My first book, Flipping with Kirch: The Ups and Downs from Inside my Flipped Classroom was released just a few weeks ago. It is such an honor and privilege to be able to share my journey and experiences with all of you and to facilitate conversations that will ultimately improve teaching and learning for all students.
What better way to spend part of my two-ish weeks of maternity leave than to actually read through it... on paper (not digitally)! I've read through it so many times on the computer in the process of publishing that my brain just gets a little muddled sometimes. However, there is such a difference in reading a physical book that you can hold in your hand!
While everything in the book obviously comes from the lens of a high school math teacher, I was reminded of how much #flipclass really is a pedagogical approach, a mindset shift, and a way of doing things differently with your time. I am excited to begin the Book Chat in mid-July on Slack (join in here) and share even more ideas with teachers from multiple subject areas and even further refine the ideas I share in the book.
No matter your experience or interest level in #flipclass, I encourage you to check out the book (bit.ly/FWKirchBook to order straight from me!) if you haven't already and join in the summer reading journey with other passionate educators.
- I know I always had more to learn, so even if you are an experienced flipper, I hope my book gives you an ignited passion for what you are doing and a few new ideas.
- If you are a newbie flipper, I hope that my book gives you the proper mindset and strategies and ideas for successfully starting out.
- If you aren't really interested in flipping right now, I hope that my book helps you to reflect on your practices and take some strategies that can even be implemented into a "traditional" classroom to improve and deepen student learning.
I'll end today by sharing the last two paragraphs of the book with you:
In the end, it’s not about flipping your classroom – it’s about constantly growing and reflecting on our practice as educators, striving to facilitate a classroom that is more student-centered, focused on active learning, and where students are given higher-order thinking opportunities and challenged appropriately. My journey led me to the flipped classroom, where I was able to use video as an instructional tool to remove direct instruction, content delivery, vocabulary, and background information outside of the group learning space. This allowed class time to be more effective, efficient, engaging, and enjoyable, where I was able to construct learning experiences for my students that allowed them to collaborate, communicate, and engage in critical thinking and creativity.
My version of the flipped classroom, as I’ve outlined in detail in this book, allowed the goals I had set for my classroom to be accomplished. There is definitely not one “right” way to flip a class, but there are definitely best practices and experiences from other educators that we can all glean from in order to support our own journeys. My hope as you read through my journey is that you were able to take the pieces that apply to you, tweak them to fit your teaching style and to meet your students’ needs, and continue reflecting and growing in your own journey. (pp196-197, Flipping with Kirch: The Ups and Downs from Inside my Flipped Classroom)
I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback as you read through the book via Twitter (use #FWKirch and #flipclass), your own blog post about what you've learned (share it with me!), and Amazon.com reviews.
~~
Purchase my new book today! Click here for more details and to place an order! Also on Amazon.com at bit.ly/fwkirch
No comments:
Post a Comment