Caroline Nguyen
4/13/17
Mr. Landon
Final Draft
Flipped Classrooms Will Flip Test Scores
Education is something that the world relies on to educate its inhabitants. Just like every movement that has been lasting for centuries, it is inevitable for a reform to occur. People will suggest different ways of changing the system because there is always room for improvement. In the United States, education is greatly significant because the country needs educated students to ensure that we never have a dictator. Being educated also gives a greater opportunity for those seeking for a job or an actual career. My expectations for education is that it should give a fair opportunity for everyone and be accessible for everyone at little or no cost. In the United States, students should be aiming to grow their knowledge and not just have a short term goal of passing the test. It is important to be educated because it is easy to manipulate a group of people who are uneducated. Education allows an individual to be individual. Those who are uneducated tend to rely on others for aid or money because they can not get along by themselves. Newark Memorial is known for is great diversity. The demographics by ethnicity show that Newark Memorial’s student body is made up of mostly Hispanics or Latinos. Almost half of the students are on free or reduced priced lunches which tells us that a large chunk of the students and their families are receiving low incomes. The graduation rates based on race and ethnicity show that Newark Memorial’s mixed, black, and Latino graduation rates are much lower than the rest. The students who are mixed are struggling the most.
Think of a classroom, now imagine of it flipped between the classroom and the student’s home. A flipped classroom is the education reform that teachers are slowly implementing in schools worldwide. The concept of the flipped classroom is for the student to learn the material at home and come to class ready to do classwork practicing the material they had learned themselves at home. The teacher’s duty is to post videos of them lecturing or find effective videos made by other professors and assign those videos for the students to watch. The students will be required to take notes on the videos depending on the teacher. A flipped classroom is important because it will optimize class time for both the teacher and the student. In a traditional classroom, teachers usually lecture for an hour straight which will cause the student to zone out and completely ignore everything the teacher is teaching. The teacher also repeatedly teaches the same material three or more times a day. Instead, with a flipped classroom, the teacher could post a single video of he or she teaching the lesson once and posting it for the students to watch as many times as they would like. A flipped classroom would optimize class time because with the students learning at home, they could do “homework” in class with the teachers aid. This is extremely important because students often have no idea how to solve a problem at home, and when they have a question to ask there is no one to ask for guidance. The struggle of the students doing homework at home would lead to copying, thus completely destroying the purpose of homework. Many improvements can be made for the educational system at Newark Memorial High School. Based on research, the flipped classroom may have a chance at being effective at Newark Memorial depending on the subject.
The flipped classroom will work at Newark Memorial High School because many teachers are already utilizing videos to educate their students. Implementing the flipped classroom will take lots of time and effort from the teacher. It will also take lots of motivation and drive from the student to watch the videos on their own volition. In the long run, the time between the students and teachers at Newark Memorial High School will be optimized. The flipped classroom will also be used in different ways according to the class. For example in the article, “ How To Implement the ‘Flipped Classroom’”, by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, different classes have different ways of implementing the flipped classroom. In a foreign language class, “ teachers are recording grammar lessons and conversation starters so as to create time in class to use the language more practically”. From my experiences in my science classes, teachers are recording the concepts and examples in order to create more time for hands on experiments in the class. This allows more room for interactive learning, such as group discussions and simulations. Based on the ideas of Edward Graham and Tim Walker in their article, “ What ‘Flipped’ Classrooms Can and Can’t Do For Education”, “teachers are able to help the students on an individual basis and maximize their understanding of the material” since students are doing their learning at home and practice in class. It is apparent that it is beneficial for the students to do their practice in class so that if they get stuck they may resort to the teacher. At home, students will watch and learn concepts from the video and if they come across anything confusing they may come in the next day to their teacher for clarification. This would be more effective than the student struggling with homework and not doing it due to not clearly understanding, then having their grade be lowered because they did not complete their homework.
The overall grades of students have shown to be increased based on studies of practicers of the flipped classroom. In the paper, “The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom”, by Raymond Szparagowski, “On the non-flipped test students average grade was sixty- eight percent and on the flipped quiz students average grade was eighty-two percent”. What this shows is the difference in scores between students from a flipped and non-flipped classroom. A histogram was shown from the author of the paper and it depicted the specific numbers of each received letter grade. It indicated that the tests taken by the students of flipped classrooms had fewer amount of F’s than the non-flipped class students. Based on my personal experience and other classmates our test scores have greatly increased as well. In my previous chemistry class, my teacher taught in the class and we did the practice questions at home. In that period, my test scores ranged from eighty-five percent to ninety-five percent. Now in my current AP Chemistry class, the same teacher I had last year is implementing the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom has resulted of me receiving one hundred percents on many tests. Learning the material at home where the lecture is not being rushed to be finished like in a traditional class allowed me to fully grasp the material.
A flipped classroom may give too much liberty to the students. According to the article, “ The Implementation of A Flipped Classroom In Foreign Language Teaching”, by Dr. Ahmet Basal, a survey was proposed to students of a flipped classroom and their complaints were noted. “Some students came to class without watching the videos” was the first complaint. Its solution was for the teacher to include secret words in the video so that the student can come back the next day and identify it to the teacher. This will encourage the student to watch the videos at home. This also creates more room for improvement in the flipped classroom. Teachers also could have frequent tests and quizzes to ensure that the students know the material. The second issue said in the article was that the “students complained about the length of the videos”. The solution was to limit the videos to fifteen minutes. This is helpful because students often drift off from focus when a lecture is too long. Short videos will keep the student engages. If a video was longer than thirty minutes it will start to feel like a traditional in class lecture.
It is important to be educated because it is the key to be successful in life. In order to obtain money and provide for yourself and family, you must first get an education. My expectations for education is to pass on the necessary knowledge for the future inhabitants of the world. Education may lead to new discoveries because people build on their knowledge everyday with education. In the United States, students should be able to communicate intelligently and obtain/share the knowledge that they obtained throughout their years of education. Education also prevents the individual from being vulnerable and exploited. Based on research, I plan on improving the education system at Newark Memorial by enforcing more teachers to post lectures online. This will allow those who are behind to rewatch the videos to learn the lesson or review. The flipped classroom will work in improving the students’ studying, note-taking, and class engagement skills. Knowing the material before class will allow the student to be more confident in class discussions. Utilizing the flipped classroom will not have any cost, thus it would not hurt to try it out. Teachers at Newark Memorial should begin searching or making lecture videos now. Then, once they have a complete set of videos, they can assign them for the students to watch.
Works Cited
Basal, Ahmet. "The Implementation Of A Flipped Classroom In Foreign Language Teaching Volume: 16 Number: 4 Article 3." Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. N.p., Oct. 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
Bergmann Sams , Jonathan Aaron . "Chapter 3. Why You Should Flip Your Classroom." Why You Should Flip Your Classroom. International Society for Technology in Education, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Brame, Cynthia J. "Center for Teaching." Flipping the Classroom | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
Graham, Walker, Edward, Tim. "What 'Flipped' Classrooms Can (and Can't) Do for Education." NEA Today. NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION., 15 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
PBSNewsHour. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Dec. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
Szparagowski, Raymond, "The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom" (2014). Honors Projects. Paper 127.
4/13/17
Mr. Landon
Final Draft
Flipped Classrooms Will Flip Test Scores
Education is something that the world relies on to educate its inhabitants. Just like every movement that has been lasting for centuries, it is inevitable for a reform to occur. People will suggest different ways of changing the system because there is always room for improvement. In the United States, education is greatly significant because the country needs educated students to ensure that we never have a dictator. Being educated also gives a greater opportunity for those seeking for a job or an actual career. My expectations for education is that it should give a fair opportunity for everyone and be accessible for everyone at little or no cost. In the United States, students should be aiming to grow their knowledge and not just have a short term goal of passing the test. It is important to be educated because it is easy to manipulate a group of people who are uneducated. Education allows an individual to be individual. Those who are uneducated tend to rely on others for aid or money because they can not get along by themselves. Newark Memorial is known for is great diversity. The demographics by ethnicity show that Newark Memorial’s student body is made up of mostly Hispanics or Latinos. Almost half of the students are on free or reduced priced lunches which tells us that a large chunk of the students and their families are receiving low incomes. The graduation rates based on race and ethnicity show that Newark Memorial’s mixed, black, and Latino graduation rates are much lower than the rest. The students who are mixed are struggling the most.
Think of a classroom, now imagine of it flipped between the classroom and the student’s home. A flipped classroom is the education reform that teachers are slowly implementing in schools worldwide. The concept of the flipped classroom is for the student to learn the material at home and come to class ready to do classwork practicing the material they had learned themselves at home. The teacher’s duty is to post videos of them lecturing or find effective videos made by other professors and assign those videos for the students to watch. The students will be required to take notes on the videos depending on the teacher. A flipped classroom is important because it will optimize class time for both the teacher and the student. In a traditional classroom, teachers usually lecture for an hour straight which will cause the student to zone out and completely ignore everything the teacher is teaching. The teacher also repeatedly teaches the same material three or more times a day. Instead, with a flipped classroom, the teacher could post a single video of he or she teaching the lesson once and posting it for the students to watch as many times as they would like. A flipped classroom would optimize class time because with the students learning at home, they could do “homework” in class with the teachers aid. This is extremely important because students often have no idea how to solve a problem at home, and when they have a question to ask there is no one to ask for guidance. The struggle of the students doing homework at home would lead to copying, thus completely destroying the purpose of homework. Many improvements can be made for the educational system at Newark Memorial High School. Based on research, the flipped classroom may have a chance at being effective at Newark Memorial depending on the subject.
The flipped classroom will work at Newark Memorial High School because many teachers are already utilizing videos to educate their students. Implementing the flipped classroom will take lots of time and effort from the teacher. It will also take lots of motivation and drive from the student to watch the videos on their own volition. In the long run, the time between the students and teachers at Newark Memorial High School will be optimized. The flipped classroom will also be used in different ways according to the class. For example in the article, “ How To Implement the ‘Flipped Classroom’”, by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, different classes have different ways of implementing the flipped classroom. In a foreign language class, “ teachers are recording grammar lessons and conversation starters so as to create time in class to use the language more practically”. From my experiences in my science classes, teachers are recording the concepts and examples in order to create more time for hands on experiments in the class. This allows more room for interactive learning, such as group discussions and simulations. Based on the ideas of Edward Graham and Tim Walker in their article, “ What ‘Flipped’ Classrooms Can and Can’t Do For Education”, “teachers are able to help the students on an individual basis and maximize their understanding of the material” since students are doing their learning at home and practice in class. It is apparent that it is beneficial for the students to do their practice in class so that if they get stuck they may resort to the teacher. At home, students will watch and learn concepts from the video and if they come across anything confusing they may come in the next day to their teacher for clarification. This would be more effective than the student struggling with homework and not doing it due to not clearly understanding, then having their grade be lowered because they did not complete their homework.
The overall grades of students have shown to be increased based on studies of practicers of the flipped classroom. In the paper, “The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom”, by Raymond Szparagowski, “On the non-flipped test students average grade was sixty- eight percent and on the flipped quiz students average grade was eighty-two percent”. What this shows is the difference in scores between students from a flipped and non-flipped classroom. A histogram was shown from the author of the paper and it depicted the specific numbers of each received letter grade. It indicated that the tests taken by the students of flipped classrooms had fewer amount of F’s than the non-flipped class students. Based on my personal experience and other classmates our test scores have greatly increased as well. In my previous chemistry class, my teacher taught in the class and we did the practice questions at home. In that period, my test scores ranged from eighty-five percent to ninety-five percent. Now in my current AP Chemistry class, the same teacher I had last year is implementing the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom has resulted of me receiving one hundred percents on many tests. Learning the material at home where the lecture is not being rushed to be finished like in a traditional class allowed me to fully grasp the material.
A flipped classroom may give too much liberty to the students. According to the article, “ The Implementation of A Flipped Classroom In Foreign Language Teaching”, by Dr. Ahmet Basal, a survey was proposed to students of a flipped classroom and their complaints were noted. “Some students came to class without watching the videos” was the first complaint. Its solution was for the teacher to include secret words in the video so that the student can come back the next day and identify it to the teacher. This will encourage the student to watch the videos at home. This also creates more room for improvement in the flipped classroom. Teachers also could have frequent tests and quizzes to ensure that the students know the material. The second issue said in the article was that the “students complained about the length of the videos”. The solution was to limit the videos to fifteen minutes. This is helpful because students often drift off from focus when a lecture is too long. Short videos will keep the student engages. If a video was longer than thirty minutes it will start to feel like a traditional in class lecture.
It is important to be educated because it is the key to be successful in life. In order to obtain money and provide for yourself and family, you must first get an education. My expectations for education is to pass on the necessary knowledge for the future inhabitants of the world. Education may lead to new discoveries because people build on their knowledge everyday with education. In the United States, students should be able to communicate intelligently and obtain/share the knowledge that they obtained throughout their years of education. Education also prevents the individual from being vulnerable and exploited. Based on research, I plan on improving the education system at Newark Memorial by enforcing more teachers to post lectures online. This will allow those who are behind to rewatch the videos to learn the lesson or review. The flipped classroom will work in improving the students’ studying, note-taking, and class engagement skills. Knowing the material before class will allow the student to be more confident in class discussions. Utilizing the flipped classroom will not have any cost, thus it would not hurt to try it out. Teachers at Newark Memorial should begin searching or making lecture videos now. Then, once they have a complete set of videos, they can assign them for the students to watch.
Works Cited
Basal, Ahmet. "The Implementation Of A Flipped Classroom In Foreign Language Teaching Volume: 16 Number: 4 Article 3." Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. N.p., Oct. 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
Bergmann Sams , Jonathan Aaron . "Chapter 3. Why You Should Flip Your Classroom." Why You Should Flip Your Classroom. International Society for Technology in Education, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Brame, Cynthia J. "Center for Teaching." Flipping the Classroom | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
Graham, Walker, Edward, Tim. "What 'Flipped' Classrooms Can (and Can't) Do for Education." NEA Today. NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION., 15 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
PBSNewsHour. YouTube. YouTube, 11 Dec. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
Szparagowski, Raymond, "The Effectiveness of the Flipped Classroom" (2014). Honors Projects. Paper 127.