Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie – Sept 22, 2010.
#637 – Updates on Learning, Business & Technology.
55,132 Readers – http://www.masie.com – The MASIE Center.
Host: Learning 2010 – Oct 24 to 27, Orlando, FL, USA.

1. Flip Happens – Reversing Process for Teaching? My colleague, Dan Pink has written about the concept of “Flip Thinking”  In a recent article,  Dan talks about experiments in reversing the “natural” sequence of things.  For example, what if a teacher were to give the lectures as homework and the activities shift to the classroom.  The author of the now viral “Shift Happens” slideshow has been doing that for high school algebra – he provides videos of the lectures for the students to view before class and uses in class time for questions, discussions and practice.  There is great promise for flipping processes in learning and education. Check out Dan’s article:

Think Tank: Flip-thinking – the new buzz word sweeping the US
Teacher Karl Fisch has flipped teaching on its head – he uploads his lectures to YouTube for his students to watch at home at night, then gets them to apply the concepts in class by day.

From DSC:
I saw this same innovative thinking/approach a while back with some high school chemistry teachers implementing this “flip” in their classrooms…check out:

The Vod Couple — from The Journal by Dian Schaffhauser — back from 08/01/09
High school chemistry teachers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann have overturned conventional classroom instruction by using video podcasts to form the root of a new learning model.

The Vod Couple

Sams (left) and Bergmann
together practice a student-centered pedagogy.