Fierce Wonderings
This past week in the technology class, we read Pink's book about L-directed and R-directed thinking and was thinking about my original idea of flipping the classroom. I had a sudden realization that I was thinking about the web-based component all wrong. To be successful with my particular students, it would need to be less assignments online and more augmenting and supplementing the in-class lecture. This image of a metaphor became clearer in my mind. We can think of the physical manifestation of a class as the left brain, the very regimented, logical, sequential thinker. This is the part of the brain that is very literal. We march forward in a particular order and cannot easily go to other parts of the order. On the other hand, if done properly, the web-based presence is the right brain, the creative, lateral, simultaneous thinker. This part of the brain is where context is born. Likewise, in the web-based presence, I can add context in different ways than I can in the physical classroom. I can give the students access to other resources, videos, news stories, images that would lend real world context and real world grounding to the material we are covering in class. The corpus callosum, the nerve bundle that acts as the bridge between the hemispheres, is us, the community of learners.
I am energized to try this in my classroom, but at the same time I am nervous. Thus far, the evidence I have seen is that these students are reticent to do extra things if there is no extrinsic incentive and even if there is, they in large part don't put in the effort. I am talking about homework. There have been days where 20 out of 34 kids have not completely finished their homework, if not just completely not done it at all. I also created an Edmodo group for my periods which so far no students have joined. I want to change up the way the class runs because I feel like it is very habituated and boring, but it is what they are used to and they are fighting me so far even thought my lectures thus far have not been that different from my master teacher's. My natural lecture style is quite different from his and that is where the problems lie. This resistance to change worries me because if I do not have the students with me when I introduce my research idea to them, they will make it difficult to carry it out. This is also the driving force behind my backing away from flipping the classroom.
I would love to try flipping a classroom with the right group of students, but the current crop of data says that is not these students. I am not putting them down, but I want to make sure they learn what they need to learn and I feel like if I tried to flip the classroom on them, it would be a total disservice to them. I am not in this because I just want to do something revolutionary and awesome even if the students hate it. That is no kind of teacher. I want my research to benefit m current group of students as well as my future students.
Another idea I had was to give real world examples to contextualize the learning. I have heard the same question in every school I have ever been in, whether it be as student, obesrver, or student teacher; why do we need to know this, how does this apply to us? With my middle schoolers, it was very easy to make the problems about them, to embed the problems in their lives because the math concepts lent themselves to it well. I am finding more difficulty at this level because the math is harder. I also think that giving real world context will allow the students to connect to the material better and they might invest more in the class and in so doing do their homework. I have to explore the idea more in terms of the data I have available to me. The chapter we are on now, conic sections, might be difficult to put real world context to on a level that these kids can relate to.
I am energized to try this in my classroom, but at the same time I am nervous. Thus far, the evidence I have seen is that these students are reticent to do extra things if there is no extrinsic incentive and even if there is, they in large part don't put in the effort. I am talking about homework. There have been days where 20 out of 34 kids have not completely finished their homework, if not just completely not done it at all. I also created an Edmodo group for my periods which so far no students have joined. I want to change up the way the class runs because I feel like it is very habituated and boring, but it is what they are used to and they are fighting me so far even thought my lectures thus far have not been that different from my master teacher's. My natural lecture style is quite different from his and that is where the problems lie. This resistance to change worries me because if I do not have the students with me when I introduce my research idea to them, they will make it difficult to carry it out. This is also the driving force behind my backing away from flipping the classroom.
I would love to try flipping a classroom with the right group of students, but the current crop of data says that is not these students. I am not putting them down, but I want to make sure they learn what they need to learn and I feel like if I tried to flip the classroom on them, it would be a total disservice to them. I am not in this because I just want to do something revolutionary and awesome even if the students hate it. That is no kind of teacher. I want my research to benefit m current group of students as well as my future students.
Another idea I had was to give real world examples to contextualize the learning. I have heard the same question in every school I have ever been in, whether it be as student, obesrver, or student teacher; why do we need to know this, how does this apply to us? With my middle schoolers, it was very easy to make the problems about them, to embed the problems in their lives because the math concepts lent themselves to it well. I am finding more difficulty at this level because the math is harder. I also think that giving real world context will allow the students to connect to the material better and they might invest more in the class and in so doing do their homework. I have to explore the idea more in terms of the data I have available to me. The chapter we are on now, conic sections, might be difficult to put real world context to on a level that these kids can relate to.