Flipping the Approach

The idea of a "flipped classroom" is gaining popularity, especially among ESL teachers! If you haven't heard about "flipped classrooms," basically the idea is very similar to any college seminar class:

1.) Teach yourself by watching teacher selected/ prepared videos or texts before class.
2.) Arrive at class having already digested the content material and spend class time collaborating and working with others on comprehension activities directly relating to what you have read or watched ahead of time.
3.) Reflect on what you have learned and practiced through some sort of writing or final statement of understanding.

According to Flipping your Classroom: A Primer and Three Reasons to Flip Your Classroom, this strategy of using class time to work on comprehension of pre-learned materials can work well for any age, not just university students. This approach can increase students comprehension, collaboration skills, and critical thinking!

What I connected to the most from the above articles was the idea that often times students go home after a lecture and are unable to complete their homework due to a lack of full understanding. I remember struggling with this all the time in high school. By moving the traditional "homework" into class time, students are able to access help from both the teacher and other students when they get stuck. This is a huge advantage, and something that has definitely peaked my interested in trying a "flipped" approach in the future.

These Learners Today...

Today’s learner is like a bundle of nerves—perhaps on more than one level, considering how much stress and anxiety young people tend to internalize these days. But on a more academic front, the process of learning is very different than it once was. In a video titled The Changing Nature of Knowledge discussing modern day learning, George Siemens addresses how the process of learning has shifted toward community style information sharing, saying, "Today because of the complex environment that we're in, learning isn't something that's exclusively limited or occurs exclusively within an individual’s mind," rather, as he notes in another video titled The Impact of Social Software on Learning, "Our learning today is one of forming networks with each other."   

The idea of networks instantly made me think of the nervous system. 

Each bundle of nerves within our body is connected to others in the same system and continually receives information in a circuit. The nerves may then use the information to cause the body to take action in some way. Similarly, the modern learner is connected to others who share similar interests or fields of study. Just as in a body,  new information is entering the circuit and shifting the structure of our field all the time! In his seminal article on this topic, titled Connectivity: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, Siemens confirms this analogy, noting that, "Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired." While the nerves may not always cause the body to react to new stimuli, the learner also has the choice to simply stay up-to-date on what is happening in his or her area rather than acting--or, as Siemens puts it, "staying current."