Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 160

Designing the Classroom Curriculum
Further examples of SAMR covering a range of subject areas can be found here
http://www.emergingedtech.com/2015/04/examples-of-transforming-lessons-through-samr/
Flipped Classroom
Of course one of the prominent, educational pedagogies to emerge since 2000 is the ‘Flipped Classroom’.
Flipped classrooms are a pedagogy where the classroom is literally turned around. Teachers prepare
instructional videos, nominally about 5 mins in length, teaching a topic to the students. These videos are
then placed on a social media site that the class can access, and set as homework task to be viewed and
understood for the next lesson. Students then attend the lessons and practice the skills in the classroom with
the teacher. The teacher can now concentrate on the students’ understanding of the topic, rather than their
merely acquiring of that knowledge.
Two science teachers at Woodland Park High School in Colorado are credited with developing the flipped
classroom pedagogy. For various reasons, numbers of students were missing classes and having to catch up,
so they tried an idea.
Then, one day, Aaron had an insight that would change our world. It was one simple observation:
"The time when students really need me physically present is when they get stuck and need my
individual help. They don't need me there in the room with them to yak at them and give them
content; they can receive content on their own." He then asked this question: "What if we pre
recorded all of our lectures, students viewed the video as 'homework,' and then we used the entire
class period to help students with the concepts they don't understand?" Thus, our flipped classroom
was born. We made a commitment during the 2007-08 school year to prerecord all of our chemistry
and Advanced Placement (AP) chemistry lectures. (Bergmann & Sams, 2012)
Not only did this save them time by not having to repeat classes for students, they also discovered other
educational benefi ts. Students, who had attended the lessons used the broadcast videos to revise, complete
their understanding or go back over sections at their own pace. In the same way, students at home now have
time to absorb the knowledge by watching the video as often as they want. Once back in the classroom, the
student tests the knowledge they have watched on the video, and the teacher can give formative feedback
to students. This is a very effective use of the teacher/student interaction time.
We found that we had more time for both the labs and the problem work time. In fact, for
the first time in either of our careers, we ran out of things for the students to do. They
were completing all their work with 20 minutes left in class. Clearly, this model was more
efficient than lecturing and assigning homework. (Bergmann & Sams, 2012)
Clearly, for this pedagogy to work there is a need for the technology, to be available and affordable to the
students; for a transmittance infrastructure to be available for the school to use; and for the computer skills
to be mastered by both teachers and students. In all computer use, within an educational setting these are
the three elements that needed to be useable – hardware, software and personnel. For you as a teacher, these
are the three essential components to develop your skills: the ability confidently to learn to operate hardware
and software. The willingness to be prepared to become a life-long learner and continually adapt and increase
your ICT skills; and the capability of operating the devices that students use and understand the way that
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