Why I Started Flipping

I started flipping some of my lessons last January in hopes of creating a new energy for my classroom.  I had no idea what I was doing, but being new at my school and teaching my first semester ever of Kansas history I felt it was a good time to gamble.  By participating in this new movement in education, I was opened to a new learning model which changed my approach to the classroom.

But there were certainly obstacles.  My first concern, and the first question asked by anyone who I talked with about flipping, was how to solve the problem of kids without access to the flips, which were mostly videos I created, but sometimes videos from YouTube or even infographics with information on our topic.  My solution was to contact as many people in my school district and beg, plead, and borrow technology.  I got two Mac desktops from the art room, two more PC laptops from the library, and two final laptops from our district technology coordinator.  This was a long process, which took the first semester to set up, but it was the reason for the success of my flips.

However many of the videos I used were my videos (I used Screencast-O-Matic.com because of it's easy use, although I tried iMovie, too.  I didn’t want my students hearing another person’s voice and version of events for my history class.  Instead I wanted my voice to be heard, including the phrases I chose to use when teaching certain subjects in history.  Math teachers can relate to this, for instance, since there are several ways to verbally cue students on how to cross multiply or do the order of operations.  I used this as my reasoning for making videos, plus the fact that many people on the blogs and message boards I belong to advised everyone to create their own unique videos to form this relationship with our students.

Here's one example of Explorers in Kansas

The experts typically say that flipping isn’t about the videos.  I found that creating the videos were a one time hassle, since I will have them for the next semester of Kansas History.  I found out they were right, the real advantage of doing this isn’t for the sake of using technology.  In fact, I rarely use technology following the flip for the big purpose of application and synthesis.  The real benefit to flipping is the new use of my class time with my students.  Instead of lecturing in a secondary class for 3 days over the Reformation (for example), I can now have them watch the video, come in to my class and do incredible enrichment activities, such as writing scripts and acting out interviews as if they are Martin Luther and his reasons for his 95 Theses.  This is authentic learning, and nothing can be cut and pasted from a website.  The kids understand the subject, primarily because they are having an active part in the learning, as opposed to the passive sitting and listening of the traditional lecture classroom.

I’m gearing up for a series of World Geography flips over the next couple of weeks, with a new set of kids than those who experienced the flips from last year.  I’m hoping they experience the same positive learning my other classes enjoyed from last year, since it rejuvenated my own passion for teaching.