At Clintondale High School, we have been using this education model for the past 18 months. During this time, our attendance rate has increased, our discipline rate decreased, and, most importantly, our failure rate - the number of students failing each class - has gone down significantly. When we first implemented this model in the ninth grade, our student failure rate dropped by 33% in one year.This is compelling evidence that transferring remotely, practicing locally works, even in English classes.
In English, the failure rate went from 52% to 19%; in math, 44% to 13%; in science, 41% to 19%; and in social studies, 28% to 9%. In September of 2011, the entire school began using the flipped instruction model, and already the impact is significant. During the first semester of the year, the overall failure rate at the school dropped to 10%. We’ve also seen notable improvement on statewide test scores, proving that students’ understanding of the material is better under this model.
I scanned the archives at the National Writing Project's website and found almost no mention of flipped classes. They do have a research article from the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub entitled Connected Learning (Jan 2013) that sees "technologies and techniques like massively open online courses (MOOCs), or the flipped classroom as potential tools for connected learning, but not essential features" (83).
I then scanned the archives at NCTE and, again, found almost no mention of flipped classes. The Voices from the Middle middle school journal has a call for blended learning practices for its upcoming January, 2014, issue that references "flipped learning practices that frontload content as homework in order to devote classroom time to projects and discussion."
It appears to me, then, that composition studies is in need of some discussion of the flipped approach to the writing classroom.
Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutiérrez, Sonia Livingstone, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, S. Craig Watkins. 2013. Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.