DigiLit Sunday - Flipping the ELA Classroom

      I love that Margaret Simon has started a Sunday Link Up for posts about digital literacy at her blog to challenge us to share our technology journeys.

 

     I've been quiet this summer on DigiLit Sundays.  It's not that I haven't been using technology; I just haven't been writing about it.  A lunch with a colleague, a high school English teacher, on Friday, though, got me excited about something I've thought about before, but have never implemented.

 

     Andrea Nichols and I got together because we wanted to talk about reading workshop and incorporating, managing, and assessing an independent reading program.  Of course, when you get two educators together who share philosophies and a passion for student choice, innovative teaching practices, and reading/writing workshop, ideas start to flow.  She started talking about flipping her classroom.  I was introduced to this concept several years ago and was intrigued, but felt like it might be more useful for math and science teachers (and I have a friend who uses it in her ceramics classroom - she videotapes her demonstrations); however, the more we talked, the more I could see it fitting perfectly in the ELA classroom.  We both felt our biggest constraint in ELA was time - we want to read aloud, allow independent reading and writing, confer, teach mini-lessons, use mentor texts for close-reading and craft lessons, immerse students in word work, teach grammar, and the list goes on and on, and we both have our students for only an hour.  HOW do we accomplish all we need to accomplish?!  Enter...flipping the classroom. 

 

 

 

      She told me about an app she discovered: YouTube Capture.  She's going to use her iPad to record videos of herself teaching mini-lessons that the students will watch at home, and then they can work on the skill with her at school.  I thought about how I use picture books to teach many of my mini-lessons, and how much time that takes up.  Then I end up sending them home with work that can sometimes cause stress because they have no support with it.  If they watched the mini-lesson, then I can provide the support they need while working on the assignment at school.  I think my parents would love it, too, because they would have access to the mini-lesson and can also provide support on the concept when needed.  We brainstormed how we will handle keeping the kids accountable for watching the video (entry tickets, small quiz, notes, etc.), and there would need to be alternatives in place for kids who don't have access to technology.  We're going to start small - maybe just one flipped lesson a week at first.  I got really excited, though, thinking about what a time saver this could be!  I enjoyed this PowToon video made by a Language Arts teacher about her flipped classroom:

 

 

I know I'm a little behind on this concept and many of you are already using it.  I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried this strategy in the ELA classroom!