Print this page

For Teachers by Peter Pappas - FlipNLearn Educational Advisor

Why FlipNLearn Works

FlipNLearn is appropriate in grades 3 – 12. It enables students to think like designers, to apply their learning strategies and to organize and express their learning. It exemplifies the best of the information revolution –students as creators of content rather than as a passive audience.

  • Design: Research concludes that giving students design choices improves motivation and engagement. FlipNLearn software provides a project-based environment where students can make design decisions to communicate their message to an audience. Working with a design wizard they generate text and select images. Reproducible student planning guides serve as “scaffolding” to guide them through the design process before they get on the computer.
  • Print: FlipNLearn is a manageable technology project that students can design and print in one class session. Students see their project progress quickly from design, to printing, to a finished product. Ease of design and printing means that students have an opportunity to immediately assess their own work.
  • Share: New digital technologies have ignited an explosion of creative communications opportunities – like blogs, wikis, and text messaging. Unfortunately these environments lack sufficient protections to be appropriate in all educational settings. FlipNLearn provides opportunities for students to share and collaborate with peers in a managed setting. FlipNLearn brings the creative energy of digital technology into your classroom.
  • Learn: FlipNLearn uses research-based learning strategies that produce results. FlipNLearn helps students master course content while developing project management, and teamwork skills. Students are motivated by producing tangible evidence of their learning. Creating and sharing a FlipNLearn promotes peer discussion of both content and design decisions. It serves as an authentic assessment when shared with the wider audience of friends and family.

Using FlipNLearn in your Classroom

The best way to start using FlipNLearn is to download a sample FlipNLearn from the Showcase Page. You can download in two versions – printable on plain paper or on FlipNLearn paper. You can make a few on your own. You’ll find that the software is intuitive and easy to use. Or let a few motivated students try out FlipNLearn. They won’t be intimidated and will welcome the opportunity to create sample work to share with the rest of class. The goal is to have a few grade / subject appropriate models to share with your students before you assign them the task of designing their own.

Incorporate FlipNLearn into a lesson you already plan to teach. Remember the goal isn’t to teach students how to make FlipNLearns, but to use them as learning tools for the content and skills you already plan to teach. After all, you don’t need any thing more in your curriculum.

Students need to understand that FlipNLearns are designed to communiticate a message. They have three design elements to work with - text, images and background fill. They will use these elements to design four views in a sequence. Students will need to decide how to best use the the space available in each view and combine fonts, backgrounds and images in a way that is legible and effectively communicates their message to their audience.

Students Designing Their First FlipNLearn

Have students work in small groups of 2 or 3. Ask them to think about the audience for their FlipNLearn. They should to be able to express the purpose of their FlipNLearn and the main ideas they hope to convey before they begin designing. As they discuss their ideas, one student can serve as a recorder. Once they have identified their audience, purpose and main ideas, they can begin the design process. They can utilize one of the student planning guides to transfer their ideas into the FlipNLearn framework. Be sure that students are clear about the three design elements of a FlipNLearn – text, image and background fill. They should understand how the four views on the student planning guide correspond to the four views of a finished FlipNLearn.

Once they have finished their student planning guide, ask them to share it with their peers to “test market” their concept and design. You should conference with each design team before they get on the computer. It’s a great chance to help them see the editorial process in action. You should use same guiding questions as a pre-production rubric.

Students who have completed the planning process above will be more productive when they get to the computer. Creativity does not mean tossing out the design plan during production. It is important that they evaluate their final design to see if it meets their project objective and effectively communicates their message to the audience. For more details on using the software see the reference guide.

The FlipNLearn Learning Strategies

Defining Strategies - negotiating meaning

"The relationship between vocabulary and academic achievement is well established." ~ Marzano ~ What Works in Schools: Translating Research into Action, ASCD, 2003

Defining strategies connect new vocabulary with prior knowledge and give students a chance to more deeply process vocabulary to internalize meaning. Teams of students can negotiate meaning and brainstorm their own explanations of terms. FlipNLearn gives students a chance to create their own non-linguistic definitions of terms. When sharing finished FlipNLearns, students can explore, restate, and discuss meaning.

Summarizing Strategies - synthesis and judgment

"Research shows student use of summarizing skills results in a 34-percentile gain in student performance." Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock ~ Classroom Instruction that Works, ASCD, 2001.

Summarizing is critical to comprehension. It is an active thinking task calling for more than accuracy. Designing a FlipNLearn summary engages student judgment and uses creative thinking in word and image. Most importantly, research tells us it will improve student achievement by helping student to construct their own connections to course content and skills.

Comparing Strategies - assessing similarities and differences

"Research shows student use of summarizing skills results in a 45-percentile gain in student performance." Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock ~ Classroom Instruction that Works, ASCD, 2001.

We typically ask students to take someone else's classification system and thoughtfully apply it to a comparison designed by their teachers. We should strive to ask students to generate a comparison or classification system of their own. Creating a FlipNLearn comparison gives students a chance to use analytical thinking to better understand the underlying structure to the course content they are studying. Research tells us that designing a comparison is the most effective strategy that students can use to improve content mastery.