Transformative Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom

The article at http://plpnetwork.com/2012/10/08/flip-love-affair/ really resonates with me. Finally, someone gets it and isn't afraid to let students take control for their own educational future.

The first thing that struck a chord in this article was the statement " It simply didn’t produce the tranformative learning experience I knew I wanted for my students.  I imagined the flipped classroom as a stepping stone to a fully realized inquiry/Problem Based Learning classroom. And the flip’s gradual disappearance from our learning space hasn’t been a conscious decision: it’s simply a casualty of  our progression from a teacher-centred classroom to a student-centred one."



The flipped classroom is just a flip of the traditional classroom where students watch or listen to video or podcasts of lectures prior to class so that classtime can be used for reinforcement and activities.  However, this author/educator found that " when we did “flip,” it felt more like we were juggling the traditional lecture around than moving forward into a new learning paradigm."    Nothing really changed in the role of the teacher except perhaps twice the workload as they took on pre-recording lectures or researching and assigning relevant videos and podcasts produced byothers after hours of previewing for content/subject relevance.  In other words, still teacher centered with the teacher doing the bulk of the workload.

So if flipped classrooms aren't the answer, what is?  Student centered classrooms are the answer.  "As I shifted my classroom from teacher-centred to student-centered, my students began to do lots of their their own research. Sometimes this resulted in them teaching each other. Sometimes they created a project with the knowledge they were acquiring. But the bottom line was that their learning had a purpose that was apparent to them, beyond simply passing the unit exam."

What was my role? I helped them learn to learn. I prompted them to reflect on their thinking and learning, while at the same time I shared my own journey as a learner. I helped them develop skills such as using research tools, finding and evaluating sources, and collaborating with their peers. My goal as a teacher shifted from information-giver and gatekeeper to someone who was determined to work myself out of a job by the time my students graduated."

Be sure to read this entire article as well as two additional blogs she did earlier on using this in the English and Science classes she teaches.  One of the comments showed how little traditional teachers really understand what true learning and transformative education is as they focused on "but how do I assess".  The same way teachers assessed before all the summative testing entered our classrooms allowing teachers to sit behind desks grading papers and passing out worksheets that are designed to practice students for the "tests".  But who is actually getting to know these students and their interests?

Read it and read it again....then do something different in your classroom.  Transform to a 21st education!