The wrong posture of flipping education

What is flipped education

Flipped education is a new type of classroom education method that originated in the United States in 2007 and began to be promoted in Taiwan in 2013 under the leadership of Professor Ye Bingcheng of National Taiwan University. Its core idea is to flip the periods of "teaching" and "practice."

The traditional education method is to attend classes in the classroom and do exercises at home . However, this method has two disadvantages: first, each student's level is different, and it is difficult for teachers to master the appropriate speed; second, if students encounter problems when doing exercises at home, , there is no way to discuss it with the teacher immediately, so you can only find your own peers or rely on cram schools.

The approach of flipped education is to allow students to study at home and practice at school . The teacher needs to record the teaching content into a video or other form first, so that the students can study by themselves at home and do exercises in the classroom. This way the teacher can immediately grasp the learning status of the students and provide guidance and help. At the same time, because the homework is in the classroom If you do it, the completion rate will also increase.

Famous examples in Taiwan include Professor Ye Bingcheng’s probability class and uniform education platform .

The wrong posture of flipping education

A common misunderstanding of flipped education is that it is regarded as "letting students be teachers." This misunderstanding may come from "flipping the roles of teachers and students." Flipped education is to transfer the learning initiative from teachers to students, but it does not mean that Letting students become teachers does not mean replacing students with teaching.

As a student, I often see teachers using the name "flipped education", but they actually ask the students to divide into groups. The first group takes the first lesson, the second group takes the second lesson, and the teacher is at the back of the classroom occasionally. Just correct your classmates and comment after you finish. This is not flipped education at all . I was lucky enough to interview Professor Ye Bingcheng in person at the Taiwan Education Forum. He said:

"Teachers like this are just fooling around."

The reason why teachers are teachers is because they have abilities much higher than those of students and can bring students growth. Throwing the responsibility of teaching onto students is not education, unless you are in an education program.

Furthermore, such a format is usually more boring. Let’s take the Chinese language class as an example. The literacy required by the Chinese language subject requires a long period of reading and thinking to accumulate, which is difficult to achieve in one semester. It requires a lot of preparation for students. Literary Chinese language courses are completely difficult to achieve.

According to my own experience, the courses prepared by students are often superficial and can only cover the pronunciation, idioms, translation and other handouts . We want to change the cramming curriculum of the past, but students prepare more cramming courses on their own . A good Chinese language teacher should be able to teach in-depth content that goes far beyond the scope of textbooks, analyze the background context behind the text, and arouse students' diverse thinking about the works. This is the value that Chinese language classes should have.

Flipped education is not a panacea

I support flipped education, but I think flipped education is not a panacea for solving all educational problems. It can bring good results in some cases, but sometimes it does not. It is even often misused, causing today's students to People often feel scared when they hear about flipped education.

I think the suitable application scenarios for flipped education should be subjects that require students to practice a lot, and subjects that can objectively test right and wrong. For example, in mathematics, science, and programming, there are often obvious differences between students in these subjects. Through flipped education, outstanding students can give full play to their abilities, and students who are lagging behind can receive help from their teachers.

Since the "learning" stage of flipped education is completed by students alone, it is easier for students to check whether their understanding is correct if the course content can clearly distinguish between right and wrong.

If it is a humanistic quality course, it is not suitable for flipped education. If you want to create a "thoughtful course", it is more effective than recording it in a video, as real-time communication between teachers and students in the classroom is more effective. Imagine that the author of "Justice, a Speculative Journey" recorded a class video by himself, and you will know that the effect is very different. The goal of this type of course is to train critical thinking skills and understanding of people and society, which is difficult to obtain by watching movies alone.

Of course you will say that some Chinese classes are boring and some social studies classes are boring, but this is not a problem with the teaching format, but the teacher's own lack of ability and the system's over-reliance on scores to measure learning outcomes. Of course, it is also true that Taiwanese students’ classroom participation is very low, but this must be changed from an early age and is not the direction of today’s discussion.

Therefore, at the end of the article, I give a basis for judging whether flipped education should be adopted:

1. If the course is difficult, students have different levels, and requires practice, then flipped education can help you
2. If the problem is that the course fails to arouse students' interest and students are unwilling to participate in discussions, then this must start with changing the teaching content and assessment standards.

Let me mention "reports" a little here. I am not opposed to using student reports to increase learning evaluation standards, but we must pay attention to the proportion they account for in the course. Students should not feel that "they have to give reports before they have learned anything." It is also necessary to pay attention to whether the topic and time length are appropriate. Teachers should also provide assistance when students encounter problems, rather than letting students deal with them on their own.

Conclusion

Having been a student for more than ten years, I have seen many teachers who are full of enthusiasm and try new forms of education, but the results are counterproductive. I am very grateful to teachers who are willing to work hard to change and try for better learning. Therefore, this article today is not to criticize you, but to let teachers understand what is better for students from the perspective of students. The way.