‘upside down church’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80672516@N00/529353384

I attended a Reverse Instruction by Brad Rathgeber who will soon be the Director of The Online School for Girls. These are my notes from his presentation.

Pedagogical approach that moves the lecture components of a traditional class online.

Not an approach for teachers already practicing true Project-Based Learning or extraordinary progressive educators.. as they will find this passe.

Online lectures take 30% less time when delivered online.

Online assessment can also be moved online for some of the mini-assessment.

Murry Ganz is a teacher he shared 5 sections of  AP Biology at Hockaday Girls School in Texas.

His Takeaway:

• Got over the fear and saw he could move much of the work out of school.
• Do not go too fast with the students as they will need to learn how to use the new system.
• Teachers at the school got to know faculty members better and in fact it also helped the students learn each other names.
• Movies should be around10 minutes in length at the longest.
• Use class time for discussion and labs.
• Encourage them to ask questions.
• Students really liked it as they can listen when they want and can replay it as often as they want.
• Online Learning should be personal and have personality. If you are a hand talker, use your hands in your videos.

Tools: Screencast-matic http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/, Smartboard,  Quia is also used for grading or quizzing for about $50.00 a year. VoiceThread. Use Document camera. They use Eduvision.Tv to host videos. https://www.eduvision.tv/index.html

https://thehockadayschoolcampuscommunity.eduvision.tv/default.aspx

Use Open Content like iTunes U, Khan Academy, MIT Opencourseware, other universities have put many courses online.

Getting Started:

• Start with one thing
• Be comfortable in front of a camera
• Take an online course
• Try a multitude of presentation tools
• Don’t be afraid to try a lot of approaches
• Engage in networks that expand your knowledge: PLNs

For many teachers, Reversed Classrooms are the start (not the end) of the journey into online education.