Is Flipped Learning Dead Episode 45
00:00:00 Jon Bergmann: Is Flipped Learning dead?
00:00:01 Jon Bergmann: This week, Peter Picone, a friend and a fellow flipper from way back, posed this question of me. And there's been others who have been talking about this in the in the online blogosphere, and I want to address that in this episode of the Reach Every Student podcast with me, your host, Jon Bergmann. Recently on, Peter's medium channel, he posted a pretty lengthy article about the future and the history of flip learning. He talked about flip learning one zero, with Aaron and I, Aaron Sams and I when we first jumped into it and we were doing workshops on what we had discovered or figured out how to do, and then he then so that was he called that flip learning one point zero. And then he says, flip learning two point oh is where a lot of like polished people started making videos. And as a side note, and he said that he he wondered if Jon me had embraced that. And I think he hit on an important point that I've often wondered, one thing that Aaron and I were always good at is we were pretty good presenters. And so when we made flipped video content, it was a relatively high quality, not super polished like, you know, there were some sort of teacher influencers Paul Anderson, hip Hughes, all those guys, they made some amazing sort of explainer videos on YouTube that were that got millions and millions of followers. I always still felt, and I still do, that the best content is made by the teacher because it's more real. I was just, in fact, talking with a teacher here at the school that I teach at, and we were having this conversation. He'd used some flipped content in his Latin classes, and it just never quite sat right with him. And then, I was working with him just a couple of days ago to make some flip videos that he would make. And then Peter starts talking about flip learning three point zero, which I helped establish when I was part of the Flipped Learning Global initiative. And he had some critiques, and I'd let you read his article. I think he may have some points there and then. So again, he's what he's doing is he's giving us the history of flip learning and then charting something forward. And then he says Covid and the collapse of flipped learning. He feels like that Covid. because what happened during Covid is so many teachers were forced to a sort of a semi flipped model. They were creating online video content. And then when the parents saw that online flip content, he said the poor quality made parents angry. It was such a difficult time, and it put a really bad taste in the mouths of teachers, parents, communities of flipped learning. And maybe there is some of that. But I would also argue there were other factors. I think just forcing kids in front of screens for hours and hours on end. We began to realize how bad screens have been for kids. Something I've certainly been talking about in many of the articles is that we need what we have done to our students by giving them screens has actually harmed them in so many ways. And so he's got a good critique there, but I don't think that that kills flip learning. I honestly am making the point that flip learning is the ideal solution in the age of AI. We're not going to get students and people away from screens, but what we can do with a flipped learning environment is that we can get students to Use that screen time for not, you know, destructive social media to not have them use it for, you know, even just silly cat videos or, you know, there's a dark side to the internet. We all know that. And some of our students go down that path, but we're giving them quality educational content. And I think that really matters. And then and then Peter then says. And so what did I do? just in the last hour or so, I've been doing a deep dive on ChatGPT asking ChatGPT basically is flipped, learning Dead and some interesting stats. I asked it to look at all of the academic research and, the first thing I did, as I said, plot a graph of academic papers from two thousand and five to the current. And what you see in terms of research papers, I've seen this, Robert Talbot has posted this, but I wanted some up to date data. And this trend graph makes a lot of sense to me. Basically, in twenty twelve, there was a huge interest in flip learning, and a lot of that maybe is because of the book. That's when our first book, Flip Your Classroom, got published, and then it was exponential growth over a number of years. It kind of flattened out in twenty eighteen. And then there was a huge spike again right around Covid, which makes a lot of sense that there were a lot of people who were grappling with the idea of, how do I teach in light of this? And then since Covid, there has been a drop off, but the drop off still goes back to twenty eighteen levels. And so there is still an interest. And so then I asked Chat, I said, tell me what why is this happening? And they said possibly because it is now an accepted modality, flip learning is now just part of the educational landscape and whatnot. But I kept going deeper. I said, you know, how many teachers are flipping their class? And I said, well, it's hard to answer that question, but you don't see lots of instances where you have full schools flipped. It's very rare. I know that to be true. I've just not heard of that very much. There's been a few places you could say are doing that on a school wide basis, but it's kind of one offs. But it did say that the percentage of teachers who are using flip learning, and it broke them into two groups, and I think this is fair. They said if you're trying at least once, they say that, in twenty nineteen there's thirty percent and you were up to like sixty five percent in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. Covid. It makes sense. Right. And then there's been a drop off again, but it's still tried it at least once. We're down to a forty percent here in twenty twenty four is the latest data. And then if we look at those who regularly use, flip learning, it was ten percent. They're saying in twenty nineteen up to a maximum of forty percent in twenty twenty twenty one and then back now down to about twenty percent. I'm not sure I believe that number. Twenty percent seems high. And maybe this is the definition of regular use. Is that your primary teaching methodology, or if it's just something that you do, You know, once a quarter and that's regular use. I don't know, I, I still want to make this contention. So Peter and I, we basically had a spirited dialogue, this last weekend, and we were talking about it. And I think flip learning has come to a place where it's got a level of maturity, and a lot of people are using it. I still think that a lot of people think they're flipping their class because they have just sent homework as a video, though there are elements of that. There are so, so much more. Can I say this enough? It's so important to learn how to flip your class. Well, especially in the age of AI. I'm talking about AI in a minute in and I have of course, go take my course. Peter. By the way, you can have my course for free if you're listening to this and, take my course on the best practices, what we know about the best practices of flipped learning. So now let's go back to Peter's article, his medium article. He then talks about the launch of ChatGPT and he says, the dinosaur in the tar pit, I love this. Peter says, from where I sit, the movement feels dead. And he says, if you have doubts, look around the flip learning teachers. Facebook barely stirs. Aside from the occasional video from co-founder John Bergmann. Of course, me and a few posts he has shared himself. Otherwise, there's nothing not even admin chips in. Um, he's actually right. I that that Facebook group has, has, kind of stopped interacting. So his big idea though is he says we need to move to a new version of Flip learning, and he's going to call it Flip learning five point oh. And we need to go way beyond. There's no such thing as four point oh. And I think, again, he is more right than wrong. And his big idea. All right, I think, and this is a good idea, is instead of assigning a video or a reading as the pre-work, he says they should students should just learn no longer quote unquote students to no longer rely on videos, readings and podcasts. Instead, they go straight to the bot, asking it to teach them the content their teacher assigns in whatever format or pace works best for them. And I think that's a great idea. I think that for some students that if they want to learn via. Asking ChatGPT or, you know, whatever AI tool they're using that I think that that is going to be a good technique. But let me hear this carefully. Sometimes students don't know what to ask. And if they don't, then it might mis teach them. I still think there's this personality that we still need that teacher input. So, my school has purchased a tool. For what it's worth, there's lots of tools like this, but I become a fan of it. It's Flint K-12. Flint K-12. And my students? I can set up an activity. I can say teach students about this. Based upon that, you can go too deep. Does this make sense? So, for example, I teach high school geology, you know, rocks and earthquakes and volcanoes, stuff like that. And if I was to ask ChatGPT to teach them things about volcanoes, what I fear is it's going to take them too deep. This may sound weird because PhD level stuff is out there, and I want them to learn it at the level that is appropriate for eleventh graders. So in my prompts for my students, I can, you know, I can say, train yourself based upon this chapter from this textbook, which is at their level, but then have a caveat if they want to take it deeper. More power to them. I want that, but I don't want to confuse them with so many facts that they it's well, it's cognitive overload. I'm trying to limit their cognitive overload so that they can get it at the level that is appropriate for the vast majority of them. I mean, the beauty of AI is it can take that student who's like, oh, this is his jam. This is her jam. That's what they want to do. Then they can go deeper and deeper and deeper and they can learn so much about it. So yes, the at home Peace could be done with AI, but I guess I'm still cautious on that, is that I'm not sure that's going to be for every student see a self-directed student is going to work for. But a lot of students are not a self-directed as they could be. Now, we might argue, well, the point is, is we want students to become self-directed learners. I one hundred percent agree, but I live in reality with students who come into my class every day. And I don't know if your kids are like mine, but not all my kids are as self-directed as I would wish they were. Some are are, but some are not. And so some of them need a little more hand-holding, I guess. And then he he then keeps going and then we he's got like he's got five things. I think, AI generated checks for understanding. So when they come back to class and AI is going to generate a multiple choice short answer questions, feedback is immediate. I think that's a brilliant idea. That's brilliant. Um, so Peter, hats off to you. I've actually done some of this in my class. The students do have, they have, questions that I've actually had AI build for them based upon the learning goals and expectations of that lesson, and it's worked quite well. even though it's not, the AI isn't generating them in real time. The AI generated it. I sat at my computer and I had AI generate these questions based on these things, and then I have them do checks for understandings. And again, one thing I said in the previous podcast about this, what I'm actually finding even better than I check for understanding a way to check for understanding is to have them query the AI. So I do this at the beginning of every class as a as a bell ringer, I guess you could say. And what I have my students do is I have them ask AI a question about what they had learned, and then I can see what they're. And then it answers them, and then it asks them a deeper question. And then they have a dialogue that lasts six minutes. I've limited it to six minutes. And it's really been very powerful way to get the conversation going in a given classroom. And then number three, he says AI shaped classroom activities. he says teachers use AI to create in-class experiences that fulfill what Bergmann and Sams envisioned nearly twenty years ago. Not direct instruction, but roles. Role play, simulations, projects. Absolutely. I think the AI can do that. I feel like maybe what he's saying and maybe I'm wrong. So, Peter, correct me if I'm wrong. is you're saying that the AI is going to create these things automatically? I still feel like the teacher has a huge role in this. So I create the activities, by and large, or I find them from resources from other teachers or out on the internet or from my curriculum guides or whatever. There are tried and true activities in so many content areas that just make sense. So I'm going to default to that. Clearly in a class of mine, which is science, some of these is limited by the materials I have. How many different mineral samples do I have in a geology class or, you know, um, do I have this particular chemical in a chemistry class? That thing matters because they need to, you know, if you're going to be a scientist, you got to, like, do science that just like, to me, that's like, dumb to not do that. And then, AI supporting their classwork. Number four. Actually, it's seven things. I thought it was five. AI supported classroom work one hundred percent. One hundred percent. they get stuck on things, AI can support them. I'm totally for that and etc.. AI for in-class group accountability. I like this, he says. During group work, teachers use AI to generate checks for understanding that reveal what each group and even each student within the group has actually grasped. I'm seeing that with this tool that I use, this Flint K-12 is that automatically it gives me feedback, strengths, weaknesses, and next steps with each student. But also it'll do it per group. And AI is just brilliant at these things. And so if you're using AI as an assessment tool, then it gives you the teacher some very, very positive feedback. And I think the loop is going to only get better as the software companies develop this. It can then chart the next step. I mean, I think the holy grail guys down the road, if we can figure out the details, this is still not there. I mean, there are some schools who say they are doing it and probably are. But yeah, for example, the Alpha school in Austin, Texas, and there's kind of one of the most famous ones. They have their students come to school in the morning and they learn via AI. They don't have actual like classes. And then in the afternoon they do more project based learning. And they have lots of like challenges that that is more student directed. So they're learning their core content just via AI. I'm not sure what I think about that. I've had some people who've actually introduced me to some of the folks at that school, and I've yet to go visit it. I am intrigued by that model. I worry that that might be not replicatable across the vast majority of schools. I wonder if potentially, that students who desire that model go to that school. And so it fits very well. So it's going to be great for a lot of students, but not all students. Some students need a very much more of a structured environment that I think is going to help them. So I'm not again, I hope I hope I'm wrong. I mean, I really think the holy grail ultimately is that personalized learning that gets to each student. But I've also had some issues with that when I've tried to personalize the learning. And then what happens when I've shared this on this podcast? You know, just to be real, right? I was trying to do that with my geology class last school year, not this year, last school year. And my students, what they would do is they would they would take these AI assignments and they would have AI do the AI assignment and they would learn nothing. And so you have to be careful sometimes if you self-directed, it's one thing, it's self-directed in class, but if it's self-directed outside of class, I had too many students who were shortcutting even that process. So yeah. So to address Peter, Peter. Yes, I think flip learning with AI is going to be a game changer. I one hundred percent agree, and I think we need to adapt it to make it work. And honestly, as I've said in previous podcasts, I believe flipped is the ideal pedagogy in the world of AI teachers. Hear me carefully. If you are sending home cognitively complex stuff and you think your students are going to do that on their own and not have AI help them, I think you're crazy. And so I have really endeavored this school year to try to move the hard stuff into class, which is always been the premise of flipped learning. And I can't tell you this has been one of the greatest years of teaching and whatever, six weeks into the school year and the students are connecting, I'm finding better ways to use AI. The students are doing the hard work. They appreciate it. They're not just going home and getting stuck. And if you talk to them as I talk to my students, they are thinking about AI. I think in good ways. Some of them are using it as a crutch, but again, I talk with them. I listen to my previous podcast about this. We had a fascinating conversation about when and how to use AI in the learning process. And I mean, the big takeaway is don't use it to replace thinking, but to enhance thinking. And I think that's the message that they're getting and they're starting to see what that might look like. what I hear from my kids is honestly mostly with AI. They're a little bit afraid. I, we talked about yesterday with one of my class, and my student says, I think it's going to take over the world. She was talking a bit tongue in cheek, I think, but she wasn't completely. And they're worried that when they get out of college or wherever they head, that that that job won't be there anymore because AI is going to take it. That that is scaring them in a in a negative way. So. So yeah. Is flip learning dead? No way. Does it need an update? Yes. I mean, everything does. Everything's going to need an update in the world of AI and but I think honestly, as we think this through, help me think it through. Right. as we think, education through, what is it going to look like and how are we going to make this happen? That is the key. So I want to thank Peter publicly, for challenging my thinking. I love people who push my buttons. And I want to be somebody who learns and continues to think and be challenged and be humble enough to, hey, I'm wrong. And if I'm wrong, boy, tell me, And I want to I want to listen. And so yeah, Is flip learning dead. No. But does flip learning need Learning an update, like I said. Absolutely. Hey, thanks for listening. And I encourage you to to your teachers, most of you are teachers. Reach every student. Each student matters. They their humanness matters. And whatever we do, we need to make sure that, we make sure the classrooms are humanized, if you will. the fear of AI as it becomes it could be dehumanizing. And, I'm pro-human, I want humans to thrive.
00:19:14 Jon Bergmann: I want particularly my students, to thrive. I want your students to thrive because that's what's going to make a strong society and a great world to, pass on to our kids. And, well, in my case, my grandkids. yeah. This is Jon Bergmann. go out and reach every student.
