It's no secret that I love flipped learning. One of the things I like the most about it is the many forms that it can take on in K-12 classes. In fact, the two flipped classes that I teach look incredibly different from each other. I teach AP Government and Algebra 1, and they don't just look different because of the content. AP Government follows the traditional flipped model where all students are on the same video each night and we discuss that one topic in class the next day. Due to the collaborative nature of this course, it really has to be done this way. I can't run Mock Congress with the 3 kids that are at that standard on a certain day.
However, math is a different beast. This year, as the MTSS math coach, I co-taught with several teachers who were flipping their algebra and geometry courses. I would pull out students who were struggling, often from multiple classes during one block. This means I might have students from up to 3 different teachers who were all on different sections due to absences, not doing their homework, etc. Students naturally paired up with others who were in the same class and were on the same section as they were, but it was pretty individual. There was not a lot of time for group collaboration in this type of setting, but no student ever felt rushed or left behind. If a student did not understand a section, they knew they could spend an extra day on that topic. If a quiz (0% of the grade) went very well for a student they knew they could continue to move on and even get "ahead" of the class schedule.
So I guess what I struggle with is knowing which is best for a general education class. Should we be pushing collaboration with the risk or pushing kids along when they are not ready? Or, should we allow each student time to work through the material at their own pace, knowing it will limit the amount of collaboration time is available.
Thoughts are welcome!
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