Tying the Pieces Together
Over the past several months I’ve been working on creating a significant learning environment within my classroom where I’ve learned so much as well as grown in my understanding. When I initiated my innovation plan, flipped learning, I didn’t realize that I would be creating a new culture of learning for my students. As Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown stated in their book A New Culture of Learning “learning takes place without books, without teachers, and without classrooms, and it requires environments that are bounded yet provide complete freedom of action within those boundaries.” After reading this book I learned that a flipped classroom is just that. Providing me the confidence I needed to know that what I’m doing for my kiddos is exactly what is needed.
I also came to realize how we learn is very important and plays a huge role in creating the right learning environment for our students. During my research of the various learning theories, behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, I realized that all three of these are equally important. Check out my blog, My Learning Philosophy, sharing why I feel this way as well as describing what each one is about. Having a flipped learning environment allows students to watch and learn the new material whenever and wherever they want to and while in the classroom they put this learning into action via an activity, worksheet, or partner/group work. The students that didn’t watch the video prior to coming to class are urged to go back and watch it for the first time or for those that already did go back to develop a deeper understanding.
After, I figured out what learning theory it is that use and the ones I need to focus more on I dug deep into Dr. Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning so I could continue cultivating this significant learning environment I created. I wrote a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) and completed Fink’s 3 Column table. This table is basically a dissection of any given project or assignment looking at the outcomes, assessments and activities. When I created my 3 Column Table, I took into account that I will still be using the flipped model. My BHAG took me a long time to come up with as I wanted it to be perfect for my students. As teachers, we all want what is best for our students and to teach them as much as possible. Using the 3 Column Table allows us to think about what it is that we want our students to be able to do and then work backwards creating the environment, activities and assessments, for the students to excell.
Then, I went another step further and used the same project as shown in my 3 Column table, statistics unit, to create a UbD, Understanding by Design, model which is very similar in my opinion except with much more detail. Again, you start with the end in mind, the desired results, with about three goals to really dissect and focus on. Once the goals are defined then the assessments are established to using performance tasks which identify what the learners will accomplish so an assessment can be given. The main thing is creating, identifying all the activities that you want the students to accomplish throughout this project and this is pretty intensive as I’ve learned I needed to add a bit more details to my design, but I think it was a good start.
All of this brings me to looking at my growth over the past several months and reflect on how far I’ve come since initiating the flipped classroom model. As I created a PowToon video, The Power of Yet, back in August I was just learning about the two mindsets: fixed and growth. Initially, I discovered that I had a fixed mindset knowing that in some circumstances I had a growth mindset, but growing up in a traditional learning environment most of us are bound to have a fixed mindset. But with all that I’ve learned throughout my master’s program I feel that I see the changing happening or at least understand why it needs to happen. See my blog post on where I see myself today, Changing our Mindset (Fixed to Growth).
References:
- Dweck, PH.D., C. S. (2016). Mindset The New Psychology of Success (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Penguin Random House LLC.
- Fink, L.D. (2003) A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, KY: Author.
- Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.