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compiled resource page of the Flipped Classroom (with videos and links) can be found at http://www.scoop.it/t/the-flipped-classroom

Cisco in a recent white paper, Video: How Interactivity and Rich Media Change Teaching and Learning, presents the benefits of video in the classroom: Establishes dialogue and idea exchange between students, educators, and subject matter experts regardless of locations. Lectures become homework and class time is used for collaborative student work, experiential exercises, debate, and lab work. Extends access to scarce resources, such as specialized teachers and courses, to more students, allowing them to learn from the best sources and maintain access to challenging curriculum. Enables students to access courses at higher-level institutions, allowing them to progress at their own pace. Prepares students for a future as global citizens. Allows them to meet students and teachers from around the world to experience their culture, language, ideas, and shared experiences. Allows students with multiple learning styles and abilities to learn at their own pace and through traditional models.

The key to infusing technology for deep learning is professional development for teachers. At our school, each teacher wrote his or her own professional development plan. Then we changed the job description of the technology teacher to include meeting with each teacher to refine and review these plans. Instead of teaching computers to the students, the new technology integration coach—a new title to reflect new duties–was now available to partner with the teacher in the classroom. As teachers became more comfortable, the coaching sessions centered on how to extend learning.

At the same time, our administrative team began using e-communication folders for parent communication, e-portfolios for teachers, and Moodle for virtual classroom environments. Teachers experienced rich, efficient collaboration and communication through technology. This resulted in more effective face-to face communication.

Three things are basic to preparing students to be deeper learners: (1) access to quality curriculums, teaching, and learning, (2) robust information resources, technology tools, devices, and infrastructures, and (3) a student-centered learning environment that promotes critical thinking and problem solving.

Are you optimistic? Viewing the world as damaged or the future as bleak shuts down the brain by transmitting fear. Maintaining an optimistic attitude is an expression of love, inspiring curiosity and hope, and fostering emotional and physical health. Optimism is essential to teaching: Without hope, the reason to learn disappears. Are you open? The world is being refreshed and powered by divergent thinking. Outcomes are unclear, even dangerous. But faith in the flexible thinking of the human mind can support young people as they sort out their new world and have the freedom to discover solutions not yet visible. An open attitude activates the frontal lobes, the place of flow and creativity. Are you appreciative? Deep appreciation gives permission for failure, rather than penalizing for the “wrong” answer. It honors the stops and starts of human development. It conveys the ultimate message of a communal world: We are in this together. Are you flexible? In inquiry, the journey matters as much as the destination. Constant reflection is a necessity to improving thinking and doing. Metacognition encourages wisdom, the ultimate goal of any worthy education system. Flexibility tells the brain and heart to keep working, keep going—you’re getting there. Are you purposeful? Purpose binds teacher and student into the high-minded pursuit of solutions that matter. It is the reason that “authentic” education works and inauthentic education struggles. It tightens the connection between the learner and the teacher in ways that spur the natural creative impulse to change and improve the world.