Is It Working?

For many teachers/instructors in education, change can be a daunting task. Students are evolving at a quick pace and instruction as we know it has been drastically changed. Gone are the days when lecturing for hours on end, or even a class period, is an effective mode of teaching. Teachers/instructors have been charged with finding ways to engage students on a continuous basis through student-centered, hands-on activities that give students the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and learning! Thus, plenty of teachers/instructors have turned to Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms!

Proven to be a highly effective instructional strategy, Flipped Learning has given teachers/instructors an edge in creating those authentic learning opportunities in their classes. As those opportunities continue to grow, teachers/instructors are now faced with evaluating their effectiveness to know if students truly obtained the skills necessary to show they've mastered a competency!

While many teachers/instructors can use their 'gut' feeling to measure their students level of engagement, the data will tell the story! Data is such an invaluable tool that many teachers/instructors struggle with. For most, data is an opportunity to PROVE that learning has occurred! But really, data needs to be used to drive IMPROVEMENT. Data does not give us the answers, rather it gives us the questions to drive students and our opportunities for growth and improvement.

The most important data a teacher/instructor can use comes from effective use of formative assessments. Whether we are facilitating small-group discussions, playing Kahoot, or giving a quick 'quiz', we are gathering data that will tell us what our students do and do not know about the pre-class work that was assigned. Only then can we accurately meet ALL of our students needs by adapting what we have to meet them where they are at. Similarly, when we construct activities that ask students to be creative and innovative, we are measuring how well they understand what was given to them prior to class! These opportunities for students to display what they learned and how they can apply that information are what 'traditional' classrooms often miss!

Inevitably, most students will ask "Why do I need to do this if it doesn't count?" Fortunately at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, we are not only charged with making sure students acquire a specific set of technical skills, but Employability Skills as well. The greater Green Bay, WI area expects that our graduates obtain both technical skills and Employability Skills to help foster collaborative working environments, While many teachers/instructors struggle with formally measure the Employability Skills, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms present a great opportunity to foster and measure those Employability Skills.

Rather than building in weekly Employability Skills assessments and targets for students, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms give teachers/instructors an opportunity to specifically identify what Employability Skills they are measuring with each activity. At NWTC, we encourage instructors to build in those skills into their rubrics so that students understand and value how important working collaboratively is. Or valuing differences among classmates and accepting personal accountability for being on time and coming prepared!

At any rate, Flipped Learning and Flipped Classrooms have several options to measure if students are learning. As with many options, the accountability falls back on teachers/instructors to make sure they are using those tools to measure effectiveness and evaluate student learning. The power is in your hands - how will you use it?