Catch You on the Flip? A Preliminary Exploration of Flipped Learning Possibilities in K1 PE
I have just learned about the concept of “flipped” learning via a webinar sponsored by ConnectedPE and delivered by James Simms of mypeexam.org. It was explained to me in more detail by the Tech Integration specialist at my school and then, through some research of my own, I found this handy infographic:
As you can tell from the amazing inforgraphic, this concept has traditionally been used for secondary school learners, but the discovery immediately got me thinking about ways it could be translated to an early childhood single subject setting — like a K1 PE class, for instance.
I can see major advantages to flipping the learning in K1 PE. In my current situation, we have a very short time period (30 minutes) to work with each class. I’m always looking for ways to become more efficient in direct instruction delivery so that the students will have more time to actively play, practice, inquire, collaborate, and reflect during PE class.
Encouraging exercise outside of PE class could be another advantage. We continue to learn more and more about exercise’s beneficial effects of on brain activity, learning, and general well-being. We also know that kids need more exercise during the week than I am able to offer them in two 30-minute PE sessions. What if I could encourage them to exercise and practice skills during their free time using videos? What kind of effect would this have on parents as teachers? How much more progress could we make?
I have been looking into ways for each student in our school to have a short period of physical activity first thing in the morning. However, the logistics of herding together 150 young students in one place was a bit daunting. If each student had the opportunity to view and participate with an instructional PE video or live broadcast in their classroom when they arrived at school in the morning, we could ensure that each student started off his or her day with some movement in developmentally appropriate fashion. Not only could this help them when they come to PE class, this could improve the quality of their learning overall.
Technology is a major component of flipped learning. There are a few key tools I have thought of so far that could help us realize this goal.
EDpuzzle might be the most important tool for making the videos that parents and students will view together. This amazing website allows you to choose videos from the internet or upload your own. You can then add voiceover to these videos, ask questions that need to be answered, and do much more. These videos would be made available to the parents in advance of our PE lessons via class blogs and EDpuzzle would also allow me to track who had watched the video and receive feedback from parents regarding their children’s progress. EDpuzzle is awesome.
For the morning movement videos, I have been considering broadcasting live through an app like Periscope. The classroom teachers in my school would then access the video on the screens in their classroom via a link sent out on email. Alternatively, we could pre-record the videos and have them available in a shared Google Drive folder. iMovie will definitely be a part of this process, as well.
These are just my preliminary ideas so far. If anyone out there has been doing this already or has any great ideas, I would love to hear about it. You can hit me up on Twitter @mrzackpe or by email — zack.smith@thekaustschool.org.
