I was quite interested in the "Flipped" classroom readings. At first I was really excited about "flipping" and then after reading "The Flip: End of a Love Affair" http://plpnetwork.com/2012/10/08/flip-love-affair/ and "Flipped Classrooms - Beyond the Videos" http://catlintucker.com/2012/04/flipped-classroom-beyond-the-videos/ I realized that there are a few things to consider.
The first thing that struck me was the idea that, watching the videos at home, although great for students to watch at anytime after school, and to re-watch, lacks a constructivist modality. It is still teacher driven and centred. The students are still constrained within a lecture model. The second thing that I was thinking was that not every student would necessarily learn the same way from what the teacher presented in their video. So when I read that using ready-made content instead of teacher generated videos was encouraged, I thought that this would be great for those children who then could find the site/information that best suited their learning style.
"The Flip: End of a Love Affair" states that learning should be constructed and that the questions of "What are you going to learn?", "How are you going to learn it?", and "How are you going to show me your learning?" . In "Flipped Classrooms-Beyond the Videos" they refer to collaboration which is instrumental to moving from just a flipped classroom to a constructivist classroom. One thing that I did not notice in either article was talk about reflection. I have realized that reflection is an amazing learning tool and should be an integral part of any learning environment. A big issue, I feel, with moving to a flipped/constructivist type of model is that the Prescribed Learning Outcomes need to be revamped to enable a truly constructivist model. A lot of the PLO's are too constricting to allow for a truly constructivist environment because you are confined to working with specific criteria, for example, the following is an example of one of the PLO's for social studies at the grade three level;
locate major landforms and bodies of water in BC and Canada, including:
- St. Lawrence Seaway
- Great Lakes
- Fraser River
- Queen Charlotte Islands
- Canadian Shield
- Hudson Bay
- locally relevant examples