As I look around at, for example, Thomasson Morris Instruction, or #ladygeeksanddave, the power of collaborative flipclass planning is really clear. Like crystal clear - the more teacher brains you have working on an idea/unit/lesson, the better it will turn out. This has always been my experience with collaborative planning as well - the more dedicated people you bring to a collaborative session, the better it will turn out.
I flip my world history class. But I don’t have a collaborative partnership like the two that I mentioned above. However, I do have a Twitter account. And a Gmail address. So as I was preparing to head home from school on Wednesday night, this article came across my Twitter feed. As I read about Crystal’s struggles with her 11th and 12th grade Math Analysis class, I realized they were the exact same struggles that I was having with my 9th grade world history class. As I hopped over to my Gmail account, I saw Crystal was online. A 10 minute Gchat occurred: what was she doing to try to get more students to own their learning, what was I doing to try to accomplish the same thing. What class structures were we using - tests, deadlines (or lack thereof), other things. We talked about sources of leverage for to get our students to more own their work. Frustrations were vented. Was anything solved? Not yet. Did I feel better? Yes.
To me, #COflip is having a PLN to call on. It is being a connected educator. I know both of those things aren’t revolutionary. At all. But the ability to reach out, via Twitter or any of the myriad of Google tools, to teachers all over the world? To have all those brains, and all their experiences and thoughts to call on? That’s powerful. And for me, that’s my #COflip.
