I recently learned all about the “flipped” classroom methodology while chatting with a parent at a playground. He was a teacher and explained to me how he uses the flipped classroom model in his classroom. What is the Flipped Classroom Model? It’s taking the “instruction at school/homework at home” idea and flipping it. Instruction happens at home via video and then when the student comes to class, they work on the homework.
The teacher I spoke to told me that he makes video content that students watch at home (instead of homework). Then the next day class time is spent working pen on paper and studying the concepts in small groups with the teacher walking around helping and facilitating the students understanding. I have to say that this completely made me think a lot!
Traditional Homework Can Suck As a parent, I love the flipped classroom model because my son’s homework has been a real stressor for our family. My son didn’t want to do homework this past year in first grade. It was a fight and sometimes he would cry multiple nights per week. It wasn’t that it was hard for him…he just wasn’t interested in it. Instead of having a positive experience with your parents at home, it turned into an argument very frequently. I imagine that watching a video as your “homework” would be much less taxing on the family’s personal time.
But how could you take the flipped classroom idea and apply to speech therapy? I’ve developed a free download to help you plan a flipped speech room. Download it now at the bottom of this blog post and it will be emailed to you (after you opt-in to my email list). Here are the big considerations when deciding to flip your speech room:
Biggest Takeaway: Time to Incorporate Video. It’s hard to imagine taping yourself and sending a video link home with your students, but it’s appealing to parents — and way easier to keep track of than paper homework. Because there are communication disorders that you see frequently in our profession, consider putting together a video for each speech sound you normally work on. It doesn’t have to be a very long video — it can be a pretty quick video. And I think that would work great for a lot of families that don’t have a lot of time to spend on speech therapy homework.
Once-a-Week Personal Videos If you have a student or a family that’s highly motivated, you could make a quick video for the student once a week. Then when the student comes into the session to work with you you can discuss the video that you had them watch. This is a big time commitment, but definitely worth considering for the highly motivated student and the right family.
Use Others’ Videos Alternatively if you do not want to film your own video, there are different YouTube videos by speech paths that instruct you how to produce different sounds. Search YouTube and find a clip that would work for your students. However, it might be less precise.
No Instructional Surprises I love that the student already knows what to expect from the session because he/she has already reviewed the core principles by video at home. There are no surprises from an instructional point of view.
Speech therapy homework is something that often times is not completed.
Flipping the speech room is an innovative way to engage a student and his/her family in speech therapy at home — it turns homework on its ear! Click here to download my handout on how to flip your speech room!
