Mastic Beach, NY - January 19, 2016 - William Paca Middle School music teacher George Ober was invited to present his concept of “Flipperentiation: The In-Class Blended Learning Approach to Instruction” for the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) International Convention held this past fall in Indianapolis, Indiana. His submission was chosen from more than 900 proposals from across the nation, predominantly from university-level educators.
Flipperentiation is a multi-dimensional approach to infusing technology in the classroom that “accelerates learning” in the 21st century. Using existing school technology or student technologies (personal devices) for a flipped, blended classroom, students can utilize technology to develop their learning.
In his presentation, Mr. Ober highlighted the point that currently there is a gap between case study research and the practical application of technology processes in the public school classroom. Mr. Ober believes that his concept of Flipperentiation offers solutions to bridging this gap by designing effective digital classroom environments that offer more possibilities in designing curricula activities and materials, enhancing student engagement, embedding formative assessment and improving student learning outcomes.
William Paca Middle School music teacher George Ober
“As many new technologies continue to emerge and become available in the classroom, multiple opportunities for lesson delivery, assessment and specialized learning will be created, thus providing teachers the ability to customize curriculum, design assessment and find best approaches to improve how students learn,” said Mr. Ober. “Therefore, it will be important for the teacher to determine which modalities of technology work in their classroom in conjunction with the course curricula to develop the best environment for student growth and learning to take place.”
Attendees of his workshop/presentation discussed and designed a “customizable, flipperentiated classroom” using various technological tools to create visuals, embed assessment, and build collaboration into lesson development for immediate use in their classroom. Additionally, participants learned the importance of embedding visual tools in lessons for the development of skills, learning key concepts, modeling exemplary student work or demonstrating processes necessary for student learning.
“This allows for the transformation of the classroom to a student-centered environment with the teacher as facilitator of the process. Flipperentiation reconstructs traditional classroom activities into a more digitized setting; frees up classroom time for individualized student instruction; lets students learn at their own pace; and allows for individual and collaborative learning with ongoing formative assessment,” said Mr. Ober. “This enables the teacher to provide instant feedback to individual or groups of students based on their specific needs.”
Mr. Ober also presented at a featured pre-conference two-hour workshop and one-hour introduction to Flipperentiation at the New York State Association for Computers and Technology in Education; and he has been invited to present at the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference in February.