Can the Flipped Classroom Benefit Low-Income Students?
Other teachers in high-poverty schools ... also report very strong results after flipping classrooms. Greg Green, principal of Clintondale High School in Clinton Township, Mich., thinks the flipped classroom—and the unprecedented amount of one-on-one time it provides students—could even be enough to close the achievement gap between low-income, minority students and their more affluent white peers. Clintondale has reduced the percentage of Fs given out from about 40 percent to around 10 percent.
Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that flipping classrooms is a more popular practice in wealthier suburban communities where nearly all students have Internet access at home and schools are more likely to have computers in classrooms. Some skeptics say flipped classrooms still rely heavily on lectures by teachers, which they argue are not as effective as hands-on learning. Still others worry that the new practice—so dependent on technology—could end up leaving low-income students behind and widening the achievement gap.
"It's an obstacle," said Karen Cator, director of the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education. "We do need to figure out ways that students, regardless of Zip code, regardless of their parents' income level, have access" to technology inside and outside of schools.
Read the full story at: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/06/can-the-flipped-classroom-benefit-low-income-students/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29