We are accustomed to the usual methods in schools that we have trouble imagining that there is another way to structure and organize learning. And I would like to talk to you today about one of these different learning formulas: the school upside down.
Typically, the children, at school, attend the teacher who explains the topic or read the textbook, adding the pertinent comments to the teacher. The process is vertical and, with nuances, unidirectional: the educator teaches and the student assimilates. Then, the child, at home, studies and does homework. A model that begins to reveal itself as finished.
Well, in a French school, located in Saint-Brieuc, they have decided from this course to organize the work in another way. Have made the school upside down.
The professors comment that it was desperate to spend hours giving explanations to students half asleep in class and that now, instead, the result is much more active and participatory. Students begin studying their lessons at home and having multimedia material that they consult on their computers. They study at their own pace, with more effort in what they do not understand and quickly in what they capture at first. You can watch videos and click on varied links that complement the explanations in a very visual and attractive way.
Learning is done autonomously and students collaborate with each other, for example, by consulting in a forum. Then, in class, the teacher goes from table to table, talking personally with each student, answering the questions they left in the forum and reviewing their notebooks where they should make summaries of what they have learned, although, also, oral presentations are requested in other occasions
Although there are also unmotivated students, the general level of satisfaction, enjoyment and participation is higher, and it seems that everyone is happy with this school upside down. I think it is time for us to face the facts: to improve the quality of education you cannot continue with the same model of the 19th century, you have to invest and you have to innovate.
