PHS Teachers: They're Flipping Students Off

by Anna Greenhalgh

It sounds bad, but it’s not actually what you think; flipped classroom is back at PHS. Physics teacher Mr. Heer just began incorporating the flipped classroom videos in his curriculum.

If you haven’t yet been introduced to flipped classroom videos in your high school career, let me briefly explain. Flipped classroom videos are, as the name states, videos of the teacher or of the material being taught. Usually, the videos are watched outside of school and students take notes on them. The next day, the material in the video is discussed as a class. Mrs. Hefty brought flipped classroom to PHS a few years ago and taught utilizing the videos for a while with her Geometry sections.

Mr. Heer explains his reasons for using the idea in his curriculum, “It’s not just a way to teach for me. It’s also a type of experiment.” The experiment is mainly “to see whether or not the videos help students and their grades.” Mr. Heer goes on on to describe his plan. He has gathered data from his past six years of teaching and plans to compare it to this year’s numbers after the first semester exam. The studies he has seen say that videos are the most beneficial to his students and the learning process.

When asked about the effect on students through the videos, Mr. Heer replies that there are both positives and negatives.  “Some of the pros are that the students can pause, rewind, and replay the video if they’re lost or if they missed something. And the videos will still be there when you’re in college, if you choose to refer back to them for review.”  

Another perk in the flipped system is that the notes to go with each section’s video are posted online along with it. They are printable, so if you’ve missed a day, you aren’t necessarily missing out on the instruction. You simply log on to the school website, go to the link, and voila! Mr. Heer pops up to teach you about work and power.

“On the other hand,” reasons Mr. Heer, “the videos aren’t as interactive as an in-class lectures.” The questions that pop in your head can’t be answered before you forget them. It’s also much less cost-effective, if you will, from a teacher’s perspective.  For every 15 minutes students see on the videos, it takes more than an hour of recording, editing and cutting down, and forgiving a few minor mistakes, even after all this.