Teaching Upside Down - Flip the Script

Technology has always outpaced the classroom. Up until the last 5-10 years, most high school classrooms very closely resembled the classrooms from the 1950s. The educational system is often skeptical of the advantages of new technology, and school administration/district financial officers have been slow to invest in this area. With students having more and more access to technology and communication, traditional education practices teeter towards irrelevance and tediousness when compared to the streamlined and accessible forms of communication with which students are now accustomed.

Since the beginning of my teaching career, I have noticed and been frustrated by a never-ending issue that every teacher has struggled with before me - attendance issues. It is a common problem that you can teach a valuable lesson, but not every student is present. Sickness, emergencies, family travel, etc. all take a toll on a student's attendance at some point during the year. To address the issue of student attendance requiring me to re-teach my lessons, I decided to take my lessons to the digital realm.

The steep increase in use of digital media, and online interactions has pushed young people to develop more skills in kinesthetic and visual learning. The more they engage in acquiring information in a non-verbal format, the more they reinforce the need for these skills. The bottom line is that students have never been less likely to internalize a verbal lesson than they are now. I suggest that instead of attempting to maintain an antiquated educational system, we as teachers adapt to set students up for success.

I teach guitar and music technology. The most efficient way for students to learn the concepts I teach are via tutorials. In this age of accessible media, students learn many skills through Youtube. Utilizing the accessibility of the internet makes it possible for my students to access crucial information as often as they need to internalize the core concepts of any lesson. Guitars students are able to practice along with me during independent study time, review past lessons, and even get ahead of the class by learning upcoming lessons.

The results have been astounding. Firstly, using the same tutorial videos for each unit of a subject ensures that all the students have access to the same content. Every teacher will, at times, find that a lesson goes more smoothly in one class than in another. Perhaps the teacher was interrupted by school announcements, phone calls, or other issues that are commonplace. These interruptions play havoc on lesson delivery. Online tutorials resolve this issue. Class time is no longer dependent on myriad factors out of the teacher's control.

Attendance is no longer as critical an issue. Since instruction is accessible at any time, students who are sick don't have to rely on the teacher giving the "cliff notes" version of a lesson due to time constraints. They can catch up at their own pace.

Using this model of content delivery, the teacher is now free during class time to coach students during the application of the lesson, rather than delivering the lesson itself. From my own experience, I will get sidetracked during a lesson, go off topic, or just tend to be more "wordy" when I'm teaching live. Students also require more examples in the live setting. By switching to video tutorials, I'm able to get through a lesson in less time because I'm not dealing with classroom management, fielding questions, or being asked to repeat myself. Video tutorials allow students the opportunity to rewatch examples in a lesson multiple times so they can get the process with fewer followup questions. The end result is that the teacher can field questions on an individual basis. This is a better use of time because the student with the question gets some one-on-one instruction with the teacher, and the rest of the class is able to work at their own pace.

Video tutorials means that I now spend much more time coaching than teaching. In my mind, teaching is the delivery of information, and coaching is more the guided application of that information. Students check out during lectures and tend not to retain information. Lectures leave less work time during the class, so the application of the lesson is more often pushed to homework. However, if a student is struggling with the lesson concept, they are likely to spend much more time attempting to complete the homework than other students.

Online tutorials opens instruction to students at any time, even during homework. Also, this method provides more time for the teacher to coach students in the application of the lesson concepts during class time, rather than in delivering the information. Teachers who deliver information by tutorials spend less time and energy repeating content, and more time assisting students in applying the concepts.

Speaking from personal experience, I have never done so little actual teaching during the school day than this year. The vast majority of concepts I cover in my courses are now delivered to students as online tutorials. This means that that they can learn from me at their pace, and I can spend more time one-on-one with each student during the year offering feedback that will help them improve far more quickly than the classic lesson structures I used in the past. Since video tutorials are consistent every time they are played, I find myself spending more time working on the clarity of the instruction and providing helpful follow ups than actually delivering the instruction.

All of my videos are available to my students at any time. They learn concepts more thoroughly and in record time. The best thing is that spending time on creating my instructional tutorials now means that I have even more time next year to guide students rather than deliver instruction.

Technology is not going away, and it is not likely to slow down its pace of integration into every aspect of of life. The question is "Why is education always behind technology trends instead of setting the trends?"

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