Alexis Mabe

Alexis Mabe, EdD is an Educational Technology Specialist with more than ten years of experience in the classroom. She is a Writer, Consultant, Speaker and the CAO of Miami EdTech. In 2019, she became an Apple Distinguished Educator and received her doctorate in Global Educational Leadership. Alexis is passionate about helping teachers use technology to foster the skills students need to be 21st Century Learners.

New Classroom Model – No Need to Flip Out!

The flipped classroom model is a new trend in education, made only possible with the implementation of technology in schools. In a traditional classroom, the teacher lectures (or “dumps” information), then the students complete some kind of assignment and if they don’t finish, it becomes homework. In a flipped classroom, the students prepare for class at home by watching a video – often made by the teacher – and then come to class with some background knowledge. Class time is spent on student-centered activities where the teacher can be more of a moderator or give more individualized attention to the students.

You can read more about the benefits of the Flipped Classroom in this article by Jiji Vijayan, who says,

“Unlike the traditional method that takes a one way approach of knowledge dumping, in flipped classrooms, teachers get to adopt diverse teaching methods, whereas students focus on higher forms of learning, by understanding, analyzing, discussing and evaluating the subject at hand.”

In my own experience and research, I have found two important things that encourage the students to actually complete the work at home:

The in-class work needs to directly relate to the at home assignments
They have to know they will be held accountable for the information

One way to hold them accountable is with the use of continuous assessments. I give my students “pop quizzes” almost every time they came to class on a day they were supposed to have reviewed material at home.

To facilitate the flipped classroom model my favorite tool to use is Voice Thread. It allows me to (EASILY!) upload a presentation and add narration. My favorite thing about it is that the students can interact with it – they can ask questions and leave comments. It helps me know what concepts needed to be reviewed when I had the students in front of me again.

Have you tried to flip your classroom? What are your favorite tools?

Resources:

Green, T. (2015). Flipped classrooms: An agenda for innovative marketing education in the digital era. Marketing Education Review, 25(3), 179-191.

Peter, M., Khoo, E. G., Scott, J. B., & Round, W. H. (2016). Learning threshold concepts in an undergraduate engineering flipped classroom. In DEANZ2016 (pp. 111-115). DEANZ.