BEGIN: 1:50
“One method that is used in Common Core teaching is called the flipped classroom, where the students are given work that they don’t know how to do and given blanks or other worksheets and told to come back with the work done. I’ve experienced this more this year and it is incredibly confusing and a monotonous way to learn what I’m supposed to bring to the table. We’re expected to teach ourselves using a video. That’s not teaching. I’ve said this before in other speeches and I’ll say it again because it’s imperative to the survival of education. Teachers are irreplaceable. Irreplaceable. The bond they create, the knowledge they have, the opportunities a student has to ask questions and see multiple examples from a caring, knowledgeable person and not a computer screen is so valuable. One thing I’ve enjoyed most about school as I’ve gotten older is the bond I’ve been able to form with almost all of my teachers, past and present. This is what has let me enjoy school so fully until now. Take this away and you will have a irreparably damaged education forever.”
END: 2:55
From Daisy Christodoulou’s Seven Myths about Education
My central argument is that much of what teachers are taught about education is wrong, and that they are encouraged to teach in ineffective ways. After I had been teaching for 3 years, I took a year out to do further study. I was shocked to stumble across an entire field of educational and scientific research which completely disproved so many of the theories I had been taught when training and teaching. I was not just shocked; I was angry. I felt as though I had been misled. I had been working furiously for 3 years, teaching hundreds of lessons, and much information that would have made my life a whole lot easier and would have helped my pupils immeasurably had just never been introduced to me. Worse, ideas that had absolutely no evidence backing them up had been presented to me as unquestionable axioms. One of the writers I most enjoyed reading was Herbert Simon. His research into decision-making won him a Nobel Prize. Together with two other cognitive scientists, wrote a paper criticizing many of the ideas that are popular in US education:
New ‘theories’ of education are introduced into schools every day (without labeling them as experiments) on the basis otheir philosophical or common-sense plausibility but without genuine empirical support.
Simon’s observation appeared in a paper published in 2000: “Applications and Misapplications of Cognitive Psychology to Mathematics Education” by John R. Anderson, Lynne M. Reder, & Herbert A. Simon | Texas Education Review, v1 n2 p29-49 Sum 2000.
In the years since 2000, common-sense plausibility has taken a back seat to theory. A “hot! hot! hot!” practice like the flipped classroom not only defies common sense but is actively promoted in counterintuitive terms (“turning the traditional classroom on its head,” “learning from YouTube is as natural as it gets,” etc.)
As E.D. Hirsch tells us, the thoughtworld of education schools has insulated them from science — and, today, from common sense as well.
CLICK TO ENLARGE:
Imagine “Hot, hot, hot” as a headline in a medical journal.
Flipping the Classroom: Hot, Hot, Hot
By Catherine Gewertz on September 30, 2011 10:39 AM
Digital Schools: How Technology Can Transform Education:
Imagine an educational system in which pupils master vital skills and critical thinking in a collaborative manner, social media and digital libraries connect learners to a wide range of informational resources, student and teacher assessment is embedded in the curriculum, and parents and policymakers have comparative data on school performance. Teachers take on the role of coaches, students learn at their own pace through real-life projects, software programs track student progress, and schools are judged by the outcomes they produce.4 Rather than being limited to six hours a day for half the year, this kind of education moves toward 24/7 engagement and full-time learning.5
Darrell West | Brookings | 2012
Chapter 1: New Models in Education
So I guess in the brave new world, spring break is going to be a thing of the past.
Makes sense.
Once technology has transformed education, kids won’t care about spring break. They’ll be having too much fun mastering vital skills and critical thinking at their own pace in a collaborative manner through real-life projects to care about going on vacation.
And see:
• Consulting the Google machine
• Our goal
• Response to superintendent technology memo
Irvington Insight – Flipped Classrooms: A Model That Turns Learning on Its Head | 1.2014
I’m still waiting for an “Irvington Insight” devoted to the new classics-heavy assigned reading list parents have spent the past 20 years lobbying for.
• Curriculum director: I am a child-centered professional
• Response to administrator technology memo
• IEF off-cycle grant: “Exploring and expanding our use of technology in
…the classrooms”
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Buying technology – business v. schools
One of our local high schools started the flipped classroom strategy and both students and parents pretty much rebelled. I was asked to tutor former students taking Algebra 2 who had been outstanding “real” Algebra 1 students. I actually encourage my students to hang out on Khan’s site but only because many of his lessons are interesting and can serve as an excellent supplement. An important part of teaching and learning math is the interaction among students with their peers and teacher WHILE learning is occurring, not a day after the fact. And that even assumes that quality learning occurred while watching videos with no opportunity for questions. The guide on the side folks have been trying to separate me from my students for the past forty years. They accuse you of being the sage on the stage because you dare attempt to teach. If flipped classrooms are being pushed by educrats and colleges of education, beware.
Vern Williams is something of a legend in ‘instructivist’ circles. He teaches algebra to gifted 8th grade students, served on President Bush’s National Mathematics Advisory Board, and was I believe the sole classroom teacher involved in writing the Common Core math standards. (Common Core State Standards Initiative K-12 Standards Development Teams)
Three of his articles in the Times:
- When ‘Best Practices’ Mean ‘Average’ Updated March 27, 2011, 1:25 PM
- Let Us Teach! Updated October 25, 2012, 4:48 PM
- Inspire Lagging Schools; Don’t Hobble the Leaders
At HuffPo:
10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12
I haven’t read the literature on handheld devices and exposure to blue light after dark myself, so I don’t have an informed opinion one way or the other.
What concerns me greatly, however, is the fact that our superintendent has not read the literature, either, yet he has established a goal of making technology in the classroom as “ubiquitous” as pencil and paper.
From what I can see, the board of education is not enthusiastic about technology for the sake of technology; to the best of my knowledge, the board has not voted to make technology “ubiquitous.”
Unfortunately, the fact that the board has not established a formal goal of making technology ubiquitous is neither here nor there.
Seeking board approval for a policy change is not a strength of our current superintendent.
AND SEE:
• Response to administrator technology memo
• Buying technology – business v. schools
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
Where technology enthusiasts see schools going:
The proliferation of computer-based instruction and online schooling has many observers excited by the promise of technology to fundamentally reshape education. Terry Moe and John Chubb [1] argue that once students are no longer dependent on brick-and-mortar schooling, the mammoth institutions built to deliver traditional instruction—and the entrenched interest groups (e.g., unions) that benefit from current institutional arrangements—will wither away. Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, and Curtis W. Johnson argue in Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns that technology will “change how the world learns.” [2] They foresee a digital storehouse of modular online learning activities that can be customized to each student.
The Curriculum Wars Live On: Two Contemporary Flash Points By Tom Loveless 03/05/2014
Irvington is working toward creating a modular curriculum, which will live on Atlas Rubicon software.
Once we have our new modular curriculum typed into Atlas Rubicon, admin says, the district will be able to swap modules in and out any time the state decrees a change.
The infusing of technology into the curriculum proceeds apace.
Hi Kris –
In the 1/28/2014 BOE meeting, the administration mentioned that more classes involving other grades will be flipped this spring.
Could you let me know which classes, subjects, and grades will be involved?
Thanks so much!
Catherine
UPDATE 4.11.2014: Flipped classrooms applauded in district newsletter
UPDATE 5.20.2015: Still waiting for an answer.
AND SEE:
• Math teacher (and member of CC development team) Vern Williams on
…flipped classrooms
• Email from an NYU student on his experience with a flipped classroom
This graphic from Knewton, which writer David Neilsen links to, explains the rationale behind ‘flipping’ the classroom. The goal isn’t to “engage” students (Powerpoint movies are boring) or to increase achievement (achievement won’t be measured), but to eliminate the teacher as “sage on the stage.” Or, because the teacher-sage can’t be eliminated altogether–not if you want students to pass Regents examinations–to banish the act of explicit instruction out of sight, in the student’s home. Explicit instruction is rejected by education schools. In their ed-school classes, aspiring teachers and administrators are told that students must teach themselves via “inquiry,” “discovery,” “problem-solving,” “collaboration,” and the occasional “struggle.” The correct role for the teacher, they learn, is as “guide on the side,” not “sage on the stage.” Guide-on-the-sidery is the core belief, the core message, and the core teaching of the education programs all public-school teachers and administrators are required to attend. It is also the core teaching of the “professional development” provided by education schools and their graduates. In all likelihood this group of teachers singing about becoming guides on the side thanks to Common Core wrote their song at a professional development workshop. The dream of the flipped classroom is the dream of finally removing the teacher from the front of the classroom forever.
CLICK TO ENLARGE:
Source: Knewton Infographics
UPDATE: Mathematics teacher Vern Williams responds: One of our local high schools started the flipped classroom strategy and both students and parents pretty much rebelled. I was asked to tutor former students taking Algebra 2 who had been outstanding “real” Algebra 1 students. I actually encourage my students to hang out on Khan’s site but only because many of his lessons are interesting and can serve as an excellent supplement. An important part of teaching and learning math is the interaction among students with their peers and teacher WHILE learning is occurring, not a day after the fact. And that even assumes that quality learning occurred while watching videos with no opportunity for questions. The guide on the side folks have been trying to separate me from my students for the past forty years. They accuse you of being the sage on the stage because you dare attempt to teach. If flipped classrooms are being pushed by educrats and colleges of education, beware.
Vern Williams is something of a legend in ‘instructivist’ circles. He teaches algebra to gifted 8th grade students, served on President Bush’s National Mathematics Advisory Board, and was I believe the sole classroom teacher involved in writing the Common Core math standards. Two of his articles in the Times:
- When ‘Best Practices’ Mean ‘Average’ Updated March 27, 2011, 1:25 PM
- Let Us Teach! Updated October 25, 2012, 4:48 PM #sendout
Steve Nesbitt · Top Commenter commenting on Flipped Classroom Post
I have two apprehensions concerning the flipped classroom. As a skilled instructor presents material, he does not merely recite information in an identical format to each of his classes nor do so in an exclusively one-way communication. He is constantly observing his students – the glazed stares of some, their facial expressions and their body language – and he allows his students the opportunity to interject pertinent questions. He is not merely a purveyor of knowledge, but a receptor of stimuli, all of which he allows to guide and modify his presentation in real time to facilitate understanding, adapting this presentation to the students’ responses to it and from class to class. The flipped classroom would seem to rob the instructor of this ability while simultaneously robbing the students of time beyond the school walls during which they could be enriching their lives and refreshing their spirits with non-academic experiences. I appreciate the five to seven-minute video limitation mentioned above, but fear that such brevity will not be the rule for many instructors.
November 3, 2013 at 11:51pm
AND SEE:
• Why educationists want to flip the classroom
• Why Minimally Guided Teaching Techniques Do Not Work:
…A Reply to Commentaries
Chloe McCune (no direct link)
I am an AP student who is living through this “experiment” and I have yet to encounter one of my peers who actually likes this system. While they may tout wonderful ideas like doing “learning activities” in reality its just busywork. Few times are we ever given lecture videos and when they are given they rarely help us understand the information. Students cant ask the teacher questions and we never have chat rooms with our peers or teachers for help. We are left reading everything from outdated and poorly written textbooks, teachimg ourselves the material and finding that when the test comes around we know nothing about the topic. Watch out Bergman and Sams… you made thousands of teengagers rather unhappy.
October 7, 2013 at 1:11am
Sharon Curran Preston · Manager, Service Delivery at Facebook (no direct link)
As a parent of a 16 year old boy who has a flipped math class I can tell you first hand that the flipped classroom is horrible. Why actually teach when you can record a video once and then sit at your desk for the rest of the year and blame the kids who aren’t asking you enough questions during the “classwork” time in class? Or better yet, tell them to ask their equally lost peers. My very social son sits in class and talks to his buddies for the entire period while the teacher helps one, yes one, of his classmates. How the hell is this teaching? Yes it is my son’s fault for not “applying” himself but come on people. What do you expect of high school kids?! If you leave them in an unstructured environment all year they aren’t going to learn anything. The flipped classroom is a joke.
February 20 at 12:19pm
AND SEE:
• Email from an NYU student on his experience with a flipped classroom
• The digital natives are restless (Tweets from the front)
• Tweets from high school students in flipped classrooms
• “Our goal”
• Wrong track
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
Although too late for [David Nielsen’s] article I do regret that we never had the chance to discuss the “flipped classroom.”
I agree with all of your issues with the flipped classroom so I will add a few that I hope are not too repetitive. I’ll use your method clusters. I have just two: watching and classroom.
I’ll use your method clusters. I have just two: watching and classroom.
Watching:
- As you said, watching a powerpoint presentation online, by yourself, is awful and poses a few issues.
- You mentioned attention–I never watched a powerpoint straight through, full screen. Typically I’d start that way with good intentions. Then take out my phone and text. Pause the video to do something else. Or most often I would let it play in the background while I was on Facebook (so I didn’t actually see any of the slides).
- The most troubling perhaps is that I often didn’t watch them when I was supposed to. I’m not sure if there is a method or technology for enforcing viewership on the high school level, but more often than not I simply did not watch any of the lectures until the midterm or the final. I then crammed by not actually listening to the videos and only reading the slides and fast forwarding to the next slide. So for many “lectures” I never actually listened to a lesson.
In class:
- The next question I have is what do you actually do as a professor or teacher with that “extra” class time. I find group work grossly inefficient. One person does it and everyone copies. Or you finish early and wait for other groups. Or everyone just takes their time and talks about other things. Any way it is spanned it isn’t really efficient. So I think a lot more thought has to be put into what actual activities are going to be done in class.
- If the answer to that is that students will have more time to ask questions like you said, then I will say that no student asks questions a day or days after watching a lecture. Maybe in the moment you had a question while watching, but you’ve either forgotten it or just don’t feel like asking once you get to class.
I hope that helps in some way. I certainly didn’t have a good experience with the flipped classroom and I think I had a professor who was well intentioned and actually executed the technical parts fantastically and it still was not good. That is another question in itself (I had a lot of teachers in high school who couldn’t work the television in the classroom or put on a presentation in class, so is there the skill to actually prepare what are essentially movies?)
AND SEE:
• Tweets from high school students in flipped classrooms
• Buying technology – business v. schools
• Response to administrator technology memo
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
2/6/2014
Dear Kris, Raina, and Jesse:
I’m writing to share my response to the “Technology Think Tank” memo discussed at last Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting (1/28/2014).
I’d like to begin by saying that my comments are directed to our administrative team, not to volunteers who’ve given their time and energy to the task of thinking through the role of technology in our district. Their efforts are freely given and much appreciated.
The memo delivered to the board last Tuesday is, in my view, problematic in three areas:
- Evidence and argument
- Consideration of costs, including effects of “technology” on health
- The memo’s use of an “inputs” model of educational quality
Evidence and argument
Ironically, Tuesday night’s Common Core presentation included discussion of the Common-Core requirement that middle-school students “acknowledge alternate or opposing claims.”
This standard is not met by the Think Tank memo, which makes no mention of alternate claims or of peer-reviewed research contradicting the memo’s assertions. Indeed, the memo reads very much like a manifesto, not a reasoned analysis.
No mention is made of the long and disappointing history of “technology” in the schools, documented by Stanford education professor Larry Cuban in Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom.
No mention is made of research showing the drawbacks of reading on screen. (A good place to start: You won’t remember this article, or anything else you read online, unless you print it out).
And no consideration is given to the district’s own recent experience with “infusing” technology into the classroom, which is directly relevant to any new technology initiatives we might undertake.
As you know, shortly after the district completed construction of a new middle school equipped with built-in computer projector systems in every classroom, the administration scrapped the projector systems and commenced installation of Smart Boards—which performed exactly the same tasks the computer-projector systems performed but at many times the cost. e.g.: I recall, at the time, Smart Board light bulbs going for $400 apiece, compared to perhaps forty dollars for projector light bulbs.
The selling point for Smart Boards was that they had touch screens. But the touch screens failed so frequently that my son’s Earth Science teacher was forced to halt her class repeatedly in order to recalibrate the screen. Finally she gave up and used the Smart Board as a very expensive computer projector system.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an optimal solution, either, because the Smart Boards crashed a lot. One of my son’s teachers took to telling his students that the “Smart Board gods” determined whether and when his classroom Smart Board would actually work.
Needless to say, the time teachers spent rebooting the Smart Board and recalibrating the Smart Board screen was time they could not spend teaching.
None of this recent history is acknowledged in the memo, and no thought is given to making sure it doesn’t happen again.
No consideration of costs, including negative effects on health
There are very few unalloyed positives in life. Hence the pro-and-con list.
This principle may be especially true of technological advances, which seem always to create new problems in the process of solving old ones. The industrial revolution brought pollution and global warming; the internet brought cyberbullying and the NSA. As far as I can tell, this is to be expected.
The potential costs, including the financial costs, of making iPads and Chromebooks as ubiquitous in our classrooms as paper and pencil are not considered or even acknowledged in the memo.
Perhaps most troubling, the memo does not address the health effects of increased exposure to blue light in the evening, which I think we should assume would result from a movement away from textbooks to iPads and Chromebooks. (See: “‘Blue Light’ May Impair Students’ Sleep” by Sarah Sparks, Education Week Vol. 33 Issue 14.)
Blue light is a significant health issue. New research finds that blue light affects even the blind. (Blue Light Stimulates Cognitive Brain Activity in Visually Blind Individuals, Gilles Vandewalle, et al).
Inputs, not outputs
Finally, the memo hews strictly to an “inputs” model of educational quality: quality is defined in terms of the things we do and buy, not in terms of the things students learn and achieve.
No consideration is given to what the “outputs” of making computer technology ubiquitous in our classrooms are likely to be.
Will students learn more?
Learn more quickly?
Will teachers’ lives be made easier?
Speaking as an instructor myself, I can tell you that educational technology often makes life harder for teachers, not easier, as the leaked email from a former IUFSD union president attested a couple of years ago (in reference to the time-consuming task of entering data to e-schools, as I recall).
The memo’s unblinking focus on inputs must count as a missed opportunity, because in fact “technology” may have an important role to play both in increasing student learning and in making teacher’s lives easier (making teachers’ work more efficient, that is to say).
Neither better learning nor greater efficiency will result from a bulk purchase of iPads and Chromebooks, however. We know this from the results of other districts’ bulk purchases of iPads and laptops, which have produced no gains in achievement or apparent efficiency. (A representative headline in the Times: “In Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores” | Matt Richtel | 9/3/2011. The accompanying photograph shows four children clustered in front of a Smart Board. And see: Are Schools Getting a Big Enough Bang for Their Education Technology Buck? by Ulrich Boser | June 14, 2013 | Center for American Progress.)
Ignoring the “technology” that actually shows potential
At present, the most promising use of technology in the schools appears to be its capacity to serve as an automated homework assigner and assessor. Stuart S. Yeh’s Raising Student Achievement Through Rapid Assessment And Test Reform is an important book here, one that I hope the Think Tank will read and consider.
My family has experienced this form of educational technology firsthand. At Fordham Prep, our son’s physics teacher created a homework system using Moodle, a platform free of charge to educators. Students did their homework in the customary manner, using paper and pencil (a superb technology that has endured to this day precisely because it is so simple and reliable).
But they accessed the daily problem sets from their teacher’s Moodle site, which graded each problem the instant they entered their answers. If an answer was wrong, students could be given the first one or two steps of the solution and go from there; they could also ask for and be provided as many extra-practice problems of the same type as they wished to do. The program included a dashboard that allowed the teacher to see at a glance who had done the homework and how each student had fared. If numerous students missed a problem, the teacher could re-teach the next day.
Our son liked the system very much, and we never heard a complaint from his friends. The teacher was happy with the set-up, too. (We had a long conversation with him on the subject.)
There are today numerous programs of this type on the market—including programs that can recognize and respond to certain aspects of grammar and writing. (I would dearly love to have access to the latter for my own teaching.) I don’t know whether any of these programs would in fact increase learning or decrease demands on teacher time, but Yeh’s research gives us reason to believe they might. Certainly, ‘rapid assessment’ software makes sense in a way further hardware purchases do not.
Moreover, because few IUFSD teachers collect and correct homework (at least in my experience), rapid-assessment software potentially fills a significant gap in our educational programs.
But on this subject, too, the memo is silent, making no mention of rapid-assessment software or of the research supporting its use. Because the memo focuses exclusively on inputs, the potential value of rapid-assessment software to Irvington teachers and students is given no consideration.
I hope that task will be taken up soon.
Thank you for listening –
Catherine
AND SEE:
• Buying technology – business v. schools
• Response to administrator technology memo
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
• IEF #25 Off Cycle Grant Request – Expanding the Possibilites of
..Learning Through Technology Rich Classrooms – 2013-14
AND:
• SUPERINTENDENT: Curriculum should be infused with technology
• CURRICULUM: I am a child-centered professional
• TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR: Jesse Lubinsky, Technology Director, Twitter feed
• TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR: Jesse Lubinsky, NY ETech Ed blog
If the student is watching a video, there can be no interaction. This generation already has enough problems with face-to-face communication. Also, how well constructed can the lesson be if a student can have a question in the beginning of the video that doesn’t get answered until the next day? This sounds like a way of forcing technology into education instead of using it as a tool to enhance learning. This is a dangerous slope to go down and clearly one that the BOE (which is responsible for policy creation), must be well aware of before implementation.
John D – Teacher and former member of IUFSD BOE
AND SEE:
• Tweets from high school students in flipped classrooms
• Buying technology – business v. schools
• Response to administrator technology memo
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
• Math teacher (and member of CC development team) Vern Williams on
…flipped classrooms
AND SEE:
• Buying technology – business v. schools
• Response to administrator technology memo
• John D on flipped classrooms and board policy
• Wrong track
• “Our goal”
• The digital natives are restless
• Flipped classrooms (and more) in IUFSD
• Email from an NYU student on his experience in a flipped classroom
- Are flipped classrooms the most exciting thing happening here?
- Creating an IUFSD Technology Vision – 1/24/2014
- Creating an IUFSD Vision for Technology – 1/24/2014 (annotated)
- IEF #25 Off Cycle Grant Request – Expanding the Possibilites of Learning Through Technology Rich Classrooms – 2013-14
- District newsletter applauds flipped classrooms
- Education Week | ‘Blue Light’ May Impair Students’ Sleep, Studies Say
- Blue Light Stimulates Cognitive Activity in Visually Blind
- Digital natives (London School of Economics)
- So-Called “Digital Natives” Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows
- Jakob Nielsen, 2005: Usability of Websites for Teenagers Scroll down for “Misconceptions About Teenagers.”
- Flipped Classroom Tweets
- Jakob Nielsen, 2005: Usability of Websites for Teenagers (Scroll
- Jakob Nielsen, 2013: Teenage Usability: Designing Teen-Targeted Websites by HOA LORANGER and JAKOB NIELSEN on February 4, 2013
AND SEE:
Irvington Parents Forum 