I have to say the idea of a flipped classroom really appeals to me as an art teacher.  There’s always so much that I would like to cover in order to give my students background knowledge and teach technique but the more time I take demonstrating and discussing art the less time students have to create and the creative process is my top priority.  I remember  very clearly when I was in school, it always seemed as though our art teacher couldn’t finish talking fast enough. We just wanted to get back to work.  I often try to remember this when teaching my own classes.  Listening to me do demonstrations is helpful and necessary but it also eats up work time for projects that simply can’t be done at home.  Taking the time to flip my classroom could have many benefits to it.

First and foremost recording my demonstrations for kids to watch at home will buy them more time in class to create. This should be relatively easy for me. I’m already demonstrating under a document camera.  I even record my demonstrations from time to time so that I can loop them on the screen while kids are working. I only need to take it one tiny step further. This will also have an added benefit for kids who are absent.  With the way things are now kids I often have to work very closely with kids who were absent in order to help them get caught up.  If my demonstrations were posted then students wouldn’t be waiting on me to help them get caught up.  Other students would also have the ability to re watch demonstrations if they need to look back. Helping eliminate the need for me to repeat myself.

Secondly, most of my demonstrations are fairly short  This means that I could easily add onto some of my demonstrations by introducing other artists, artistic concepts or additional  background.  I’m always wanting to give students a wider variety of content that can help encourage their own creative ideas and processes. Unfortunately this is the part of my class that often gets cut short so that students have more time to create.  With a flipped classroom I can easily tack on little bits of content along the way with my demonstration videos.

Lastly, with a flipped classroom I can eliminate some of the discipline problems that come along with trying to gather everyone and quiet them down for demonstrations.  Although discipline isn’t a big issue in my class it can eat up little bits of time here and there.  If I don’t have to give so many demonstrations and kids watch them on their own we would not only be saving work time but kids won’t be distracted by other kids when they should be watching what I’m doing.

In conclusion I would really like for this to be a new focus for me as I move into next year and even a bit next semester. The first steps should be easy.  Right now some of my biggest questions moving forward is how to begin organizing all of my information and videos.  The Herreid and Schiller case study on flipped classrooms offers lot of great suggestions for shooting videos and posting them.  I hope to do a little research into that for some direction.  If any others out there have any tips on how they shoot videos for demonstrations or organize their content I would love to hear about it.