Educreations and Flipping the Classroom

Educreations for the Absent but Present Teacher

Every teacher who has ever been absent, or worried about not completing the syllabus or about whether their students 'get it' might want to start thinking about making a lesson bank accessible anywhere anytime.

Yes, it's heading that way ladies and gents. As schools make teachers accountable for grades or base your performance management on 'value added', there will be a growing need for educators to think about using the resources available as an ally.

Another excellent development which lends itself well to learning especially in the higher grades is the flipped lesson. An ideal lesson like this would be a 10-minute lecture, preferably with interactive features, questions and activities for independent learning which student do at home. They complete the lesson and note areas which need consolidation or clarification to bring to school for further discussion with the teacher.

In school, the teacher will have a range of differentiated activities, tasks, support and learning styles available to the student. Talk about choices!

Of course, this means added preparation on the part of the teacher and a commitment to working at home for the student. In time, when the culture of home prep is well and truly entrenched and learning is no longer limited to 'school time', we will see a major shift in education and pedagogy. But, small steps first.

Going back to Educreations.

I'm a great one for assigning projects, but when it came to my turn to talk into an I-pad for a flipped lesson (not really - it was done as I was absent and a Malay language cover lesson would be no good if the cover teacher did not speak it), it all seemed rather daunting and not just a tad silly. But, as they say, once you get your feet wet, you might as well just leap in.

So I did.

And with great results!

My students retained almost all the vocabulary and did their classwork - all while I was not there. Amazing. I emailed the lesson to our group Edmodo page and many felt that it was a resource that they could go back to again for review. My next assignment is to create a class page where I can archive my 'taped' lessons. That would be a lesson bank for students and as I add to it or teach the same class, students can have a variety of sources or learn at their own pace.

In class, there was enough time the next day to do all the exciting tasks planned and have a comfortable 5 minutes for a solid plenary. Very satisfying experience in all.

Just to make sure it wasn't a one off, I repeated the 'flip' with another class and had similar results.

Have I set myself more work to do? Perhaps. 20 minutes at the most for each  lesson but it may be well worth it next year if I use them again, even if I adapted my class activities.

My Year 10 ESL Educreations - never got used but will do next time.