Karl Fisch, an algebra teacher at Arapahoe High School near Denver, has gone bass-ackward on his students. Instead of devoting classroom time to lecturing, which has been the way of doing business for as long as there have been classrooms, Fisch is using this time to offer intensive problem-solving and experimenting with concepts.
What happened to the classroom lectures? Fisch is posting them to youtube instead. Kids are expected to watch the youtube lectures at home in the evening so they will be fully primed for problem-solving and experimenting the next day.
Speaking as an execrable high-school algebra student, the whole concept of lectures at night and problem solving during the day really appeals to me. Goodness knows, if I had been afforded the same opportunities as a teenager, perhaps I wouldn’t have been derided by my algebra teacher as “the worst student who ever passed through Russellville High School.”
And that’s precisely the point, says visionary and bestselling author Dan Pink, who recently shared this account along with several other notable examples of what he describes as flip-think. As Pink observes, ideas such as Fisch’s force people to slap their foreheads in astonishment and ask why more schools aren’t doing things this way.
“That’s the power of flipping,” he says. “It melts calcified thinking and leads to solutions that are simple to envision and implement.”
In this increasingly competitive global knowledge economy, examples of flip-thinking are occurring all around us, Pink says.
For example, U.S. and British book publishers are employing flip-think, publishing paperback editions and even e-books of new, obscure authors instead of risking costly hardcover editions.
The more I experiment with social media, the more astounded I become with flip-thinking’s potential within Cooperative Extension work.
Consider crop tours. For decades, these tours have traditionally included a series of stops, each comprised of brief presentations by subject-matter experts, followed by a quick traipse into the field for closer crop inspection before moving onto the next tour stop.
Up to now, any video associated with the tour, usually recordings of field presentations, were posted days or weeks after the tour.
Here’s an example of flip-thinking: Why not record the presentations a few days in advance, freeing up more time for crop inspection and troubleshooting as well as more direct interaction between growers and subject-matter experts in the field?
The advantages of such an approach are obvious: Growers would be able to view the youtube presentations for as long and as often as they pleased, even as more time was freed up during the actual tour to allow for closer crop inspection and one-to-one interaction with subject-matter experts.
Much of the Master Gardening training likely could be handled the same way, freeing time for more hands-on instruction.
This is only one example among many of how Cooperative Extension longstanding emphasis on high touch could be enhanced through innovative practices.
The aim here is not to undermine or replace the traditional face-to-face interaction that has underscored traditional Extension outreach but to augment it through innovation, namely through more creative use of technology.
Also bear in mind that innovative thinking doesn’t necessarily have to involve a complete flip. It simply must work to free up time to make work tasks more effective.
I’ll end this by challenging my fellow Extension professionals with the same homework Pink offers his readers: Tonight after work, come up with at least one process, practice, method or model that will enhance high-touch effects of your personal outreach efforts.
You may be surprised at what you discover.
Mission Extension: The Weblog 