Flipped Class Method Gaining Ground

This from District Administration Magazine:

Community Schools’ high school has turned the traditional school day upside-down by asking teachers to assign short video lectures as homework and have students do activities, participate in discussions and complete assignments in class, with their teacher at hand to answer questions.

Clintondale High School applied the flipped model gradually, beginning with just a couple of classes in the 2009-2010 school year. In the fall of 2010, all freshmen classes were taught using this model. After seeing an increase in student achievement and a decrease in the failure rate, administrators decided to flip the entire school this year.

The flipped class is a type of blended learning, which combines online and traditional face-to-face methods. Students can review videos at their own pace, pausing to take notes or review a point. While the number of educators using this method is tough to calculate, 2,500 have joined the Flipped Class Network, a learning community for teachers using vodcasting (video podcasting) in class...