

More Teachers 'Flipping' The School Day Upside Down

by Grace Hood



Miller can replay parts of the chemistry podcast she doesn't understand, and fast forward through those that make sense. Then she takes her notes to class where her teacher can review them.


Goodnight is one of about five teachers flipping their classrooms at this small school on Colorado's Eastern Plains. She's part of a growing group of teachers using the concept since it emerged in Colorado in 2007.


"If they're going to have their iPods all the time, might as well put a lecture on it," Goodnight says. "So on their way home from school, on the bus or whatever they can maybe watch your lecture for homework that night. It's truly about meeting them where they're at, and realizing that the 21st century is different."

Jerry Overmyer, creator of the Flipped Learning Network for teachers, agrees. "The whole concept of just sitting and listening to a lecture is really, that's what's getting outdated, and students are just not buying into that anymore."



"It's about that personalized face-to-face time. Now that you're not spending all of class time doing lectures, you're working one on one with students," Overmyer says. "How are you going to use that time?"


"Now you can simply just take about five steps and record a video and then simply send it to your students and parents and keep everyone informed," Green says. "So now we're becoming even more transparent."



"I can listen to the video as well when they need help, and then I can try to help him understand what [the teacher] is saying," Patschke says.


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