My Professional Development

Never stop learning and adapting. The world will always be changing. If you limit yourself to what you knew and what you were comfortable with earlier in your life, you will grow increasingly frustrated with your surroundings as you age.
David Niven

My biggest focus over the past two years has been on completing the Provincial Instructor Diploma at Vancouver Community College. As a professional educator, it was important to me to invest in my development as an instructor and instructional designer. I am set to complete this diploma before the end of this year. It has been a journey of growth and further sparked my interest in one day working in the field of Adult Education in a larger capacity.

Since I teach in the Esthetics field, I also have to take into account my professional development there as well. The beauty industry is constantly evolving, so staying on top of new research and techniques is something you could devote all of your time to. I try to take at least two professional development courses in this field every year in addition to attending at least one annual expo and participating in workshops with different skin care brands. Due to my experience in Clinical Esthetics, I also update my certifications in Infection Control and Bloodborne Pathogens every two years, which I just updated in 2020. After completing the PIDP I am enrolled to take two courses with Centre of Excellence, Holistic Facials and Face Yoga. Both courses are eligible for award certification with ABC Awards, a Welsh awarding council. The Esthetics industry is not regulated in British Columbia or Alberta, so there are no requirements for me to do this, but I believe it would be difficult to stay present and connected to my trade if I did not.

This year I achieved a huge personal goal and completed a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training certificate with My Vinyasa Practice in Austin, Texas. I am now registered as a RYT 200 with Yoga Alliance and teach private classes online. My most popular class is Story-time Yin, where I guide students through a yin yoga practice and read them a story as we hold the poses. To maintain my Yoga Alliance certification I have to complete a minimum of 30 hours of approved continuing education every three years. I try to participate in at least one yoga training workshop every month. This month I am doing a workshop on the Foundational 26/2 poses for hot yoga. Post-pandemic I would like to complete a Kundalini yoga certification, held in Sooke, BC.

Like most of us in the world, the current situation with the pandemic has hampered some of the plans I had for 2020. In future, I would love to attend the annual Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching held at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Univerity of Calgary. It was to be held in May 2020, but was cancelled and will hopefully be back in 2021.

Writing this, I realize how much time I invest in continuing education. I have a passion for learning and believe I will always be a student of some sort. There is just so much to learn in this world and, I believe, only one life to do it in, so I never want to stop.

If you have enjoyed my posts and would like to see more of my journey, please subscribe to my blog. You can also find me on Instagram @theskinteach.

This post was created for PIDP 3260: Professional Practice as part of the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at Vancouver Community College. You can access their website here. To access the School of Instructor Education Facebook page click here.

Exploring Mindfulness in the Classroom

Mindfulness seems to be one of those terms that you hear a lot about these days. Perhaps the term conjures images of wellness retreats and loin-clothed guru’s, people sitting for hours with their eyes closed, chanting, even banging a gong. To a lot of people this may seem strange, or on the fray, and definitely not something to be done in your daily life. But mindfulness is making a big leap into corporate culture, with employers looking to reduce stress in their workforce. You can even take specialty certificate programs about mindfulness from publicly funded universities and colleges.

So what exactly is it?

The Mayo Clinic describes mindfulness as:

“a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.”
Mayo Clinic (2018) Mindfulness exercises.

In a world where we are always on the go, attached to our devices all hours of the day, we can easily become emotionally taxed and experience higher levels of stress and anxiety. By taking our focus away from all of this, even just for a moment, we can greatly reduce negative thinking and stress. Clinical studies on the impact of meditation have shown clearly that it helps to reduce stress, anxiety, pain, depression, insomnia, and high blood pressure. It can help you to “experience thoughts and emotions with greater balance and acceptance” and has shown to improve attention, decrease job burnout, and improve sleep. (Mayo Clinic, 2018)

As a teacher I can say that I see stress and anxiety in students all the time. Balancing studies with work and home life is no easy task. Performance and exam anxiety are very real, and we often see students who are overwhelmed and have problems focusing in class due to this stress. If we can apply mindfulness practices into alleviating stress in the corporate world, then we can definitely apply it to our very stressed student body, can’t we?

I used to work with an instructor who would begin class every day by reading an affirmation for the day and would then set an intention with her students. Other people within our organization used to joke about it, but her students always seemed so relaxed throughout the day. I later worked with another instructor who began every morning with a class dance party. You could hear the laughter coming from her room every morning. Her students walked around campus smiling all the time, they seemed so happy to be at school every day. Another instructor used to hold, what he coined, a “campfire kumbaya” chat at the end of each class. He would clear the chairs and sit with his students in a circle where they would discuss the day, decompress, and address any issues that may have come up. Whatever was discussed around the campfire was left there and his students seemed to work together as a tightly knit team. What I have come to recognize is that in all of these instances a mindfulness-based approach to students was being practiced.

In 2019, Erica Kosal, PhD, professor of Biology at North Carolina Wesleyan University, wrote a piece for Faculty Focus about how she was intrigued by the idea of using meditation techniques to alleviate stress in her undergraduate students. She noticed that students were often coming to her biology class flustered and unfocused, fixed on what had happened in their previous classes.

“Mindfulness is a way to pause and reflect on the here and now. To be fully present in what is happening in the present, without worry about the future or past. The idea is that teaching this philosophy and using activities and practices in the classroom should allow students to release tension and anxiety so they can focus on the material in the classroom.”
Kosal, E. (2019) Mindfulness in the Classroom

This became a collaborative effort, with Kosal and ten of her colleagues forming a Faculty Learning Committee to better study the effects of mindfulness and how they could apply it in their classrooms. They would meet several times over the academic year to share how they were using it and what the student response was. They noted that there was a positive response from students; they felt value in the activities, although they did find them silly at first. Some students reported that they had started using a meditative practice outside of class and it was benefiting them. The faculty also noted a change in themselves through practicing these activities with their students. (Kosal, 2019)

These practices can vary. From five minute guided meditations, listening to classical music, reflective writing, focusing on a piece of art, and visualization exercises, there is a lot to try. Kosal makes the suggestion to try several as each student will have different likes and dislikes, but she notes that in her experience most students enjoy the five minute guided meditation at the beginning of class. (Kosal, 2019)

Bringing some form of mindfulness activity into your teaching practice can greatly improve the well being of your students and yourself. Part of being a skillful teacher is meeting the needs of our students and doing whatever helps them learn. (Brookfield, 2015) Since so many of them are experiencing high levels of stress impacting their ability to focus, it makes sense to introduce skills that would attempt to reduce that. Along with all of the other learning activities we use in our classroom, I believe this creates a more meaningful experience for them and is something they can take with them for the rest of their lives.

References:
Mayo Clinic (2018) Mindfulness exercises. Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/mindfulness-exercises/art-20046356

Kosal, E. (2019) Mindfulness in the Classroom. In Effective Classroom Management for Faculty Focus. Retrieved from: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-classroom-management/mindfulness-in-the-classroom/#:~:text=To%20be%20fully%20present%20in,the%20material%20in%20the%20classroom.

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The Skillfull Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Twitter in the Classroom Infographic

Future Vision

Goal setting is something that I truly value and have seen the benefits of. Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound) goals is what makes the difference between having a dream and achieving a new reality.

This is something I do both personally and professionally, and I teach SMART goal setting to my students. I am a visual person, so creating either digital or paper vision boards has helped me to attain the goals I set and is also something that I use in the classroom, having students do the same.

For digital vision boards I like to use Pinterest. You can post your own pins or pin links to other websites on boards that can be made public or kept private. If this is something you would use in the classroom, you can have your students first make a Pinterest account and then you can create a private pin board for the class that only includes those students. Alternatively, you can have your students add you to their private pin boards as well, if they do not wish to have a public one. This works for vision boards and goal setting, but really the sky is the limit. I have also used Pinterest to share infographics, blog posts, and articles that pertain to course materials. If you would like to see an example of one of my own Pinterest vision boards, keep reading!

When I think about where I want to be as an instructor in the next five years a lot comes to mind. I know I want to grow as an educator, which involves being a student myself, and that I want to work towards regularization within my department. I also look a bit longer term, in that I know I want to change fields and work in Adult Education more. I also would like to grow my yoga business so that I own a company that provides meaningful mental and physical help to people around the world. It sounds overwhelming to list out these things and expect to achieve them in five years, but by breaking these dreams down into specific goals that are attainable I know I can do it.

Over the next five years I have set the following professional goals:

Complete the Provincial Instructor Diploma at Vancouver Community College
Become regularized at Vancouver Community College
Complete the M.Ed. program at Simon Fraser University
Shift into working and teaching in the field of Adult Education
Grow my side business as an online yoga instructor into a larger business that includes teaching mindfulness

Here is a link to the Pinterest vision board I created based on my above goals:

The best thing about setting out your goals is that it makes it easier to adjust when you need to. Maybe your five year plan has to be extended to six years. That is okay because you know you are still on track to completing the goal. Life will always happen, so having a list or visual representation of your goals and the steps to get you there will remind you of all that you have already accomplished.

The Resistant Learner: Understanding and Responding

Encountering a student that is resistant to learning is difficult and frustrating, yet they are there in almost every class. Understanding their reasons for resistance and how to better respond to their resistance helps us to become a more skillful teacher, and can alleviate the frustration you feel as a teacher.

In The Skillful Teacher, Stephen D. Brookfield describes how he saw resistant learners as something that needed to be overcome. If he worked hard enough he could turn them into the opposite, a student that was responsive and excited. The problem he came to find is that this often made it so that all focus was put on the resistant learners in a group and took that focus away from those students who were ready and willing to learn. Despite all his hard work these resisters never came to be ready and willing, so why was he expending so much energy on them?

He shares a very honest reflection with us, and one that I have experienced in my own teaching practice. I have this overwhelming desire to change the resistant learners I encounter, and I can attest to doing the same thing as he describes by putting all my focus and energy into changing students who do not wish to change.

Why Are They Resistant?

Understanding why some students are resistant to learning is the first step. In Chapter 16 of the Skillful Teacher, Brookfield identifies that resistance to learning is a “multilayered and complex phenomenon in which several factors intersect” (Brookfield, 2015, pg 219) contradictory to the stance that a lot of educators take, excusing resistance as a generational phenomenon where technology has created a group of entitled students with a low attention span. (Brookfield, 2015, pg. 218) In my own experience I can say that I have encountered resistant learners from many different age groups, just as I have encountered excited learners from different age groups.

Several key factors are identified by Brookfield as to why a student may be resistant to learning from you.

Poor self-image as a learner
Fear of the unknown
A normal rhythm of learning
A disjunction of learning and teaching styles
Apparent irrelevance of the learning activity
Level of required learning is inappropriate
Fear of looking foolish in public
Cultural suicide
Lack of clarity in teachers’ instructions
Students’ dislike of teachers
Going too far, too fast

(Brookfield, 2015, pp 219-225)

Having a learner that is openly resistant to you and/or the course material you are teaching can become unhealthy for the group as a whole if not responded to. Resistance can spread and sabotage all of your best efforts. Of course, you also need to reflect on your own desires to win them over. You are the only one in control of you, so if the student will not change, your response to them can.

Responding to the Resistance

In Chapter 17 of the Skillful Teacher, Brookfield discusses how to respond to resistance. He makes it clear that, at one point in time, he thought of this as overcoming resistance, but now realizes that it is not something to be overcome. The resistant learner may remain resistant throughout the course with you. Resistance is not something you can overcome, but something you can respond to in the hopes of stopping the spread of resistance and maintaining a positive experience for the students who are there ready to learn. Since resistance is so complex and can be expressed differently by each student, there is no magic formula you can apply. Instead, Brookfield ascribes some key advice for educators, based on his own experience.

Try to sort out the causes of resistance
Ask yourself if the resistance is justified
Research your students’ backgrounds
Involve former resisters
Model the behaviors you are requesting
When appropriate involve students in educational planning
Use a variety of teaching methods and approaches
Asses learning incrementally
Check that your intentions are clearly understood
Build a case for learning
Create situations in which students succeed
Don’t push too fast
Admit the normality of resistance
Try to limit the negative effects of resistance

(Brookfield, 2015, pp 228-238)

Reflecting on the times that you may have been a resistant learner is helpful as well. Our own experiences as a student can give us vital insight into why student behavior is what it is. When we recognize that we have been a resistant learner ourselves we also come to recognize that the resistant learners we encounter are not bad students. They are having their own experience as a student. At the end of the day, we may not change them, but how we respond to them is what makes us a more skillful teacher.

Reference list:

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The Skillfull Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Exercising Teacher Power Responsibly: Commentary

As a teacher, it can be easy to forget the amount of power you wield over the students in your classes. After all, to you, you are just a person living in this world who happens to have a particular job. You probably did not become a teacher because you wanted power. I know that was not my reasoning behind teaching. I became a teacher because I like seeing others succeed. It did not cross my mind how powerful I would be over others until I was in that position.

If you are a teacher, instructor, educator, trainer, or whatever title you choose to use, you have impacted your learners with your actions and reactions in the classroom. I am certain that at some point in your career you have done or said something and observed the reactions of your students, whether they be positive or not. You probably never intended anything you have said or done to be felt with apprehension or hurt feelings on the part of your students. Recognizing that we have done or said something that made a student fall silent, feel less, or singled out is a tough pill to swallow. Mainly because, in recognizing it, we understand that we may have impacted that student so greatly that it will reflect in their participation as a learner for all future learning and even deeper, it may have impacted their self esteem as a whole.

I believe we must also look at how we present material to students. Are we presenting something only from our perspective? Do we have a secret agenda, maybe even to ourselves, where opposite views from our own are not accepted? These questions are important ones because they dictate the level of power we hold over our students and the environment we create in the classroom.

So how do we create a classroom environment that uses our teacher power responsibly? This is a big question, with varying philosophies, but it seems to come down to what level of voice we give to our students, and how we react to that voice.

In Chapter 18 of The Skillful Teacher, titled Exercising Teacher Power Responsibly, Stephen D. Brookfield presents various views of how we wield power in the classroom. (Brookfield, 2015, pp 239-251) Are we of the view that students should have a say in what ideas we explore, how often we break, or what attendance policy should be in place? Or, are we of the view that this giving of power may render the teacher powerless and perhaps result in outcomes not being achieved? We know, as teachers that we often have to discuss information that students may find unimportant or show disinterest in, so what level of autonomy do we give them in this instance? If given choice, will students gravitate towards the comfortable, or will they be open to exploring new ideas? To what degree do we guide the student to a certain viewpoint?

Drawing on his own views, Brookfield presents three ways of thinking by looking to the philosophies of Ian Baptiste, bell hooks, and Herbert Marcuse. (Brookfield, 2015, pp 246-251) Baptiste desires recognition that we, as teachers, are directive in our actions, unable to truly be neutral, and do force an agenda. He believes that we cannot avoid imposing our agenda, and that we should in fact do so as a moral coercion. (Brookfield, 2015, pg 247) bell hooks views teaching as power, and defends this to the point of confrontation. She is the leader of her classroom, and enforces this by grading students for attendance and making participation in class discussion mandatory. (Brookfield, 2015, pg 250) Marcuse theorizes that it is crucial that students be exposed to opposite viewpoints so they can soundly come to their own decisions. If left to choice students will always gravitate towards what is comfortable and already supports how they think and feel, so they must be pushed to question and explore. (Brookfield, 2015, pg 249)

When it comes to my own teaching practice I often reflect back on my experiences as a student. I look to what helped me learn and what made me feel supported as a student, and try to emulate that. I venture to say that we probably all do that to some degree. But since we are all different, what works for one may not work for all. I will never be the very best to everyone all the time, but I can decide what sort of voice I give to the students that enter my classroom. That level may vary depending on what I want the outcome to be, and that is where the true power of being a teacher is. As long as I can defend my choices and maintain an ethical relationship with the student I am wielding my teacher power responsibly.

Reference list:

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The Skillfull Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The Core Assumptions of Skillful Teaching: Commentary

In chapter two of The Skillful Teacher by Stephen D. Brookfield, four core assumptions are presented.

Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn

Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective stance toward their practice

The most important knowledge that skillful teachers need to do good work is a constant awareness of how students are experiencing their learning and perceiving teachers’ actions

College students of any age should be treated as adults

(Brookfield, 2015, pg 15)

My own summation is that, if we are to become a skillful teacher we should create a space that is safe for students to give honest, anonymous feedback, especially near the beginning of the course. This will build trust and lead to more open communication in the future. We should recognize that our students will come from a range of backgrounds and age groups, but they should all be treated as the adults that they are, or are becoming. Reflecting on our own teaching will help us to be more creative and fluid in our teaching practice, instead of becoming complacent which will reflect in our connection with students and impact their experience. We should collaborate with our peers to co-teach or evaluate our practice so we can have perspective and gain insight. In order to achieve the first assumption of doing whatever is needed to help students learn we may need to step outside of what is considered professional, while remaining ethical and unbiased.

In my own experience, I can relate to sometimes having to do things that may be outside of what would traditionally be deemed professional. Brookfield’s example of stepping out of his classroom while his new students meet with past students on the first day of class is something that I would embrace. I can see where administration or some peers may find this verging on unprofessional, but I think it is simply just unconventional at best. Allowing your students to get honest information about the course material and you as an instructor is beneficial and shows your students that you are confident enough in your abilities to allow for critique. I do believe that this may be easier done as a seasoned instructor and that a new instructor may have their own complications with doing this. I say this because I can reflect back to when I first started teaching. You need to gain some confidence in yourself and with the course content before being comfortable enough to hear honest feedback without it feeling like an assault. I feel like one of the biggest challenges as an instructor is being okay with the fact that not every student is going to praise your every move and that they are going to discuss this with their fellow students. You are not a bad teacher, you are a human teaching other humans.

With increasingly diverse classrooms I agree with Brookfield that it is vital we treat our students with respect and as the adults that they are. How disappointing would it be for you, as an adult learner, to go into a college classroom only to be treated like a child? I do not think you would appreciate it, and it would not garner your respect or trust in the instructor.

Brookfield presents insight into what a skillful teacher should be and forces us to ask questions of ourselves that can be uncomfortable, but critical to our professional growth. Being a skillful teacher is so much more than creating interesting classroom activities and giving a great lecture. His message, at its core, is one of humanity and humility.

Reference list:

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The Skillfull Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

My Professional Identity

Little bit about me… My name is Audrey. Before my education career I plied my trade in the beauty industry, starting in holistic esthetics and then later in medical esthetics. I massaged, shot lasers (very cool), advised on skin health, and even did some nails, not to mention a ton of other services in the personal care world. I started in an official role as an educator in 2008, teaching weekend and evening workshops for a local beauty supplier as my side gig. In 2011, I took on a full time role as an esthetics instructor for a private college. Since then I have worked in the classroom, as a program director, and as an instructional designer. I have also been a volunteer with Skills Canada and Skills Alberta as a technical committee member for a number of years, promoting youth to enter the trades sector. Earlier this year I made a BIG change, accepting a role with Vancouver Community College, and relocated to Vancouver. Safe to say, embracing change is no stranger to me, but I will admit living closer to the ocean really helped in the process. My side gig now is yoga, which I teach to private clients.

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I am a teacher. Inherently, I have always taken on this role. Long before I went into a traditional classroom I was taking on the role of mentor to new employees, assisting with on-boarding and training. I enjoy seeing others succeed. On reflection, I feel that the most impact comes from building confidence in the learner. I want my students to feel good about themselves and that they are in a safe environment to make mistakes and discuss how to improve. This makes sense now that I have completed the Teaching Perspectives Inventory, as my most dominant trait was in the Nurturing section. I am that educator that wants to see you gain understanding and apply it over scoring high on a test. In my own experience, I detest the traditional methods of testing that so many of us have to use. When was the last time you took a multiple choice exam and thought, “I really showed them what I learned. I can’t wait to do that again”?

In The Skillful Teacher by Stephen D. Brookfield, a number of “truths” of teaching are listed. His very first truth, “I will always feel like an impostor and will never lose the sense of amazement I feel when people treat me as if I have something valuable to offer” (pg. 9) resonated with me. After years of teaching I am still shocked when someone asks me to give a talk on a subject, or asks me for advice on something. I always think, “like really?…but I’m not an expert or anything”. It is obviously something that others feel as well since it is in his book, we just don’t go around saying it. I appreciate the honesty of it and I think it is something that keeps me grounded as an educator, despite the annoyance of experiencing those types of feelings, and it makes me reflect on who the most meaningful teachers of my education experience have been. None of them portrayed themselves as the all knowing, so I guess I have a personal connection to others who believe there is no “guru” outside of yourself. Humility is an important trait.

A truth of my own would be that: I cannot reach someone who does not wish to be reached, and this does not mean I am a bad teacher. As an educator and a student, I understand that people take a course for a variety of reasons, and that if they are not there out of passion they may be less excited about the content. This is something that took me some time to come to understand, and once I did it really helped me with my confidence as an educator. You simply cannot get someone to be excited about something that they just are not excited about, so stop taking that so personally. It does not mean that they will not learn, or that you failed them.

A Case for Andragogy

If you are in education you probably already understand that there is a distinct difference in teaching adults over children.

In my own experience, I recognized this many years ago but found that the institutions I taught for did not embrace this. Courses were very centered around instructor directed education, and did not leave room for self exploration and thought on the part of the learner. I found that students often were very dismissive of what was being shared with them because they had no input into the information, nor was there any reasoning given to them. They did not understand why they had to learn these things, so there was no value to the information.

Andragogy is the name given to the assumptions of the adult learner. One cannot talk about andragogy and not also talk about Malcolm Knowles and his six assumptions of the adult learner.

Self-direction: as we mature into adulthood, we evolve into a being that is self-directing. No longer requiring the same leadership style found in pedagogical settings.
Experience: adults bring with them all of their life experiences, and this influences their behaviour towards learning.
Social roles: an adults social role impacts their readiness to learn something.
Perspective: adult learners tend to be more problem centered as opposed to subject centered in their learning. They have the desire to put what they are learning into perspective, in that they need to know when and why the knowledge will be applied to their life.
Motivation: adults tend to be internally motivated. Again, this goes to the desire to apply their knowledge.
The need to know: adults need to understand why they must know something.

If we really think about those six assumptions we can gain a lot of insight into how the adult mind works over the mind of a child. Children typically require direction and organization. They have not yet matured into a self sufficient person, so pedagogy works for them because they are used to being told what to do and how to do it. One thing that I must note is that there are some children who are more self aware, just as there are some adults who are not. Adult students crave being “treated as an adult” but are quick to turn their choices and actions onto their instructor or institution in some situations, specifically when feedback does not go in their favour. Knowles’ assumptions of andragogy are valuable, and set the foundation for us, but also seem to operate on the assumption that adult learners are self-directed in their learning. I think this is actually a common misconception of andragogy in that we make the assumption that everything is put into the hands of the learner and left to them, that we are simply facilitators as adult educators.

All of this is very interesting, but how does this translate to the classroom?

In my search for more information on the subject I came across a really great post, titled Contrasting Classrooms: Instructional Differences Between Pedagogy vs. Andragogy by Point Park University on the subject. It takes the theories of Malcolm Knowles and expands into Jack Mezirow‘s theory of transformational learning. They suggest that when we understand both theories, and marry the two, that we can meet the needs of the adult learner.

In my own experience I have found that adding self reflection, self assessment, and eliminating traditional testing has been very effective in improving the experience of my students. The nature of what I teach must be instructor led, but that does not mean that there is not room to allow the student to still have control over their own learning experience. Adult students that I encounter are typically experiential learners. I often look to the approach of the constructivist learning theory and cognitive apprenticeship when designing course materials as these theories allow for experiential learning to happen, but are led by an expert or mentor. Case studies and physical demonstration of skills that include feedback and involve reflection by the learner are ways that I encourage self exploration and critical thinking.

So, here is my case for andragogy…

It is, without a doubt, true that how we instruct adults needs to differ from how we instruct children. It is a field that continues to be studied and expanded on. The more we learn about it and implement it’s theories into our classroom, the better the learner experience.

I implore all adult educators to truly look at how they deliver their course materials. The world is constantly changing, and so should we. Do not fall back on what you have always done. Instead, think about what you could do to evolve. You will grow from the experience, and isn’t that a wonderful thing?

-Audrey

This post was created as part of the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program at Vancouver Community College. You can access their website here. To access the School of Instructor Education Facebook page click here.

Flipping the Classroom

What exactly is flipping the classroom?

This is a question that I had when I first encountered the term in my PIDP course. Since I love mixing it up when it comes to how we deliver adult education, I knew I needed to know more. I mean, it’s called FLIPPING the classroom, so I knew it had to be good.

“Flipping the classroom is a ‘pedagogy-first’ approach to teaching. In this approach in-class time is ‘re-purposed’ for inquiry, application, and assessment in order to better meet the needs of individual learners. Students gain control of the learning process through studying course material outside of class, using readings, pre-recorded video lectures… or research assignments. During class time, instructors facilitate the learning process by helping students work through course material individually and in groups.” (University of Washington)

Basically, a flipped classroom is one where the lecture portion of your lesson is done by the student, outside of class time, and the homework portion is what is then done in class.

A flipped classroom gives the student the power to engage in information in their own time and environment, and when they get to class we discuss the core concepts behind the lesson and engage in activities that promote thinking and problem solving. This allows the teacher to take on the role of facilitator and allows for deeper discussion on a subject, something that I think gets lost when you only have time in a lecture to introduce a concept. I love the idea that the student comes with a base understanding and the teacher engages with the learners to start the conversation or activity. I believe that deeper understanding would come out of this, and that the learner would feel more in control of their education.

This all has made me think back to a situation I encountered when presenting a treatment protocol and demonstrating the protocol in one of my classes two years ago. I had a student that really struggled with English comprehension. She asked if instead of following the written protocol, could she record the demonstration on her tablet and use that recording as a tool when she then did the hands on practice portion of the protocol. I allowed her to and it really helped her. Then everyone in her class started doing it. One would record, and then share the video with the class. It made me realize how visual my students are, and made me rethink using written protocols. I had the idea at the time that I would like to create a video series for my students, but found barriers to doing that, so I simply allowed them to keep recording me.

I was not aware of the term flipping the classroom back then, but in hindsight, that is what was happening. My student was telling me what she needed as an adult learner, and I went along with it to help her, not realizing that we were embarking on something much bigger. My student flipped the classroom on me and it was an amazing thing.

I cannot talk about flipping the classroom without mentioning Jon Bergmann, one of the pioneers of this method. He has a great website that is all about simplifying flipped learning. If you are thinking what I thought back when I wanted to create my video series, and that is about funding, you need to watch this video by Classroom Closeup featuring Jon Bergmann. It explains how to create a flipped environment without a big budget. Turns out there are a lot of teachers out there that are simply using what they have (think smart phone) to create video lessons for their students.

We have talked about what flipped learning is and how to easily flip your own classroom, but what then happens activity-wise in class? Well, that is going to depend on what you are teaching. There are many references on the internet to what other educators are doing. Because I am at a vocational college, where students need to be prepared for real life scenarios, I like to use case studies as much as possible. If I have a large group I break them into pairs to work on the case study together. If it is a small group, I have them do it independently. They have to share their findings with the class, and we then discuss those findings as a class. This allows for free thinking, creativity, and application of knowledge. And what teacher doesn’t yearn for that???

What are your thoughts on flipped learning? Are you already using this method? Leave me a comment.

–Audrey