Flipping a Classroom with Jon Palmer

A few weeks ago, I was graced with a presentation by Jon Palmer and how he flipped his classroom. Jon now produces physics videos for a living. Overall, I thought he presented his experience with flipping a classroom well. He was able to show us the vast difference between his classroom after he flipped it.

The video of his traditional classroom was an hour of calculus based physics on the board while students sat and took notes. This is what you tend to see in honors or ap physics. His flipped classroom was completely different. In this video, students were standing at different places around the room. I recall a few working on a demonstration/lab in the back of the class while others were asking him questions about practice problems or some other confusion in the front of the class. It looked like a perfect example of what a flipped classroom should look like.

The problem I have is that it is a perfect classroom. It seems that all his students were motivated and actually watched the videos at home. I have high doubts that I will teach a demographic such as that. Friends of mine are in student teaching in a classroom where the mentor teacher is flipping the classroom for the first time. They are struggling with students not coming prepared for the work in class. The mentor teacher happens to allow them to spend class time listening to the lecture that was supposed to be done at home. With little consequence, it seems that they are voluntarily reverting back to the traditional classroom with a virtual teacher. I can't imagine that helping their learning.

Of all the arguments against flipping the classroom, I find this the most challenging. How do you set up your classroom so that students will find the motivation to watch these lectures at home? It seems that all the advocates for flipping a classroom I have met do so because they teach in a demographic that it is motivated, or the class was an elective class where people knew they would get a flipped classroom. Forcing a class to be flipped... Does it work?

Lets talk about Race Baby

Lets talk about you and me. Lets talk period.

I stumbled upon an Edublogger by the name of Jose Vilson. He recently posted about the problem of not talking about race and other social identities in schools and especially in education reform. People who are making much of the policies for education happen to be of privilege. Many are advocating policies following neo-liberalist ideals such as the bill that lifted the cap of charter schools in Michigan.

Lets stop there for a second. I have a hard time believing in capitalism working for those without privilege. If we take Argentina under Carlos Menem's rule for example, he put into place various neo-liberal policies following the advise of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund which caused the collapse of an entire country! The lack of regulation had allowed international corporations and other individuals to siphon the money out of Argentina. So I have a problem with FOR-profit charters. Even without all the history, isn't there something wrong with benefiting and profiting from the education of the country's children? Shouldn't the maximum amount of money be put into use for the children? (And staff need to be paid reasonably too.)

This is where policy makers may find themselves blind, believing in what worked for them instead of working for those who were not so lucky or privileged to start with. The problem is that we aren't talking about privilege and social identities and how those are integrated into the well being of a school. The bigger problem is how do teachers or administrators even begin to bring up the issue? As you may know talking about social identities, race and sexual orientation in particular, can be "awkward" or have people on edge. No one wants to say the wrong thing and create an argument.

How do we find a way to portray that arguments are okay and that they build knowledge if approached in the right way. Just like in a classroom, making mistakes and being wrong is okay but you need to be able to build that culture in the classroom first. Those ground rules need to be set. A routine must be followed. The mindset and participation should come after. But it is different for adults is it not?

I commented on the post with an example of how my group of Residential Advisors had clashed over a one conversation. Ironically, we are trained to talk about such issues. I hope this is not the case for the majority. I hope that this is a case where expertise was a problem. Maybe the lack of social justice training in the teacher population will make it easier to set up a safe space. Hope.

MinecraftEdu

Do you all remember when Minecraft was all the rage? It was a simplistic game with low graphics, simple game play, and basic extras. When I first played Minecraft, I found myself in its survival mode where you had to find shelter by sundown to keep yourself away from the zombies and other monsters that lurk the night. I had to break dirt, wood, and turn to mining different minerals to advance my options and keep myself alive.

Shortly after that, the developers started to add more and more combinations of items to make new items. Using sandbox mode and an open source code, players soon came up with their mods and new game modes. The new items allowed for more and more elaborate game modes. I remember playing a game where you could gain levels for skills you used (various weapon use, acrobatics, etc.), there was an economy in the game, and you could make guilds to battle each other. All of which were added in a mod for the server. 

People have modded Minecraft in a similar fashion toward educational goals. The video below shows and excellent example of a Minecraft Roleplaying Game that is true to historical facts. Students would pay through the game which would be representative of historical cites and embark on quests that would have students learning about specific events.

Below is another example of a simulation. This time it is used for science to simulate sending a signal down a nerve. The players had to step on plates that would activate a light. The situations in which the light would turn on were changed to simulate various conditions such as not enough "neurotransmitters" and shortened open gates.




 I think it would be tough for many to get the handle of how the mechanics of Minecraft work. This is needed to monitor and troubleshoot problems that may arise in pre-made game templates. Although at this point in time, I was unable to find a large number of resources for using MinecraftEdu. Using this platform would put much responsibility on the teacher to be creative to create a simulation or a game that would fit into a lesson. I believe that the neurotransmitters simulation was something the teacher created on his own because of the isolated system that was so specialized.

Again, the programming that must be used is a completely new and different language that anyone has ever interacted with. The programmer must move and place items down to fit logic structures and other structures. I have seen people create working scientific calculators from a binary system which Minecraft can be used to simulate. As a side note, this would be an amazing tool to use in a programming class.

I think MinecraftEdu would make a teacher's job more fun. That is, after a few years when it seems that you are repeating the same material, activities, and jokes every year. This provides a route for teachers to get creative and truly engage their students. Given a few years into my teaching, I would love to try and program a few simulations for Chemistry. I am hesitant for Physics as the in game physics may not be representative. Anyway, this is a few years down the line. I'll make sure I come back to this.