There have been many conversations about the effectiveness of using “other people’s” videos in the flipped classroom. My opinion is that it can work really well, so long as the teacher is thoughtful about what videos are assigned and how class time is structure around that. In essence, I believe that just so the teacher puts his/her own “beginning” and “ending” flow to the video (ie: class discussion -> video with proper assignment -> class discussion and follow-up work -> next video), then class will be effective. Personally, I really love creating the videos, but I don’t think all teachers prefer to focus their energy on this aspect of the flipped classroom. I look to other teachers in-class assignments / project for guidance all of the time, since I tend to spend a lot of time creating the videos (and there are only so many hours in the day!). I spend a lot of energy creating / editing flipclass videos, other teachers spend most of their prep time creating great projects… To me, effective teaching is all about sharing / collaborating / combining efforts. As a teacher, I want to give my students the “best of”; in my lesson planning, it is my job to thoughtfully construct a lesson that flows, but I don’t think (by any means) that it is effective for me to create everything from scratch.
On to the student’s perspective… I just received the following note from a student, whose AP Calculus teacher has been assigning my videos for homework. I think the note speaks for itself and I thought it was important to share:
Hello, my name is ________. I’ve commented on a few of your videos, and I have to say, they are really easy to follow and understand. I am a Junior in _________’s AP Calculus class and most nights we are given the assignment to watch a particular video, write specific notes (plus more if we want more info), and sometimes take an online quiz.
… this is [my teacher’s] first year teaching this way, with discussions being help about the contents of your videos. We have recently completed chapter 2 of your videos and having taken a test on it today, I feel that your videos covered everything that was needed in the most efficient way possible! I know I got a good grade on it :)
Anyways, I’m really enjoying the type of class that I’m in and it’s great that we have access to all of your videos! By the way, our text book is the same one your videos are based around, which has been really critical if we wish to have more practice.
Thank you so much!
techieMusings 