My project is about flipping the classroom. In lecture-oriented classes, communication between students and teachers are severely limited. Therefore, my proposal is to eliminate the lack of social interactions within classroom without losing any lecture time. Flipping the classroom means that lectures, which always happen during class time, will be switched to homework while traditional practice problems or discussion will be done during class time. This essentially improves the social interactions between teachers and students without losing the time for information input and output.
The first teacher I discussed this proposal is Mr. Wolf, a physics teacher who employs a flipped classroom system for his AP classes. His lectures were prerecorded on Youtube in which students can access it easily at home; and during class time, AP physics students work on multiple labs, discuss problems, and practice concepts. Mr. Wolf claims that without the freed-up class time from the flipped classroom experience, his students would never be able to do as many labs, problems and also interact with the teacher as much. He, however, also warns of the limits of this flipped classroom experience. Mr. Wolf claims that this class is only for higher leveled class in which students have access to computers and are motivated to do work. In a standard class, many students are not as motivated to do work and therefore the freedom to watch the lecture sometimes can be exploited. He also claims that the prerecorded lectures have to be clear, concise, and thought-provoking; by taking away class time for lectures also takes away time for immediate questions for the lectures. Therefore, if a lecture completely confuses students and they physically cannot ask questions, then the lecture at-home part would be useless.
The second staff member I discussed with was the head of the Math Department, Mr. Paris. Mr. Paris seemed indifferent and somewhat disdainful to the idea. He claims that there are a few teachers in the math department that are using this method and that most of them find that there are no difference between their methods and that of the traditional classroom. Mr. Paris claimed that it has its "potential" and its "limits". The potential being freed up class time for interaction and the ability to rewind, pause, and fast forward lectures. The limits, according to him, were numerous such as the lack of interactive lesson learning when watching an video and lack of motivating students. Mr. Paris did not elaborate greatly on the subject and basically answered only the bare minimum of my questions. I strongly feel that the math curriculum in the high school especially are somewhat limited in their interactions based on my past experiences. Every day we are put through a hellish, monotonous lecture that half the student actually listen to.
