As Robert Talbert explains in his EdSurge article, Flipped Learning Can Be a Key to Transforming Teaching and Learning Post-Pandemic, the four major pedagogical assumptions of traditional teaching frameworks have been upended since the dawn of the pandemic, and continue to pose questions and challenges for the future of education.
Talbert’s article is one of the best we’ve seen on the subject of flipped learning. He boldly reminds us that seeking to “get back to normal” in our physical classrooms would be a disservice to our students; that we can use this time as a catalyst for real change that might otherwise have taken decades to occur. Replacing outdated and inefficient methodologies, reversing our assumptions about the availability of information, colocation, the virtues of technology, and students’ abilities to take an active role in their own teaching — these are all things that can (and should) take place now that the “new normal” has ushered in its own set of expectations.
The author examines the angles from which we may not otherwise have seen these possibilities emerge; the ways in which we took for granted so much about education at its very core — not just in the physical realm but as a concept. The once limited realization that students are entitled to voice and choice has become widespread, and schools across the country are rising to the occasion of finding solutions that enable students to take control of their learning.
FlexTime Manager, by Eduspire Solutions, is a tool that facilitates many of the possibilities presented by the new evidence with which we’re now faced. Within Talbert’s outline of the four assumptions made by a flipped learning framework lie these undeniable truths, which we’ve included word-for-word from the original article:
- flipped learning assumes that information is abundant and (mostly) freely available;
- flipped learning, by virtue of the flexible environment it espouses, views technology as a tool that should be embraced;
- flipped learning assumes that students come to their studies with ideas, perhaps flawed in many ways, but which nonetheless are raw materials for learning that students bring to the table;
- flipped learning not only believes in the ability of students to self-teach and self-regulate, it leans into that ability and is predicated upon that ability. But it also never assumes that students have honed that ability or even practiced it much; that’s why teaching students to self-teach and self-regulate is a feature, not a bug, of the framework.
Eduspire Solutions was built on these principles and has long believed that they should inform all of the decisions and developments we make in order to best aid teachers and schools in their quest for personalizing learning at all levels. FlexTime Manager allows teachers and students to share ownership of learning choices in a way that simplifies and serves education while providing enrichment and facilitating engagement for students. There has never been a better time to implement a flexible scheduling system that operates within almost any model of teaching environment, allowing for multiple schedule and location configurations.
If your school is grappling with ways to adapt to the new standards of teaching and learning, we encourage you to schedule a demo to learn about the ways FlexTime Manager could support your endeavors. And, if you have teachers who would like additional guidance and insight into some of the leading educational concepts that are on the forefront of curriculum development, our sister company, Eduspire, provides online graduate courses and professional development on a wide variety of topics, including Blended and Flipped Learning Environments, Growth Mindset in the Classroom, Ownership of Learning, Using Tech to Teach the Whole Child, and many more.
