Often I have been asked questions such as: What is the flip class formula? or Won’t you share your formula with us? So, probably this is as good a time as any to answer these questions and share the foreign language
Often I have been asked questions such as: What is the flip class formula? or Won’t you share your formula with us? So, probably this is as good a time as any to answer these questions and share the foreign language
Hola Audrey! Thank you so much for your great comment and for sharing these wonderful ideas.
Yes, there isn’t one formula to fit all styles or classes. I know of many teachers that partially flip and that is how they want to leave it. It works great for them and for their students. I don’t fully flip either.
I am not sure I completely understood your flip idea, so please let me know if this is what you meant: what you would like students to do at home is connecting with others, right? So if you want student to use a particular tool that they don’t know how to use and you don’t want to spend class time to show them, yes it would be a great idea to make tutorials for them to view at home. So possibly it would be a good idea if you have them do some practice activities at home after they have viewed the tutorial. I guess this could be called “flipping the tutorial”?
Now, if you flip the “connection” part. How would you take them through the steps of a “connection”. Will there be a topic? If it’s introductions, would you have them go over a video or another introductions resource at home?
Ideally, have them do at home what you don’t want to do in class, because there are way more important and-hands on things to do. For example, I usually flip grammar explanations and at school we go right into using the grammar. On the other hand, I blend writing and listening. Because there are aspects of these two skills that I want them to do at school.
Oh, and students creating their own videos to flip sounds awesome. Sometimes I feel like they understand “peer explanations” better than mine.
Please do let me know if this helps.
Oh, and I can’t wait to put my students from Africa in contact with yours.
Thank you for your insight, Emilia!
Yes, you’ve got my ideas down about right…..but as I said, this is all still in the thinking stage, and you’ve brought up a lot of good things to think about.
I guess another way to look at what I’m planning for next year is a flip of the 15-20% of class time I spend in the computer lab. That is an enormous amount of time that could be better spent doing interactive activities in the Target Language!
The items that I typically do in the lab are:
1. Create Blackboard/Edmodo accounts
2. Writing/Re-Writing/Edits (of video scripts, writing assignments, etc.)
3. Learning how to use various cloud-based resources (Voki, Blabber, GoAnimate, Animoto, Prezi, Glogster, etc.)
4. Creating content with the cloud-based resources, then teach how to embed the final project on our edmodo wall
5. Video creation
6. VoiceThread collaborative projects; Recording voice for global connections
Numbers 1-5 above, I feel could easily be taught with a tutorial. There are those techno-phobes (or those without Internet access) to think about, but there’s always after school time if needed.
Number 6 (Global Connections) is the other part that I was thinking about changing up next year. Typically, I’d be doing this in the computer lab. Last year, I only had 2 global projects which were both short term. Next year, I’m planning year long projects with several different contacts from around the world. If I could get the global connections to happen at home, I think it could create an enticing homework assignment (even though this may not technically be considered a “flip”) and it’d free up valuable class time. I do like your idea of having them watch some sample presentations or other content regarding the topic at hand prior to creating their recording/video for their global peer. With a combination of VoiceThread, SchoolTube and other cloud-based resources along with the versatility of an edmodo group wall, I feel the sky’s the limit for what two classrooms could learn from one another!
Let’s get this global party started! I can’t wait!