3 Flavours of Flip   

The Evolution of my Flip
The flavour of my classroom has evolved considerably over the last few years to include flipped learning.
In this evolution I can identify a few main phases:

1. Phase 1: Delivering Content – The Initial focus was to purposefully utilise video in the homework space.  This closely followed by creation of my own videos and making these accessible on the class website
2. Phase 2: Student Centred – This involved a real change to the classroom (physical group space) where things became a lot more student centred.  This type of classroom is described well in the document  ‘What is Flipped Learning’
3. Phase 3: Responsive – More recently I have worked towards creating quick videos to respond to student needs.
4. Phase 4: Collaborative –  Also recently I have moved media related to questioning and collaboration to the Virtual Space.

Three Flavours of Flip
This evolution has framed 3 main aspects of flipped learning in my classroom today.
I explain these below (and in the video) as ‘3 Flavours of Flip’
– Repository
– Responsive
– Questions

Repository
These are the videos that are pre-created to explain particular concepts. I often use Camtasia to produce these screencasts and if possible keep them to a few minutes to allow them to be easily digested. They sit on our class website so they are accessible when and if the students need them – this really helps to personalise learning.  I believe this to be different approach to a teacher who strictly schedules the watching of videos for homework. To compliment my own videos I also include a range of other videos from YouTube and related resources on our class website. I consider this to be our ‘filing cabinet’ of resources for students to access.

Responsive
These are the videos that are quickly created in response to what is happening in class. They could be solutions to problem that a number of students need help with. They might also be the quick explanation to a part of a concept that a few students are finding difficult. Often they are the things that I realise I might be repeating a few times and could be better on video so they are accessible. I produce these videos quickly and quite often use the iPad App Explain Everything to make a quick diagram and post theses directly to our class space.

Questions
A recent focus for our team  has been ensuring that we create Inquiry in the classroom. It has involved us strategically using provocations to ensure students ‘Explore’ content prior to participation in tasks where content is explained. This is a consistent theme in many models of Inquiry – ‘Exploring’ always comes first!  It is likely that those who follow flipped learning have come across Ramsey Musallam (Chemistry Teacher in US) who has adapted the ‘Explore–Explain-Apply Model’ (Karplus) to ‘Explore-Flip-Apply’ to suit flipped learning. The use of provocations can also be quite useful in the ‘Apply’ phase where students are able to develop further connections in their learning. Where possible this provocation and exploration can be part of the initial process of an Inquiry Cycle where students create original investigations/experiments.

A tool that we have found very useful to achieve this collaboration is an online app called Verso.  In other posts ‘Flipping Inquiry – Exploring Verso’ and ‘Harnessing Provocations for Deeper Learning’ I have discussed the use of Verso.

Great Cakes………………..…Yum Lots of Flavour!
Creating a classroom learning environment is sort of like baking a cake.  In either case you need carefully chosen ingredients with the plan of creating just the right balance.
It could be considered that Great Cakes:

• Rely on a number and mix of ingredients (Pedagogies). You can’t just use one!
• Are tasted as they are mixed to ensure that these are in the right balance.
• Result in specific flavours just right for those eating the cake.
• Have evolved from good recipes. This evolution could include new ingredients (tech/research)

I believe that as part of a Flipped Learning Model we are able to create opportunities for deeper learning by moving structured inquiry to virtual space.

So some questions this raises for me:

• Is moving the questioning and collaboration to the virtual space part of flipping?
• Could this be described as ‘flipping’ questioning?  or is ‘flipping’ really just about flipping   the direct instruction?
• Have improvements in online tools meant that we are now able to work more effectively with collaboration and Higher Order Thinking with students?

I would love to here your thoughts on these questions.