Used in a sentence: "The latest innovation in education ... something called a flipped classroom -- and it's not chairs being affixed to the ceilings as the accompanying image provided by google suggests."
[Disclaimer -- "latest" may be relative, as anyone who knows me well, knows that sometimes I read my news late, and sometimes I see something on which I want to comment on a more timely basis, but which gets on a list for a later time -- which, upon reflection, is my own wordplay on the concept of "latest", I guess, in a strange way.]
During this back-to-school season did seem like a perfect moment to comment, even if educational innovations remind me of my early high school "mod" schedule, which was that every class was 2 or 3 mods of 18 minutes apiece, with the bell ringing at the end of each of them. I *think* the thought was that kids couldn't pay attention any longer than 18 minutes, and the bell was supposed to tell the teacher to change topics (a little like Pavlov's dogs ... but whatever). That 70's innovation leftover didn't last, and we switched back to periods by the time of graduation (and can you imagine if it was applied to today's kids who would need a topic change every 90 seconds [feel free to picture old man shaking fist and blaming MTV and video games here]).
The new idea -- have the kids watch the lectures at home (via streaming video or whatever the kids call it nowadays), and spend the time in the classroom with the teacher actually working through the problems and answering any questions that were being asked. In theory, this theory sounds good to me. After all, I *loved* school, and I was the independent thinker, and I had teachers who often let me work at my own pace on my own things (special thanks again to you Mrs. Jones!) In my opinion, that stems from the fact that, as an odd child, I would go to the place where the toys are (that's my obligatory once-every-so-often shout out to Hills), and would bug my Mom to buy me the math and reading workbooks to do instead of the "normal" toys.
[Tangent -- that's a memory I recently recaptured. Not via hypnosis or anything like that -- but just because my biological mother has taken ill, and, according to latest updates, hasn't yet had a diagnosis or a treatment plan. In a year that started with me losing my biological father, I've been thinking about things, and spending some time recalling connections I had with my mother, as limited as they may have been.]
Anyway, I say "shake it up" every so often and see what happens. Or maybe I should say, "flip it, smack it, rub it down, oh noooo", except that just seems like it might be inappropriate ... unless the flipped classroom teacher was of the sexy kind ... and I should probably stop now ...
HOW TO FLIP YOUR CLASSROOM SUCCESSFULLY:
http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/06/18/report-the-4-pillars-of-the-flipped-classroom.aspx
MAYBE MODS WERE FROM THE 60's ... AND MILITARY INSPIRED ... WHO KNEW?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuHJ5EQRfM
OH MY -- A BELL BIV DEVOE "DO ME" REMIX!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw7wNjeeIrQ
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