Flipping teaching in a flipped classroom

Flipping teaching is suggestive of expletives not too dissimilar to flipping the bird, and i am aware that i am writing this having become angry about the 'latest solution' to an under-resourced teaching and learning environment in higher ed.
I want to start by saying i am not adverse to many of the concepts integral to an authentic flipped classroom approach, but what i need to say first is that i am hugely averse to having smoke blown in my face.

I currently teach in higher ed where quality teaching is not sufficient for promotion but multiple journal article production is. Chasing the research dollar has become some form of a holy grail....even though the substantive part of university funding comes from student enrolment and the likelihood of gaining funding for research is very small (like chasing 1% of government funding that comes to universities for humanities research in Aus)
This shapes the pedagogy of learning and teaching that is/isn't supported and can be distilled to teach less and research more; publish or perish.
I do not deny research importance; my problem is when it erodes teaching and learning.
Back to the flipped classroom.
What i have had blown in my face: If the teaching from this semester is filmed in front of a 'live' audience, this can then be shown to classes later in the day, and becomes the resource for using for all venues in 2014 where there is not a 'live' performance.
See the problem? This is not a flipped classroom.
This is education being delivered like pizzas.
And as for the live class or the live lecturer, it actually makes no difference, dead or alive the 'performance' will go on.
Blow the smoke away. Take it out of my face. I am not convinced.
I am flipping angry.

If it is going to be flipped, it needs resourcing, it's not the panacea for having no live bodies for students to engage with.
If we havent got 5 lecturers for 5 venues for a total of 1000 students, each timetabled to a max of 2hrs a week and 6 tutorials a semester, in what universe can we have a model of 1 hr live filmed, watch it here or wherever at your own time and place, and have classes that are engaging with twice as many tutorials instead... where are the smaller class tutorials being resourced from?
Dont waste your smoke filled breath telling me i need a lesson in flipped classrooms. I know how.
See here http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/education-3-0-and-the-pedagogy-andragogy-heutagogy-of-mobile-learning/ and here http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-flipped-classroom-model-a-full-picture/ I am already enamored of authentic student centred learning. I'm not resistant. I'm just not convinced. And telling me to be quiet on education just gets me riled.
So
Repeat
after
me:

Pizzas get delivered; babies get born, and education is about engagement.

I am not ready to play dead on this, so dont tell me to be quiet. Talking louder or talking over me will not make this go away. The smoke and mirrors are not working. Take your obfuscation and shove it somewhere else. When you are ready to engage realistically on this, I am more than happy to flip the learning and teaching, meantime i do not want to further enable an already suspect curriculum where students learn from the hidden agenda that faculty staff do not want to engage. Given that 'we' make our realities, 'we' do not have to accept the dark side of flipping classrooms, anymore than the dark side of moocs. There is so much more to aspire to.

Teacher wanted; dead or alive?

Bruno Latour cites Dewey,

“Observations of consequences are at least as subject to error and illusion as is perception of natural objects.”

(p. 29).
Latour then focuses on the word consequences.

"Whatever has been planned, there are always unwanted consequences for a reason that has nothing to do with the quality of the research or with the precision of the plan, but with the very nature of action. It is never the case that you first know and then act,(if you are wise?) you first act tentatively and then begin to know a bit more before attempting again. It is this groping in the dark that is so difficult to map, especially when it is done by millions of people over the life of millions of others."

He spoke of this with regard to Thinking of the State.
But its also relevant to any implementation of change; the planned and implemented 'dream of reason' is not what occurs.
There are unintended consequences.
Though how these 'consequences' are perceived are also subject to bias. So with acknowledgment that this is a personal reflection its still worth thinking about the unintended consequences of what is wrought within a digitalised world...

Seems changes embraced have similarity with what went before, we 'surf on what went before'. The changes we accept seem to be changes that extend the possibilities of what was already occurring rather than radical alteration of form- or is it?.
When I am no longer geographically locked down,I have other freedoms; no longer bound to a geographical space has a trickle on effect; not just anywhere but also anytime.
My reach as a person extends.

There are also changes that are arguably less desirable. If my range extends, I 'cover more ground' the numbers of students taught by one lecturer can dramatically increase. The course content if taught once and embedded in a digital form can be made available to those present and not, by those present or not.

What are the consequences?
Teaching and learning becomes a provocation to thinking. Yup, happy with this so far.
By people unavailable physically, temporally. Still ok... having doubts; if I leave my teaching institution my online course with ppt, audiofiles of each lecture are whose property?
By a digital trace of someone who once taught... mmmmm, seriously less happy.
The 'lecturer' no longer needs a pulse. Uh oh.

Guess this blog is no different, with Dewey being post humously cited for bytes of wisdom.
And I guess I learn not only from the writings of dead people but also from the artefacts left on film or video. And there are a lot of dead French men with huge influence in academia...such power, knowledge, reach...

Online platforms for teaching and learning such as blackboard and moodle are increasingly entrenched in higher ed institutions of learning.
Whether this is seen as embedded, entrenched or a graveyard of teaching performances is not just a matter of perspective; realities are being made and unmade.

This was just a musing on what's required to teach and seems having a pulse no longer seems so important.

Animoto: digital narrative made easy

A great audiovisual piece of freeware called animoto and I spent most of this wet bleak day fooling around.
Courtesy of Ewan MacIntosh i found animoto, its a bit of an instant digital narrative type of thing.
I found it easiest using photos and pictures uploaded onto flikr first and then onto their upload board.
(Expand the use of pics if needed by doing the Flikr advanced search for creative commons photos, attribution required).
The site then provides an option of music they provide (some free, some on payment) or advice re creative commons music or authors own mp3 file... to accompany.

The 30 sec short clip that can be produced is free, downloadable to youtube and then to one's own blog...
I'm thinking I could use these as a week by week intro to a lecture, or as a reminder of what was covered in the previous lecture...

There are some annoying aspects such as the random actions on slides, but i guess this is made up for with the 'creativity for dummies' ease of use.

Here Ive used graphics from the early part of the course I teach on communication skills (content included getting out of one's comfort zone, developing self awareness, invoking a moral curiosity, the need for communications in a health team to be by design, non-verbal communications, empathy and the work of John Heron, which included a look at unskilled, degenerative and misguided counselling). I suspect this little snippet tries to do too much and i still have to work on the headless one but still...it is my first ever youtube upload :)
The stand alone video wouldnt make sense if you hadn't attended the lecture, but the potential is for grounding aspects of the learning invoked by the visuals ...

Next step, injecting some creativity in the course;
maybe extra course credit for submitting work that exemplifies empathy....

9 big class learnings (2008)

To give some context: I teach students communication skills, this runs for 12 weeks and involves 772 students in a Health faculty. This group is split into 4 lecture groups, each receiving one 2 hour lecture per week, and a one hour tutorial (in group sixe of approx 30)

1. Some things take no longer in a big class than a small one;
the lesson learned is be selective.
Favourite task for checking everyone's 'on the same page' regarding concepts crucial to the course and taught within the first couple of weeks. This one came from a MOE literacy cluster. On a word doc make 3 columns, in the first column put the title 'words' , in the second column put a title 'definitions', in the 3rd column again title it 'words'. Then put about 5 words crucial to your topic in the first column, leaving a few lines between. In class give out one of these between 2, have the pairs select to be a or b. Then instruct the a's to define these words, writing their understandings in the 2nd column. Then fold the paper vertically so the partner b cannot see the first column. Their task is to discern what concept was being defined. Provides an opportunity for peer teaching, 2 way, understanding as well as clarity of meanings...

2. Solicited written feedback is richer; I used Stephen Brookfields 5 questions critical incident questionaire. My experience is students like shaping courses.

3. Do the big delivery stuff, but also do the talk with the people next to you.
Tasks in pairs help engage people with the content. My experience is that trust is made on the smaller scale. Speaking out seems easier when the classes engender speaking...

4. Use the big impact of the big venue. I recommend in your face imagery, loud noise dramatics, use of voice; not as gimmicks but integral to content. Helps to use photos over clip art.
My favourites this year include:
The use of strong graphics, red white black...stats that were damning, use of visual images supporting these. (Lessons learned online from death by ppt by Alexei Kapterev, presentation zen, Seth Godin, youtube- how not to make a ppt presentation by Don McMillan...) I have had to rethink my ppts but they are so much better. The medium carries the message, the power of strong visuals wins over lines of writing on a screen.
Use of graphs; my favourite was on how empathy commonly decreases with each year of education that appeared to be drawn insitu. (Inspired from TEDtalks Hans Rosling)
The use of loud noise during a creative visualisation demonstrated the application of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) as a prompt to consider what goes on in thinking, emotions, behaviours and physiology. And therefore led into a discussion of what might be changed.
The mexican wave affirmed that big classes are better at some things :)
a demonstration piece of verbal and non verbal communications ( I really do need visual imagery of classes, some creative editing and a promotion panel... )

5. Make learning an easy choice. A lesson learned in health promotion. I am not suggesting all learning should be easy or fun, but it helps. The ppts are online, as is a podcast. Talk the content. I think students come because its about engagement.
(the online ppts have fewer graphics to keep the file size down)

6. I tell stories. Transforming knowledge by demonstrating application, and modeling the critique of these, engaging students with questions of the good the bad and the ugly.

7. Plan but also stay flexible. What you want and what you get resource wise will always be less than promised and less than ideal.

8. Stay idealistic. I invest in seeing what's possible and adapt to what's possible.
Stephen Downes site Oldaily is great for updates.

9. Post the great ideas, either blog them under big class teaching or post to del.icio.us that way others share too :)