Reverse Learning – My adventure begins
Next academic year I will be teaching a year 12 standard level IB Physics course. As advised by Mr. Bennet in his excellent informative presentations I am starting with one class and building from there. With this class I hope to really integrate the concepts of a flipped classroom and where I really feel it will be most beneficial for the following reasons:
1) The requirement of the course itself and the impact the achieved levels have on future university acceptance provides a fairly big motivational stick.
2) I believe that increasing the amount of one-to-one teacher time with these students will result in the greatest improvement of achievement (as standard level students they are often not the next Physics university majors but they have a level of interest and the additional support will be important)
3) I can see the opportunity to self pace their learning will provide a great benefit to these students.
4) The course itself already has a clear structure with explicit learning objectives which I can use as the scaffolding for the course.
Some issues that I am aware of and am starting to think about solutions (comments relating to these will be warmly welcomed) but have not yet put anything in place:
Misconceptions – I know that it is crucially important to challenge misconceptions (and I am mentally flagging this point) but feel this can provide fun content for class time.
Monitoring – It is not going to be as simple as providing a % mark for the homework problems and a little general feedback. This means that I will not have such a clear paper trail but I hope it means my greater involvement means that I am able to use my interaction to effectively monitor. Plus at the end of each unit I will still set a test to cover that content.
Different types of learner – Videos are not going to suit everyone so also identifying parallel sources (textbook, websites…) is something I am looking to do.
Video production – I don’t feel that I need to produce every video. I think the present online resources are great start (Khan Academy/ Brightstorm/ educator.com). However, I have signed up to a vodcasting social network and have downloaded Jing (although have not really done anything but get annoyed by the yellow blob over my Google Chrome tabs)
Developing a positive learning environment – I recognise that I need this to be a really trusting learning environment and hope that some peer teaching/ learning will help with this.
Learning Blog – I hope to use this to get students to show synthesis of understanding (but would this lack the community feedback which helps a blog blossom?
Critical thinking – I want it in my classroom
Practical opportunities – Identifying both practical tasks which promote understanding of concepts and those which fit the requirements for the internal assessment aspect of the course.
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