Thursday, November 15, 2012

Teaching Channel

Today in class we were introduced to the website called Teaching Channel.  This website is a coming together of teaching related videos not wholly unlike Ted ed.  This website is split in two main parts.  There is the core section and then the specialty topics.  The common core section focuses on teaching as a whole.


This is the main screen of navigation.
The first video I watched was called Discovering the Properties of Quadrilaterals.  It focused on a class of high school students discovering what quadrilaterals were for the first time.  Not only did it reveal a very well put together lesson plan it also revealed a way to make math hands on!  The second video I watched in the common core section is called Grant Writing: Blending Literature and Community.  This video shows how to blend a practical life experience(grant writing) into a bland old English class.  My personal favorite video that I watched in the common core was the video called Do Now.  The idea presented in this video is for a small beginning of the class assignment that reviews homework or previous class work as well as introduce the current days topics.  This idea excites me because I can use this to review my flipped classroom assignment from the night before.  I also explored two topics in my own major.  The first series of movies that I watched were Called Reading Like a Historian.  These were a series(or uncut like the link I posted) of films that taught you how to teach children the way to learn about history in the same way that historians learn about history.  The second series that I watched is called Inquiry Based Teaching.  This series focuses on teaching to the students needs as in teaching about questions they have.

Congrats you earned it.
Overall I found this website exciting!  It really emphasizes being the best teacher that I can be.  It gathers resources and ideas that I could spend a lifetime researching.  Two thumbs up from this guy!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Flipped learning

Flipped learning is defined on Grauer Shcool as the teacher’s lecture is delivered outside of the traditional class time, via a video students view on their own.  The main idea of flipped learning is to be able to reach the students outside the classroom.  This can be done by previously recording a lecture and posting it on the web.  This idea focuses on the idea of spreading knowledge.  I love this idea.  I believe that knowledge should be spread to as many people as possible.  No one can own knowledge, it is not private property, so why shouldn't we share it with everyone.  This way more people in the world will be "enlightened." This TED video gives a more in depth look at the technical process of what it takes to develop a "flipped" lesson.  This idea can also be applied directly to a classroom.  In high school I participated in many sports or activities, and often times missed class due to travel for these.  In a classroom if the teacher were to record their lecture and post it online those student, who like me, missed class could then go in and watch and learn.  The only problem that I have encountered in my experiences with learning like this is dependence.  I currently have a college class where attendance is not mandatory, and the teacher posts all of his lectures online.  Now in an 8am poli si class this can and is taken advantage of.  Students do not come to class and rely on the lectures to be online.  Now this is all well in good if everything worked perfectly, unfortunately it never does.  The professor could get sick or the his internet could go down or he/she could just get lazy.  

As I did more research I have found Three more websites that really help to prepare teachers for flipping their classroom.  On the website tech smith.com I learned that by being able to move lectures to outside the classroom and "homework" to inside the classroom I would be able to spend more one on one time with my students.  ON eschool news I learned that the teacher still lectures but the lectures are supplemented by videos on the web.  This allows the student access to more information.  My favorite though is the video below.  It shows the simplest way to start flipped learning.  It also goes on to describe how class time can be better used if the traditional lecture is assigned as the homework.


In conclusion I believe that this idea of learning outside the classroom is brilliant.  Not only does it allow for students who miss class to make up work it also allows anyone from worlds away to learn exactly what I am teaching in my classroom.