Wednesday 30 March 2016

#FlipCon2016 - Flipping Fantastic

Well, I've finally got round to writing this post - moving house, means no internet! Sky have finally switched us on and I'm away - hurrah.


FlipCon 2016 was hosted by the stunning Shireland Collegiate Academy on March 23rd and 24th and brought together some of the most inspirational speakers I have had the please to listen to. Headlining the two days was the founder of the 'Flipped Learning' movement Jon Bergmann, and he didn't disappoint. 

He spoke several times of the days of the conference and each time I found myself nodding in agreement and posting notes on Twitter.  It was great to speak to Jon as well and he was more then willing to listen and answer any questions I had. 

It was a pleasure to speak to Lord Jim Knight and Sir Mark Grundy throughout the two days about pedagogy and technology in schools and hear them talk so passionately about the flipped learning project.  

Seeing a demonstration of Office Mix and Office 2016 from Steve Beswick and Jim Federico  gave us all a great insight in what Microsoft have been up to and how they are committed to supporting education.  Office Mix looks a cracking piece of software and making Powerpoint interactive is something that has been missing for years. 

Thanks must go out to Kirsty Tonks and Jen Devaney for organising the two days. It was great to hear them both talking about the MathsFlip project and how the results they have got from all the schools they have been running the research in - bottom line is, flip your classroom!

Visiting a Flipped School and MathsFlip

The Primary strand visited one of the MathsFlip schools, spent time in the classroom speaking to children and seeing flipped learning in action.  MathsFlip EEF funded project researching the impact of flipped learning on mathematics progress in year 5 and 6 pupils.  What we saw was very impressive - children talking confidently about how flipped learning  helps them learn and seeing children using technology to drive the mastery of learning forward.  

We then listened to deputy head Matthew Wyne talk very passionately about the project and share some very impressive data on the impact that Flipped Learning has had on his school via the project and his talented staff.  Matthew spoke about how his school helped the community get access to content outside the classroom and how each child in year 5 and 6 applied the learning back in school.  It really was a pleasure to spend a few hours in such a superb school - thank you.


I had the first presentation slot on the primary strand and enjoyed sharing my journey through my flipped learning adventure - we had laugh and I even taught Jon Bergmann something! Thank you Vittle.

What became apparent through the two days that the core elements of flipped learning remained the same whichever age group you teach. With technology and excellent pedagogy children are deepening their learning.

The MathsFlip project and FlipCon has really encouraged me to make sure people become more aware of the pedagogy.

What did I learn from the two days? What am I going to try next?

One of the light bulb moments came when Jon spoke about marking and feedback and utilising technology to do this. Interestingly I had had a similar conversation with Lee Parkinson  at The Footsqueek Conference in early March.  

Basically, video yourself marking a child's work - annotate it whilst doing it.  My plan is to use explain everything and photograph the writing, then underline or highlight parts as I'm speaking instead of writing.  I'm hoping not to stop writing long winded comments and use my voice instead.  Each child will get a video via Edmodo and we'll go from there - let's see what will happens.

Will it save time? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to find out.

Planning my own training for you!

In the summer term I'm hoping to be running a day or half a days training (not sure yet) around flipped learning and utilising technology in your school.  It will be held at my school and you're all invited. I'll post more details when I've finalised all the details.

I'm sure more of the conference will come flooding back to me over the next few days and I'll try and write  few more blogs before Easter comes to an end.

2 comments:

  1. Hello, I'm a university student who study Education in South Korea. I'm interested in Flipped classroom. I want to ask some questions to you about this, so can you contact me by email? My email address is pke0901@naver.com . Or please let me know your email address through comment here.

    ReplyDelete