One more thought-- I think that those who are wary of all of the buzz over "flipped" classrooms-- as a pedagogical innovation, I mean-- are so not because they don't see the benefits of moving the applications/exploration/innovation part of things into live instructional time, but because...

er, this isn't new. Effective teachers have always done that. Does nobody recall "assigned reading" in classes?? Break-out discussion groups and spokespersons to report to the class as a whole? Working problems IN class and then seeing the expert work the problem and discuss it?

I'm disturbed by the idea that the standard pedagogy is "sage-on-the-stage" in the first place, because I've seldom seen that in practice. I've been around a lot of educational environments from early childhood ed through post-graduate settings, so it perplexes me that I've not seen this supposed problem that flipping "solves."

Maybe this is more common in the fields which produce professional education faculty and researchers?? I'm seriously confused by that point, and I think that most of the skeptics are, too. We're left wondering-- who ARE these people and where they heck have THEY been that they have this skewed idea of what has been happening in my classroom/department/school, anyway??

It begs the question-- what IS new about this?? (Because the proponents keep using words like 'disruptive' and 'innovative' and 'revolutionary.')

Well. What is new, evidently, is that direct instruction is being eliminated because it is viewed as a simple transfusion of information from expert to learners.

That's simply incorrect for most subjects.

Using video lectures or tutorials as a supplement is fine, and probably good. It's fine to use a video tutorial as a means of learning a relatively simple task, or a variation on a skill that one already possesses.

Not so good for a de novo acquisition in a learning population which is mostly naive and immature. If that worked, the vast majority of kindergarteners would enter school KNOWING how to read thanks to public television and computer games. They don't.


ETA: I'm definitely laughing at wanting to use the 1.75X playback option. I've often wanted a "reset" or "skip" feature, myself. laugh


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.