1B: Brainstorming the Flip

Module 1A: Introduction to Flipping | Module 1B: Reflection on Flipping | Module 1C: Structure your Flip

Expected Time for Module 1B: 2-3 hours

Module 1B Outcomes: At the end of this module, participants will have:

Reflected on their own personal instruction context before jumping into the planning of a flip
Brainstormed ideas and structures for their flipped instruction and be ready to move onto detailing the online and F2F components of the flip in module 2 and 3

Step 1: Reflect on Your Own Instructional Context and Situational Factors

L Dee Fink in his book Links to an external site. called Creating Significant Learning Environments (2013) contends that instructors must decide what they want their students to be able to do, know and be at the end of the instruction first, and then work "backwards" to plan the instruction. If you don't have a plan, how will you know if your students achieved the outcomes/objectives?

To get started, think about your own particular instructional context. Are you designing a flip for a single topic or lecture? Are you planning to design a flip for an entire course? Who are your students? Will your instruction take place in a lab, in a large lecture hall, or in a small seminar? Are you teaching in a K-12, higher education or training context? Are there pedagogical challenges to overcome? What is your approach to teaching and learning? Fink calls all of these different factors that can influence how you design instruction, situational factors. Below are some tools you can use to reflect on your teaching, your students, the instructional context as you begin planning your flip.

Think about your instructional context and how that might require special planning for your course. Here is an optional situational factors worksheet to use to help you reflect on the factors that may influence your instruction. Just jot down any factors that might be unique for your particular instructional context so you can keep them in mind as you move forward with your flip planning.
Take the optional Teaching Perspective Inventory (online questionnaire) by Daniel D. Pratt and John B. Collins which will help you reflect on your teaching perspectives. It has 45 questions (3 screens), plus another dozen or so demographic questions. You can select the last option in the Select a Group pull down list (do not belong to any group) to begin the survey. Save a screen shot of your results, and read through the information on the five perspectives and the ten steps to reflect on your results if you are interested. How may your results influence how you approach teaching your flip? NOTE: this is a new website for the TPI and it seems a little quirky when I tried it. The final screen for the survey asking for demographic information was slow to load, so be patient and after entering some data you will see a graphic of your results. Here is a TPI profile
so you can see what it looks like and if it might be worth your time to take this survey.
Here is another optional survey called the Teaching Goals Inventory by Angelo and Cross (1993) that will help you identify what your goals are as you begin planning your instruction for a particular course or instructional situation. Before you take this survey think about the specific course or topic you are planning to flip. Then take the survey with that one course or topic in mind. It will help you identify what your goals are as you move forward in your instructional planning.

Step 2: Brainstorm ideas for your Own Flip

Reflect on the overarching goal(s) or "dream" of your course. What is your big goal(s) for your instruction? What is the one big thing you want students to be able to do or know at the end of your instruction?

You can use this optional "dream" worksheet
to help you articulate and reflect on your big goal(s) for your course or instruction and articulate student outcomes. Just write down your big goal in some way for your course so you can refer back to it as you think about your instructional outcomes. Here is an example of my dream for a course
I have taught on teaching instructors how to teach online.

How can you think about breaking down your big dream into measurable components, activities, assignments, or topics?

Think about organizing your Flipped and Not-Flipped ideas

As you start to think about your course, what lectures, content, materials or activities can be implemented in an online context?
What teaching and/or learning activities need to be in a face-to-face context?
How can you think about applying or integrating what students learn from the pre-class online content in the face-to-face classroom?
How can you connect the online and face-to-face materials so students see the relevance of completing the online assignments, readings, or video-watching?

NOW ... INTERACT WITH PEERS!

Use the Module 1B Discussion Board to ask questions about how to plan a flip, share examples of what you are planning for your flipped instruction, and vet concerns and ideas about designing for the flip with peers.

Module 1 | Module 2 | Module 3