Flipped Classroom
By: Corinne Roach
Research
As video technology has become more available to teachers and students, many educators are turning to instructional videos as a means for differentiating in their classrooms. “‘Flipped learning’ is a teaching technique that uses video assets as the primary means of delivering direct instruction to individual students” (ISTE, 2015) and this approach has become more popular recently especially for teachers trying to adapt to meet the needs of their diverse students. Despite this growing trend, there is a lack of research on the effectiveness of instructional videos, particularly in junior high school classes. The state of Ohio requires students to demonstrate their understanding of science concepts on the AIR standardized test. If“flipped learning” does improve students understanding of content, the students will perform better on curriculum and state assessments in Science. Consequently, it is important for research to examine how instructional videos can better individualize instruction, specifically in science classes.
In my action research study, I tried implementing a “flipped classroom” approach to instruction by having one of my classes learn 8th grade genetics content via instructional videos for homework, instead of learning the content the “traditional” way in class. The reasoning behind this was to allow students the opportunity to take more ownership of their learning and learn the presented content at their own pace.