In Week 3 of this EDU720 module, we’ve moved on to focus on how we might design our flipped classroom activities which will form part of the first assessment. The contributions from my peers along with the outlined guidance for the first assessment, have both proved really useful when it came to planning my own flipped learning activity.
On the weekly form where we shared our thoughts on what makes a good flipped classroom experience, there was some in-depth debate under my post which focused on the equal opportunities for all learners. I had highlighted this along with ‘the task’ and how it ‘aligns to the LOs’ for the wider module. Under equal opportunities I talked about Katie Gimbar’s point about allowing students who miss out on the flipped activity, to catch up in class (Gimbar, 2011). Feedback on this idea, Ben James felt that Gimbar’s approach was perhaps not the most successful, suggesting that the idea of ‘making those people watch the content while others broke into groups, it felt like you’d only be reinforcing those boundaries between the people who are left behind and the people who are doing well’ (Evans James, 2019). This debate continued with Paul suggesting ‘it did appear as if there were boundaries of ‘them’ and ‘us’ still appearing’, before going on to pose the question ‘If these learners continue with their lack of engagement, what happens?’ (Clements, 2019). This debate was really interesting and useful in my own planning and it was key to me changing my approach to the students who might not engage with the material, concluding that it is perhaps ‘better to consider the type of activity rather than how different groups of learners might move ahead or fall behind’ (Atkinson-Foster, 2019). This lead to me focusing on video as a resource in the flipped classroom, something we’ve had a lot of success with at Lincoln, particularly when students record their own presentations at home, as opposed to giving them in class.