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Monday, April 23, 2012

Blog #14

The Future of Technology in Education
Jeremy F. Strayer from Ohio State University designed an infographic on Knewton explaining the flipped classroom. The concept is that students would watch a 5-7 minute video lecture a couple days a week at home, and then come to class to do their "homework." (The other other days of the week would be more traditionally organized). This model offers some pros and cons to the future of technology in the classroom. First the pros. Probably the most important being that students have the teacher there to help them one on one for problems that at home they would just have to skip or do incorrectly. Students would be required to come to class with pre-developed questions that could be addressed by the teacher or be opened to the class (or in pairs) to discuss. If multiple students are struggling with certain concepts those could be addressed by the teacher to the whole class. According to Strayer they noticed a reduction of students failing English and math, and instances of discipline decreased. This method could be subscribed to at varying levels and altered to fit one's students and content.
The cons. There really is no guarantee that students would watch the lecture and/or come up with questions. This is still homework. In this flipped classroom there would still be a need for lecturing, potentially over the same content if the students did not watch it. If students do not have access to the Internet or a computer they would either miss out all together or have to watch it in class. It's hard to convey much information in 5-7 minutes.
This concept is intriguing. It could be incorporated in varying degrees, and could offer a way for students of varying learning intelligences to comprehend content. I believe this will really take hold and become commonplace in the classrooms of the future.

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