Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Media classes pioneered 'flipped classrooms'

Something I first posted on my LinkedIn profile, as an experiment.
At all levels of education one of the current hot topics is the flipped classroom. This interest grows out of the increasingly accessible technology most students have in their pocket or purse, I would imagine. But the more I read about this idea, the more I think "everything old is new again."
Student media classes have functioned using the "flipped" model for many years. Class time is normally devoted to "doing": brainstorming, developing coverage lines, editing, writing (if computers are available), designing, adjusting photographs, etc.
Much of the education for media classes takes place online or in professional newspapers, magazines and websites... with students reading and evaluating. There is so much material available online that a student media adviser can best be defined as a curator. The job of the adviser is to sort through the volumes of materials and recommend the best to students.
The reporting (whether verbal or visual) in student media is done primarily outside class. After all, the news isn't happening inside the media class. It's out in the school, or in the community, on athletic fields and in auditoriums. Reporters, by definition, need to "get out there" and report.
A smoothly functioning student media class becomes a place to bring all the reading and planning and thinking and reporting together, with the goal of sharing information with the community. One student may ultimately publish news in the school newsmagazine, the yearbook, the website, social media, and video broadcast.
The teacher/adviser spends her time consulting, prodding, suggesting, praising and questioning. A media adviser in this sort of situation rarely spends time developing structured lesson plans or writing tests. The information and other help student journalists need is always "just in time." And the tests? We would call that publishing.

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