After reading my original post about flipping the classroom, some of my readers asked how this would work in an elementary classroom environment. Most of the information about flipped classrooms seems to be geared to the secondary or higher education classroom. However, I was able to find so many great resources about how a flipped or blended environment could be extremely beneficial in the elementary classroom. Enjoy!
This links to Jon Bergmann’s blog…he is one of the original “flippers!” Awesome blog!!
One of the obvious benefits of flipped classrooms is that it switches the focus from what the teacher is teaching to what the students are learning. Student-centered learning! Woohoo!!
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So, how could you have a “flipped” environment in your elementary classroom? I’ve been brainstorming, and here’s what I’ve come up with…Let’s say you’re teaching a unit about Native American civilizations. There is so much information you need to cover with your kids, and you don’t know if you have time to “cover” the content well.
Start by using Brain Pop or Discovery Education to locate a video that would be appropriate for your objective (Brain Pop is available in an app for the iPad, just FYI!) Assign the video to your students to view as homework. (If accessing the Internet is a problem, encourage students to visit the computer lab before or after school, or perhaps watch the video with a friend!) Encourage your students to actively view the video…providing them with some sort of guided viewing activity may not be a bad idea! Perhaps you could have your students record two “fun facts” they learned from watching the video, or have them define an important term…anything that is relevant and will tie in to the video. This guided viewing activity can serve as the “notes” for the objective.
During your next class period, start by asking students to discuss their “fun facts,” or have students work cooperatively to construct good definitions of the terms you assigned.
After you have discussed the learning objective, and students feel comfortable with the content, use your class time to allow the students to work on their assignment…reinforcing, enrichment, project, or whatever is appropriate!
The possibilities for the flipped classroom, whatever the age group, are endless! How can you use the flipped model??
Thanks for reading!
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