up having to re-teach the textbook.

I am interested in a discussion of specific classroom assignments/active projects that help students realize that they want or at least need to read in order to do the work. I especially need to figure out how to do this in very short class periods (39 minutes) and yet cover the entire course material.

 

Does anyone have a specific unit/topic/assignment that we can use as kind of a case study to start a discussion about how to do this?

 

I'd love a topic from the early material I will begin with this fall - Renaissance Europe or Colonial US - any suggestions?

 

Amy An

South Florida

Permalink Reply by reedgillespie24 on December 31, 2011 at 6:37am

I really like the suggestions regarding making the students responsible for the reading (Socratic method, discussions, active reading, etc). One of my worst/best experiences in college was a prof who solely used the Socratic method in his intro to World History class. On the first day, he asked, "Raise your hands if you are a history major." Only 3 or 4 of us raised our hands. For the remainder of the semester, his class pretty much consisted of Socratic discussions with the history majors peppered with occasional questions to the non-majors. It didn't take me long before I realized, I really better know my stuff before I get to class. 

In my classroom, however, many of my students are reluctant readers and many read significantly below grade level and need reading support. For this reason, I often don't assign reading for homework. In a flipped class, I would use 15-20 minutes every class for differentiated reading, so I can help the students and design lessons to enable them to become better readers.

Permalink Reply by Kristen Wilson on June 25, 2012 at 12:43pm

Love your use of in class time to work on reading skills with students.  I have students that span from special education to extremely gifted in each class.  I plan to use in class time to work with my lower students on basic reading skills while challenging those of my students who are ready with document analysis and the like. 

Permalink Reply by Scott Conway on March 8, 2012 at 9:03am

Here is a link to a blog that may help with the conundrum.  http://flippingwithkirch.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-favorite-wsq.html

I've struggled with the idea of making it easier for students not to read as well.  However, I know that many of my students weren't really reading before.  I had/have several different groups of students in my classroom.  I have the students who go through the motions and have the textbook open, looking like they were reading.  Another group was attempting to read but struggled to make much meaning of it.  The last group and by far the smallest read and made meaning of what they read.  Since experimenting with flipping my classroom, the struggling readers who tried are becoming more successful.  They read and listen to my lectures on the computer, pausing when they get confused.  Prior to screencasting lectures, students would just say "I don't get it".  I would ask, "what don't you get or understand?"  They would respond, "All of it".  Now, they come to class and ask very specific questions such as "when you said that FDR interpreted the 1936 election results as a clear mandate for his policies, what do you mean by mandate?"  We can then have a discussion as a class to see if others understood the concept of mandate.

Permalink Reply by Brad Campbell on March 18, 2012 at 7:14pm

Why not do the reading in class?

Model reading skills?

Permalink Reply by James O'Hearn on June 25, 2012 at 1:14pm

The trouble with reading in class is that it can be horribly inefficient. One by one, students barely do any reading. Read chorally, and you don't get the effort and enunciation that you're aiming for.

Flip it, and things change. You can model a text in a video, which the students can listen to, and attempt. You can split up a reading, point out individual words of importance, practice emphasis where needed, and end up giving each student the kind of individual attention and practice that is just not possible in a traditional classroom.

Permalink Reply by Sarah McKittrick on March 26, 2012 at 4:29pm

Students need more direct instruction on how to improve their reading comprehension.  Practice alone is not enough.  How are the students supposed to improve their reading skills, if they aren't taught HOW to improve those skills?  I've only tried a few flipped classes, so I'm no expert, but I think the big payoff is that you can use class time to work on improving reading skills as well as thinking skills -- teaching and modeling techniques.  I really enjoyed the book I Read It, But I Don't Get it, by Cris Tovani -- it helped me think about reading as something students need to learn rather than just practice.

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