EDSS 531 REFLECTIVE
RESPONSE
As
I sit here and reflect on the past semester I am sad to say that due to the
nature of the courses I feel that I did not learn as many new skills as I had
hoped. That is not to say that I did not learn some great techniques and
strategies. I did; however, I feel that due to the restricted amount of class
time and general reduction in collaboration between me, my fellow classmates
and instructors I did not grow as much as I had hoped I would. I understand that this may simply be due to way I learn and or that my expectations for the semester were not in line with reality. That being said, I did come away with valuable lessons learned.
Working
on the ITU's was a great experience, but even that was a trial by fire with my
group really just trying to get by. In the end it came together and turned out
pretty good. I feel that it could have been better and even more successful had
we been given more exposure and direction prior to the task. That being said, I
do feel that getting a true ITU into place would be a great experience for all
involved. Although, at my current site I feel that it would be very difficult
to do based on the responses I have received when simply talking about the idea
to the teachers there.
One
of the things that I have taken from this semester is that a flipped classroom
needs to be supplemented with in class instruction. I don't feel that at the
high school level the students will have the self discipline to do the work at
home. For the most part, many of my current students do not do the work in class
and do even less at home. From my own experience this semester I found myself
procrastinating much more than usual because I had to set my own times to do
the work and learn the material. It also impacted my group work, when members
of the group did not want to make an effort to meet at time outside of just
before or after class.
Possibly
the greatest thing that I am taking away from this semester is that
"progress" is only progress if it makes things better. I need to keep
this in mind as I work in my own classroom. I need to be able to reflect on the
changes and strategies I make and use to make sure they are helping my students
achieve the academic goals they are capable of and not just making changes for the sake of "innovation" or technology.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI have experienced the same thing with my students this year...that is, they have shown very little ability to do quality work at home. This is one of the reasons why I do not believe in the flipped classroom theory of teaching. This includes teaching mathematics through Khan Academy. One of my basic reasons is because, at its current state, KA doesn't have the learner using the 4 types of literacy...you will probably see the learner listening and writing (and maybe reading?) but they are certainly not speaking to the software. Did you notice how when the 60 minutes story showed the students in the classroom, they too were glued to their laptops and there was no speaking there. Flipped classrooms are student centered and will not be the end-all fix-all to education, especially for our underserved students and ELLs.
I think I would have to agree with you both on the matter of the flipped classroom. The theory of it sounds amazing, but lets be realistic here. Children in secondary school as a whole are not disciplined enough to take on such a challenge. They would forget, not have time, something else came up, or they simply had too many distractions, or could not access materials to complete the pre-lesson learning. I do not now how the flipped classroom concept could be successful unless everyone was able to complete the pre-work at home. You class would become divided of the have-learned, and have-not. That sounds like a mess in its self. You would be spending all your energy trying to catch students up, while the ones who have completed the work and need the next step from you, or the help from you would be able to attain it.
DeleteI am going to play a little bit of a devil's advocate here. While I understand all of your points about a flipped classroom, I think it suits some students particularly well. We are already facing classrooms in which some students understand the content and some students don't. Having the ability to send a student who's struggling to the online resources is such a great tool. There the student can find multiple different explanations of the topic. I witnessed my CT do this with a student and she told her to take notes while watching KA at home and come back ready to talk about the material. This is the 4th area of literacy (speaking) that is critical to a successful flipped classroom. The teacher needs to give the students opportunities to discuss their learning. The 60 minutes video didn't show this. But I think that it can be done. The part that I'm still struggling with is what Bri brought up, which is that some students may not complete the pre-work. What if we provided after-school computer labs for students? Would they be willing and able to stay? I still have many questions about how this would work.
ReplyDelete