A bit romantic?

 So, this week we are discussing one of the pillars of flipped learning: a flexible learning environment. 

This is a very interesting pillar indeed, but at times it sounds a bit romantic to me.💓

We, as educators can be as flexible regarding expectations of students' learning and their assessment as the institution where we work allow us to be! That is to say, unless we are offering a private course, one which does not depend on any institution at all, teachers have dates to respect, forms to fill, academic years to close, the lot. How flexible can we really be then? We may allow students to hand in some homework 'late' or to resit a test, but I cannot think of a possibility to become more flexible. 

In my working environment (tertiary education and university levels), we try to evaluate the process of learning, which means that students are given a number of possibilities throughout the year to show they are doing their work, and no student actually fails the course before the end of the academic year. Can we get any more flexible?

Another point to take into account is the spaces and times we offer our students so that they interact. I find that it is very hard for them to be critical of their partners' work. I use Padlet a lot and encourage students to see their partners' work, listen to their tracks, make comments on what they like or don't like about what they see and hear, because they can be helping a partner! But then I see that they don't usually do it unless their comments are taken into account when grading comes. Can we really force our students to interact? Should the interaction be compulsory then? And if it is, is it useful? 

And finally, about the post in https://blog.ohheybrian.com/2012/04/moving-the-flipped-class/, in which Brian says that what he does is to let students drive their own learning rather than relying on the teacher to crack the whip behind them, I would love to hear how he does it. I offer students a number of ways to learn: interactive images, SHORT videos, SHORT texts to read, forms to complete, etc; I usually have a survey in the middle of the academic year to see which of the resources they like best (considering each group is different!) and still, there are students who do not get engaged, do not want to tell me what they would like to have in the classes, most of the time because they do not like the subject at all... Can we do anything else in these cases? 

Mmm, this post clearly sets more questions than answers... 😱Well, let's stick to the idea that it is better to have unanswered questions than unquestioned answers!

Unit 0

I think I experienced a from of flipped learning back in the '90s while I was at University and there was a teacher who I admired because she gave lessons on History of the English Language and she barely spoke herself during her classes,which were excellent. We, students, did all the talking. We were asked to read some material and then, the lesson would start with the question: 'What did you find interesting?' and we would go on talking and making comments on what our partners said. We were few students, no more than 15, and I would not dare go to class without having read anything. At times, we were asked to go to classes in pairs and only for about twenty minutes, so the class got even more personalised. 

So, being a teacher of English now, teaching English phonetics, I am worried about the amount of time I talk during my lessons, which I find inevitable, because I have many topics to explain. But then, the amount of time my students speak during the lesson is quite limited! And I am teaching phonetics! So, I started thinking how I could maximise class time and specially class time quality for my students. How could I listen to them for longer periods, how could I manage to make THEM do the talking. That was when I remembered my History of the English Language teacher and found out that, in a way, her methodology has a name: flipped learning. I have read about it, and started to combine it with technology, which seems a very good combination. But, COVID 19 appeared and we were suddenly pushed online! So, I think I cannot evaluate how much it is really working at the moment, because the context now is very special. There are students with no connectivity, students who have kids or grandparents to look after, limited time to devote to learning, stress related issues, the lot.

I have enrolled in the #openflip course to discuss experiences, to learn about how to flip classes meaningfully, to know what not to do. One thing I always fear is that students would not read or do the activities assigned before the face-to-face lesson (be it really face to face or virtually) and then I would have to explain again, talk a lot again, and discourage the ones who have actually done the activities and I would not really be encouraging the others to do the activities for the next class. Although I have allowed those students to stay in class and just listen, they make me really uncomfortable. 

I have thought of dividing the class in groups of three, four or five to have more personalised lessons but in this context I believe it may even be negative or intimidating. 

So, let's see how my amateur attempt to flipping lessons can be improved!

Some further thoughts here...