I'm sure you have run across the concept of the "flipped classroom" recently. This approach (made popular by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams in their book, Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day) changes the way the classroom is normally structured. Typically, the teacher in class lectures or otherwise presents new material to the students. Then the students have homework to reinforce that new material (a set of practice problems, etc.). The problem is that, by the time students get home, they often forget what the teacher said in class, so they are confused trying to do their homework. The flipped classroom reverses this. The students are presented with new concepts or instruction for homework (using things like short instructional videos). Then they do their "homework" in class the next day, when the teacher is available to give them personal help and direction. There's much more that could be said about the flipped classroom, but I want to look at a related concept - flipped professional development for teachers.
Typically, professional development sessions for teachers involve the teachers staying after school for an hour or so once a week. An instructional leader (the principal, academic dean, or outside speaker) spends most of that time lecturing about some relevant concept (how to engage students in learning, how to have effective classroom management, how to grade papers effectively, etc.). The teachers then leave and are expected to put those things into practice in their classrooms.
However, teachers are busy individuals, and the "tyranny of the urgent" presses on them. They want to change how they grade papers (for example), but they already have a stack of essays which they have to grade by tomorrow - they don't have time to implement a new method, so they plan on working on it over the summer. Summer comes, and they have forgotten what the educational specialist said. So the new year begins with the same grading practices.
Flipped professional development might look like this: the educational leader finds or produces a series of brief (15 minute or so) videos about the new concept. The teachers are asked to watch these before the after-school faculty meeting. In that meeting, instead of going over that material again, the educational leader has the teachers discuss what they saw in the videos. "What benefits do you see from changing your grading practices? How do you think that would work in your 3rd grade classroom, differently from a high school math classroom? Now get together with your other grade-level teachers and talk about what you can do differently right now about grading, and what you can change for next year." That act of discussing with others does two things. First, the discussion itself helps establish the new concepts in the teachers' mind more clearly. The act of talking about anything cements it in your mind more firmly than just hearing it. Second, there is an implied accountability to one another. If I, as a high school teacher, talk with a few other high school teachers about ways I can change my grading practices, I'm more likely to actually make those changes - those other teachers might ask me about it in a few weeks!
Now that discussion time can be done without "flipping" the learning through the use of videos. But teachers' time is limited. It's difficult to get another hour of their time - one hour for the lecture, and another hour for discussion. But if they can watch videos on their own time, at their own pace, ahead of time, then the one hour of the meeting can be devoted to discussion and application.
As an example, I conducted several staff development sessions with our teachers on the topic of "Effective Questions." I had them watch these videos ahead of time, and then our meetings consisted entirely of discussions of how these concepts could be applied in their classrooms. The teachers seemed to profit from this approach, so I'm planning more such instruction.
If you have questions about the flipped classroom or flipped professional development, I encourage you to check out the Flipped Learning Network. There is a wealth of good information there - apps to use, different approaches to flipping instruction, answering questions about it, etc.
Typically, professional development sessions for teachers involve the teachers staying after school for an hour or so once a week. An instructional leader (the principal, academic dean, or outside speaker) spends most of that time lecturing about some relevant concept (how to engage students in learning, how to have effective classroom management, how to grade papers effectively, etc.). The teachers then leave and are expected to put those things into practice in their classrooms.
However, teachers are busy individuals, and the "tyranny of the urgent" presses on them. They want to change how they grade papers (for example), but they already have a stack of essays which they have to grade by tomorrow - they don't have time to implement a new method, so they plan on working on it over the summer. Summer comes, and they have forgotten what the educational specialist said. So the new year begins with the same grading practices.
Flipped professional development might look like this: the educational leader finds or produces a series of brief (15 minute or so) videos about the new concept. The teachers are asked to watch these before the after-school faculty meeting. In that meeting, instead of going over that material again, the educational leader has the teachers discuss what they saw in the videos. "What benefits do you see from changing your grading practices? How do you think that would work in your 3rd grade classroom, differently from a high school math classroom? Now get together with your other grade-level teachers and talk about what you can do differently right now about grading, and what you can change for next year." That act of discussing with others does two things. First, the discussion itself helps establish the new concepts in the teachers' mind more clearly. The act of talking about anything cements it in your mind more firmly than just hearing it. Second, there is an implied accountability to one another. If I, as a high school teacher, talk with a few other high school teachers about ways I can change my grading practices, I'm more likely to actually make those changes - those other teachers might ask me about it in a few weeks!
Now that discussion time can be done without "flipping" the learning through the use of videos. But teachers' time is limited. It's difficult to get another hour of their time - one hour for the lecture, and another hour for discussion. But if they can watch videos on their own time, at their own pace, ahead of time, then the one hour of the meeting can be devoted to discussion and application.
As an example, I conducted several staff development sessions with our teachers on the topic of "Effective Questions." I had them watch these videos ahead of time, and then our meetings consisted entirely of discussions of how these concepts could be applied in their classrooms. The teachers seemed to profit from this approach, so I'm planning more such instruction.
If you have questions about the flipped classroom or flipped professional development, I encourage you to check out the Flipped Learning Network. There is a wealth of good information there - apps to use, different approaches to flipping instruction, answering questions about it, etc.