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Course: Khan for Educators - Beginner Course for Teachers (India) > Unit 2
Lesson 4: Strategies for teachers to enhance learningRecap: Differentiated learning and flipped classroom
Advanced strategies for teachers to enhance learning
Recap: Differentiated Learning and Flipped Classroom
Differentiated Learning
Our students come with different gifts and challenges. You must have observed that there is a wide diversity in our students with respect to their likes, interests, levels of learning, motivation levels etc. These differences matter and effective teachers attend to them thoughtfully and proactively.
The teacher’s response to the learner’s needs is called Differentiated Learning.
A teacher can differentiate learning in her class in two ways- first is content and second is the process.
- Differentiating content means differentiating the knowledge, concepts and skills that students need to learn based on the curriculum. You could differentiate content for students depending on their learning level. You could also ask students to work on the content that they need help with.
- Differentiating by process means using different strategies for different students to learn the same skill or concept. You could use different strategies to work with different groups of students.
Differentiated Learning at Khan Academy
In our classrooms, we face many challenges like attending to the different learning needs of our students or finding appropriate content for children at different levels or managing students who are at an advanced level. Khan Academy supports you in differentiating learning for your students. In Khan Academy, you can differentiate learning by content and process.
- Use the reports in the score tab under the assignment tab and course mastery tab to identify the level of learning for each student and assign the content that needs more attention.
- Use exercises given in Khan Academy to check for learning gaps and misconceptions. Based on this, you can assign videos or practice exercises to bridge the gap.
- You could even ask students to see a video before they come to class and peer teach the topic to others.
Flipped Classroom
Flipped Learning was invented in 2007 by Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams to address some of the critical concerns about student motivation and engagement.
Conventional Classroom
The teacher
- Teaches the topic in the class.
- Students listen and understand.
- The teacher then assigns homework to them.
- The basic sequence used is- Teach in class followed by work at home.
Flipped Classroom
The teacher
- flips the teaching learning process to study basics at home and learn in depth in class.
- divides the teaching process into three parts.
- ‘before’ part, where the teacher asks students to do some tasks or read/listen/watch the content at home.
- ‘‘During the class, the students do hands-on group activities to strengthen and go deeper into the concept.
- In the ‘after” part, students are given quizzes to check for understanding.
Benefits of Flipped classroom model to facilitate Learning
- Students are asked to come prepared to class with specific content. This helps in activating the prior knowledge.
- In the process students take responsibility for their own learning.
- They delve into the topic and are mindfully engaged. Their learning is better and consequently, their performance also improves.
- When students discuss and work towards presentations they collaborate, accept each other's point of view, and work as a team. This creates an opportunity for peer learning. They also learn from each other’s presentations.
- You would notice that as the students came prepared with the basic concepts, Renu ma'am saved a lot of time and could conduct various activities. This made learning fun.
- Flipped classroom allows you to formatively assess the students as they are actively engaged in learning.
Using Khan Academy be used to implement Flipped classroom model of learning
- Khan Academy has ready content that can be easily assigned for pre-work.
- You could test prior knowledge using exercises from previous chapters or previous grades.
- In the ‘after’ part of the class, you can assign quizzes, exercises, and tests. You can check learning gaps by looking at the scores under the assignment tab.
