Flipping Physics with founder Jon Palmer

          Last week in EDUC 504 we had a great guest lecturer in former Mac'er John Palmer '00.  John Palmer his novel idea of "Flipping Physics" in an entertaining and captivating fashion.  Flipping Physics is a unique concept that quite literally flips the classroom, I'll explain.  John has modified his class where the students learn the material at home and come to class prepared to ask questions and do their homework.  I should add that John is a semi-professional video editor and creates videos for his students to watch and learn from while at home.  After watching his videos I must say they are really well done, entertaining, and funny.  Although most of the material goes way over my head because I am a terrible physicist, there were a few points that he made more easy to at least ponder.  John uses his basement and his acting skills to create funny skits in which he presents students with that nights material.    

            By "Flipping Physics" John creates a classroom that allows students to focus and work through their homework problems.  This gives students the opportunity to ask questions regarding the homework while in class.  Additionally, John can also go over the problems at the end of class and can also work through tough problems at the front of the room if confusion arises.  This model does require students to do the learning at home, but this is made fun with John's entertaining and well done videos.  Through the lecture John also talked about how a lot of time is saved within the class by adapting the flipped classroom model.  He also showed us some evidence that further backed up his claim that flipping a classroom creates a more effective learning environment.  He did this by averaging all the quizzes and tests from two semesters, one from a "traditional" classroom model, and the other of a "flipped" classroom.  His results concluded that the "flipped" model was slightly more effective seeing a three percent increase when compared to the "traditional" classroom model.  I don't see myself using the flipped classroom model in my history classes but I still respect the model and thought John's lecturer and presentation was very insightful.  I admire his dedication and intuitive approach to the field of education.             

Tech Tools in Use-Prezi

       

             Earlier in the semester three of my fellow Mac'ers presented the website Prezi to our cohort and I must say I was impressed.  I was impressed first and foremost by Cory, Even, and Matt's well done presentation and delivery of Prezi.   They explained the website top to bottom and spent a good amount of time showing the class how we as future educators can use the website to better present our daily lessons .  Moreover, I was also impressed with the actual product of Prezi.  Prior to the presentation I had only heard about Prezi and its ability to allow a user to create an aesthetically pleasing presentation.  Additionally,  initially I had no clue how to make a Prezi  presentation, I also had no knowledge of what the websites limitations were.  As a future secondary history teacher I see a lot of potential in Prezi and feel that I will definitely find a use for it in my class.  Through Cory, Even, and Matt's presentation I feel like I have a good grip on how to navigate the Prezi website and create my own Prezi from scratch. 

            I feel that incorporating Prezi presentation with a traditional history lecture could create a very effective combination for initiating learning.  With the ability to embed videos, music, pictures, and other medians I believe that Prezi is perfect for catering to the multitude of different learning styles present within an average classroom.  Throughout the groups presentation Cory, who is an historian by trade, showed the class a couple example presentations of how you can create and implement a history Prezi presentation.  Prezi allows the creator to include primary sources such as, maps, artwork, documents, pictures, political cartoons, and much more inside the presentation.  It also allows the creator to present the information with unique transitions and backgrounds that make the presentation much more captivating for students during their long days at school.  The technical term for these cool transitions that can be customized based on the users desire is "Zooming User Interface", or commonly abbreviated as ZUI.  From the few times I have messed around with Prezi since the presentation in class I have found the website to be user-friendly and easy to navigate.  All in all I give Prezi a grade "A" and find that it can be a very effective supplement when presenting information to students.