Month: September 2014

Flip Your Classroom—Conference in Gyeongju: Day 1

Posted on by quanqnguyen22

This is the first post of an ongoing series on the “flipped classroom” national experiment currently happening all over South Korea. After the first successful pilot program in Busan, Korean teachers of various grade levels and subjects are signing up to become a part of the initiative. Inspired by the flipped classroom pioneers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, the movement is currently in its grassroots stage, led by energetic and passionate teachers willing to improve the learning experience of their students. 

The following post (of two!) recounts my observations from a flipped classroom conference in Gyeongju this past weekend. Please enjoy, share and post comments! 🙂

All Aboard!

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Half dazed from a 4 am wake up call and a stomach full of cereal and a McDonald’s egg Mcmuffin, I took a 6:25 am train straight to the coastal city of Gyeongju.

Two hundred and thirty miles southeast of Seoul, Gyeongju was once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled about two-thirds of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries.  But on this overcast Saturday morning, it is the epicenter of Korean education reform.

Over 70 teachers from nearby Daegu City have assembled into a hotel for the entire weekend just to learn about the flipped classroom phenomenon and how it can be implemented into their own classrooms. As part of the organizing team, I was able to have a first hand look at what exactly was the rage about this new and exciting teaching technique.

Here’s the bottom line: Teachers are no longer in front of class lecturing the majority of class time. Instead, they shuttle back and forth, giving small group lectures, and working intimately with each students on various project-based activities. Lectures become take home video assignments—curated or self-created by the teacher—that can be watched online at the student’s convenience. This ultimately frees up class time for group work, discussions, and a truly engaging learning experience.

Flipped classrooms are made for the 21st century and they effectively take advantage of the technology that exists today.

Sounds simple right? If you think about it, it is actually a truly simple yet revolutionary way to teach. Gone is the old lecture-style paradigm where kids are sent home to do challenging homework, often unaided due to a lack of educational resources at home. In this new paradigm, the students go home and learn the material online and tackle the “hard stuff” in the classroom, with the help of the teacher, friends, and educational material available.

Flipping Class on its Head

Flipped classrooms are made for the 21st century and they effectively take advantage of the technology that exists today. But how?

To answer that question, let’s first imagine ourselves back in the classroom. Think about how you’ve been taught and how it felt. Your classroom was probably arranged in rows; if you were lucky, you had your own desk and sat next to your crush. In front was the dreaded blackboard and the teacher’s desk. The bell would ring, there was some bell work which then followed with the teacher giving her lecture of the day. She probably used one of these technology:

A Powerpoint Lecture
Overhead Projector: Remember how the sharpies would smear across the transparent plastic sheet?
A whiteboard

And a few minutes into the lecture, you probably looked like this:

Much Wow!

Much Wow!

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The iNTERNSHIP: The Biggest Lessons I’ve Learned on the Job

Posted on by quanqnguyen22

As a recent college graduate, I’ve been able to do more reading, a favorite childhood pastime since I first started learning English at the age of six. I came across this fascinating article from the Economist on the history and present day landscape of…*drumroll*…the INTERNSHIP! It’s a lengthy read but worth it, especially since internships are widely considered a prerequisite for professional work. For anyone who has never done an internship, is thinking of applying for some, or have already ran the gauntlet and secured their first job, the article does a great job at highlighting the actual benefits and often hidden downsides of being an intern.

Deeply inspired by this article, I decided to reflect on my past internships and highlight the biggest lessons I’ve gained from those experiences. They are all in chronological order:

1) Working as a bagboy for my local grocery store | Summer 2010

So this technically wasn’t my first internship but it was my first job experience and taught me so much about myself and how to treat other people.

  • Titles aren’t everything: The official job was “Front Desk Clerk” but other than official-sounding, it mostly entailed bagging the customers’ groceries, stocking supplies, gathering and rearranging carts, and cleaning duties.
  • Learn humility and learn it quick: Seriously, who doesn’t enjoy scraping the shitty crust of fecal matter on the underside of toilet seats?
  • The minimum wage life is rough: I met so many adults with 1-2 other jobs besides the ones they had at the grocery store. Everyone has families to feed and struggles to overcome. Check your privilege and lend a hand or ear.

2) Teaching fourth graders at an inner city school in Philly | Summer 2011

I’ve always enjoyed working with kids and teaching others. However, this summer internship was the first time I had to co-teach a class with a self-designed curriculum. It was a six-week long summer camp of fun and creative class lessons on science, home economics, cultural appreciation and self-expression.

  • The older you get, the less you know: Hell, I thought I was the shizz teaching these students. But I had to remind myself to be humble. Most of my students were from poverty-stricken families and have never experienced modern amenities in their school. We lacked air conditioning and there were always shortages of soap and toilet paper. I had to put myself in my students’ shoes and learn from them.
  • Don’t underestimate the mind of a child: Children are so perceptive and despite their youthful innocence, some of the things they say are surprisingly profound.
  • Who says adults can’t have fun: We all have that inner kid in us and working with these rugrats brought mine out. Life doesn’t have to be serious all the time so put that existential crisis on hold and loosen up!

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Fulbright Research Overview: Blended Learning and the “Flipped Classroom”

Posted on by quanqnguyen22

Here’s a hypothetical. You have three students: Polly, Theodore, and Oliver.

They’re all in the 3rd grade and learning simple fractions. Except, all three have starkly different learning styles. Polly picks up the material fast; she easily learns 1/2 and 1/4, and understands the relationship between the two fractions (1/4 being half of 1/2). Theodore is struggling, he can’t seem to grasp the concept. And Oliver is misbehaving as always, scribbling pictures of the Creeper from Minecraft all over his desk.

We all have different learning needs and learning speeds.

If you think about, everyone—whether you’re a third grader or an adult—has different learning styles. We all have different learning needs and learning speeds. This certainly isn’t a novel idea but it cannot be understated. All students don’t start with the same cognitive levels but have the aptitude to learn if we can tap into what engages their minds. In this case, Polly is a natural analytical learner and quickly grasps the idea of fractions. Theodore probably has a different way of learning, much different than that of Polly’s. Oliver may be a more visual learner so perhaps you can draw out the Creeper as fractions for him to understand better.

While a classroom often has more than three students (in Korea, it can be 40 kids to a class), teachers cannot feasibly teach students according to their own learning styles. In most classrooms,  the teacher acts as the “sage on the stage”, giving instructions and imparting her knowledge onto her pupils. This method of teaching isn’t entirely effective; it overlooks the fact that not all students learn the same way.

Cellphones are now allowed!

[At a local middle school] Cellphones are now allowed! As part of the “flipped classroom” model, students get to use their own cellphones to learn material from the internet. Class lessons are supplemented by the teacher’s own online instructions and video tutorials.

My Fulbright research aims to fix this problem by introducing online learning and collaboration between students and teachers. This new model is known as “blended learning“, a hybrid teaching method that combines classroom and online learning. And it completely upends the traditional pedagogy. Rather than simply giving lectures and assigning students homework to be completed at home, teachers now can use various digital platforms to assign online tutorials for students to watch before class, track the student’s grades from online tests, and provide other supporting materials. This then frees up classroom time for more discussions and engaging activities that help transform the learning process. The teacher essentially becomes more like a “guide on the side” and learning becomes more fun, technologically saavy, and student-centric.

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Welcome to my Blog!

Posted on by quanqnguyen22

Hello friends!

Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog. For the next 10 months, this space is dedicated to my Fulbright research in South Korea as well as numerous other experiences that are yet to come. Expect updates on my project, lots of photos, some videos, and thoughts I will share in writing. If you are interested in online education, Korean culture, or yours truly (:P) please follow along and feel free to leave comments. I’m big on sharing ideas and life lessons! And I’m even bigger on learning them!

So…..LET’S GET STARTED!

Click here for an overview on what my Fulbright research is all about!

Until next time,

Quan

P.S. For those wondering why the heck I titled my blog “Runningboyq”, it’s because of the popular Korean show “Running Man” 🙂