Blended learning vs flipped classroom – What’s the difference?

Over the years, the vast development of video technologies has seen an incremental rise in new e-learning practices across all levels of the education spectrum. While there are tons of new e-learning models being tried around the globe, only two have seemingly managed to gain as much media attention and traction in the education industry.

What is the flipped classroom?

The flipped classroom is just one of the latest e-learning models which has made its way into classrooms around the world. The pedagogical model sets out to reverse the role of teaching with homework, whereby students would typically digest new educational content outside of their classroom. Teachers would then use their classroom sessions to allow students to apply the information learned, through a series of practical assignments.

The flipped classroom, also known as flipped learning, was introduced by Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams back in 2007 and has seen an alluring adoption rate by teachers and institutions alike. The flipped classroom was pioneered to represent a new modern educational system, that focuses on how to get the best out of students by adhering to their social habits.

What is blended learning?

Blended learning, on the other hand, involves both online learning as well as in a brick-and-mortar location. In a blended learning classroom, both online and traditional teaching methods are utilized to provide a more effective learning experience for the students. Teachers would typically employ online learning components such as educational videos, games, online learning material and podcasts.

Unlike in a flipped classroom, the online material does not replace any face-to-face teaching, but rather is used as additional support. For example, a teacher might instruct their students to watch an additional video lesson or engage in a podcast to broaden their understanding of the topic. Blended learning is designed to have the two modalities, online and traditional, compliment each other.

How to create a successful blended learning strategy

Teachers and institutions have praised blended learning for its role in implementing a synchronous learning strategy while allowing students to learn at their own pace through online techniques that form part of an asynchronous learning strategy. However, as many teachers have experienced, simply combining two complex components is not always going to give you the desired results that you are after. Instead, a comprehensive blended strategy needs to be devised and implemented. Below are five key features that will help any educator successfully introduce blended learning into their classroom.

1.?Identify the blended learning classroom objectives

One of the core features of any form of effective learning is having the aims and objectives clearly defined before diving into any practical part. The success factor of any blended learning strategy is detrimental to your ability to plan ahead. Ask yourself: what skills do I want my students to acquire? How can a blended learning classroom help to achieve the acquisition of these skills? What topics will the syllabus cover? Are there any learning tools or effective learning models that can contribute to delivering the educational content? Think of your objectives as your learning blueprint. It will help guide you through the course and make sure you stick to your carefully constructed plan.

2.?Create a blended learning syllabus

The next step is to expand on your blended learning syllabus. When creating your course outline look beyond your selected topics. Identify the learning objectives from each topic, the form of assessment in place, the type of educational content to be utilized, as well as the deadlines and requirements that you expect your students to meet.

3.?Determine the online vs traditional learning balance?

In any blended learning classroom, you need to identify the balance between e-learning practices and traditional learning. It?s important that any educator looking to implement the blended learning approach in their classroom determines the balance beforehand, as it?s likely going to dictate the general direction of your classroom sessions and overall syllabus. ?As a general tip, break your syllabus down into topics. In each topic determine how the educational content will be efficiently delivered, and whether your students should explore it further through synchronous or asynchronous activities.?

4.?Compile an elaborate resource list?

One of the main reasons that the blended learning approach has grown in popularity is due to the abundance of supplemental resources available to the students. Where some students may struggle to cope with a certain subject, provide extensive articles or external sites for them to read in their own time to further grasp the subject. For students who have excelled, provide more informative resources to expand their knowledge.?

5.?Develop an effective assessment plan?

The blended learning approach should continuously adapt based on your gathered feedback. Conduct surveys and interviews to understand how your students are progressing.?

How to create a successful flipped classroom strategy?

Flipping the classroom requires the use of web-enabled strategies which free up class time to allow teachers to spend more time guiding their students rather than lecturing them. Like with the balanced learning approach, the flipped classroom is a model that has been adapted accordingly to meet the teacher’s requirements and the student’s needs. While there isn’t one standard process to successfully flipping the classroom, most educators tend to follow a series of 5 steps.?

1.?Define your scope and objectives

The first step for any educator looking to flip the classroom successfully is to have a well-defined scope. Collect all the educational content that you have for that semester and start breaking it down into relevant sub-topics. Your sub topics will essentially transform into your video lessons. Every lesson plan should be followed by some form of assignment to make sure that the students have actually understood the educational content.?

2. Create your educational content?

Unlike in a blended learning classroom, the flipped classroom requires some sort of educational content to be created and distributed for the students to learn away from the classroom.?

3. Construct in-class activities that spark pre-class engagement

After your students have watched the educational material, you need to ensure that they understand it. A good way of stimulating further learning around each topic is to have a set of tasks at the end of each video lesson. This can take the form of puzzles, questions, summaries or further research.

4. ?Prepare in-class activities for students to apply their knowledge

In a flipped classroom, it?s not enough for your students to be familiar with the provided educational content, they need to know how to apply it. Dedicate the first 10 minutes re-caping the content shown in the previous video lesson, then focus on engaging your students with an active learning strategy. Debates, group assignments, and individual projects are just a few of the activities that you can use.

5. Ongoing evaluation?

The end goal is to have your students progress, as a direct result of the introduction of the flipped classroom model. Have both summative and formative assessments in place throughout the year to track your student’s academic progress.?

Blended learning vs flipped classroom: Which one should you choose?

Both e-learning models have been credited as the main driving force of student progress in recent years, but that doesn?t mean both are right for your classroom. Choosing between Blended learning vs. flipped classroom depends on the overall outcomes of your class. Teachers looking to shift their classroom, with an overall focus on applying theory of knowledge with the full use of technology would generally benefit more from a flipped classroom. On the contrary, a teacher wanting to provide additional support and adhere to Millennials habits would benefit more from blended learning. Simply put, if you want to extend the learning that takes place in your classroom, go for blended learning, and if you want to make more time for practical learning, flip your classroom!

If you are looking to flip your classroom, but don?t exactly know how to start, you may want to start by blending your classroom. Already blended your classroom, and now you want to flip it? Here?s how Moovly can help.

Moovly is a comprehensive content creation platform, ideal for teachers looking to use video in education and engage their students. Use Moovly to create engaging educational videos that not only captivate your students but will engage them. What?s even better for teachers, is that with Moovly, no real design skill is needed. Our easy-to-use drag and drop interface will have you creating educational videos in no time!

Now that you know the difference between a flipped classroom and blended learning, you?ll need to decide the direction you want your classroom to take. If you want to learn more about how you can flip your classroom today, contact Moovly!?

What would you rather do than go back to school?

Ahh, good old summer-time break! That magical time of year when the weather is sweet and all the teachers and students can just sit back, relax and recharge. Well, at least until the next school year. As the holidays fly by and the scholastic season draws even closer, we?re pretty sure you?d all love a bit more time to do whatever it is that you enjoy. Another day at the beach? A smooth sail at sea? Who knows? Maybe even competing in a video creation challenge with the chance of winning some fantastic prizes?

Yep, you?ve read it correctly. Fantastic Prizes! Here at Moovly, we?ve decided to spice up your summer by launching a video creation competition for all you creative people out there. Create, compete, share and win! Simple.

How to take part?

So, here?s the drill. Wow us with a breathtaking video that oozes creativity! Use Moovly to create a compelling video showing us what you would rather be doing than going back to school. Imagine you had just one week left of summer, how would you choose to spend it? Whatever it is that tickles your fancy, put your video creating skills to good use and be in the chance of winning some awesome prizes!

Ready for the challenge? Great! Here?s how to take part:

1. Register with Moovly using your registered school or university email address (if you are already a Moovly user, simply login with your EDU account) By doing so, you?ll have a year of free access to Moovly! If you don?t have a school or university email, simply sign up for our 30 Day Free Trial!
2. Create a video using Moovly Studio showing what you would rather be doing than going back to school using some of the 500,000 assets at your disposal. Rather be partying? Show us! Playing sports? Sure thing! Or just relaxing at home? Then we?ve got everything you need in Moovly Studio to create something that tells your story.
3. Once you have created your Moov, publish it to the Moovly Gallery or to YouTube. Then simply share the URL link of the Moov on the Moovly Facebook page with the comment: Hey, @Moovly, I?m going #backtoschool. Simple!
4. We?ll choose the winners based on how creatively they tell their story. Also having your friends ?like? your post might help your chances too 🙂

The Prizes

Not one, not two, but THREE prizes are up for grabs! We?re giving out amazing prizes to five video entries! Sounds good, right?

Just wait until you hear about what you can win! Start your school year on a positive note, possibly with a big smile on your face and a great prize in your hands.

• 1st place – One Year subscription of Netflix Premium
• 2nd place – One Year of Spotify
• 3rd to 5th place – $50 Amazon Voucher

How Moovly will determine the winners!

To make the challenge as fair as possible, we?ve decided to split the competition into two separate rounds. First round will have the top ten videos, with the most likes by the 22nd of September, qualify to the final round.

These ten videos will then be carefully judged by our team of experts here at Moovly, who will determine their five favorite videos from 1st to 3rd. The three winners will be announced on the 29th of September 2017!

Get creative, get sharing, get winning! Think you?ve got what it takes? Good luck!

Create your back to school video today, using our easy-to-use video editor!

5 Tips For Presenting an Engaging Thesis Proposal

The process of creating and presenting your thesis proposal is a stressful ordeal for many students. The aim of your presentation is to explain your work to a wider audience, to gain valuable feedback, suitability, and feasibility.

What sounds like a straightforward assignment can actually turn into a problematic one. After all your research, you need to present your hard work. So with that in mind, we thought we would make your life a little easier. In this blog, we have compiled a list of our top 5 tips for perfecting your presentation game.

The standard powerpoint presentation just won?t do. Keep your audience alert with a visual thesis proposal that is sure to impress. As we are a multimedia platform, we may be a little bit bias, but we definitely think you should use the power of video animation to tell a captivating story and to persuade your tutor.

1. Introduce yourself and your thesis proposal

First things first. For your presentation to be successful, you need to know how to introduce yourself, and of course your thesis proposal. Writing, designing, and rehearsing your presentation is not enough if you fail to prepare for a strong introduction. You only get one chance to make a great first impression, so you better make it count!

Let your tutor know what your thesis proposal is all about and why you?ve chosen this particular title. This is where video animation can enter the equation! Moovly offers a wide variety of pre-animated characters and video templates for you to choose from. We?ve even designed a free thesis proposal template to help you get started.

You can sign up here for your free Moovly license and create your thesis proposal today!

2. Have the right information

Without the right information to effectively explain your thesis proposal, you?re pretty much cooking up a recipe for disaster. Make sure that you have a well-sculpted story that speaks directly to your tutor with relevant information to embark persuasion.

It?s critical that your presentation design has the right information and is not just a collaboration of everything related to your thesis proposal. Being subjective is key here. However, there?s so much more to it than this. In other words, you need to explain to your audience in an entertaining way! Throw in some humor, show personality and get creative. Giving a presentation with video animation is another brilliant way of doing this.

3. Explain with visuals and video animations

While you may have an interesting title and an innovative hypothesis, you need to convince your tutor that your thesis proposal is the right one. You need to captivate your audience and make sure that they fully understand your scope.

The last thing that you want to do is to talk ?AT? your audience. You?ve got to guide them through your thesis proposal. There?s no better way to grip your audience and explain your information further than through visuals and animations. Use color psychology to help evoke emotion and insightful video animations to help explain a point further. Remember, your tutor has probably seen a dozen of thesis proposals before yours; you need to do everything you can to make sure they remember yours and are excited to see it develop into a finished project.

Avoid the humiliation of putting your audience to sleep with a bland, text-filled thesis proposal presentation that is just plain, old, boring. Nobody want?s to see that. Color sure does matter! Blue connotes trust and certainty. Green? Balance and harmony. Red represents passion and drive. That said, use colorful visuals to instill a certain emotion in the mind of your audience.

4. Balance content and flow

Your thesis proposal presentation should contain the perfect blend of text, video animations and visuals to support each key concept. Split your content into separate slides to explain everything that your tutor needs to know. Balance it out and make it flow.

Audio is another amazing aspect which could add some serious value to your thesis proposal presentation. Sound can set the scene, create an atmosphere and cue the action. Don?t overdo it, though, even things out and make it work. Moovly offers a vast range of styles to really complement your thesis proposal. From unique doodles and video templates to clear graphics and so much more! With a ton of pre-made animated assets and backgrounds for you to choose from.

5. Download your thesis proposal template!

Wouldn?t it be great if you had a ready-made thesis proposal template? Well, now you do. We?ve created a standard thesis proposal template which is fully customizable and free to use.

Here?s how it works:

• Sign up to Moovly
• Once you?ve created an account, click on your name
• Scroll down to the ?My Moov? section
• Download your thesis proposal template!
• Create the perfect thesis proposal presentation
• Share your work with your tutor

Get started with Moovly!

So what are you waiting for? Download your thesis proposal template today for free, fill in the content and use it as the base for your thesis proposal that captivates, impresses and educates your audience.

With Moovly, you can create the most efficient and appealing presentations without any particular set of design skills needed. It doesn?t end there, though, our video animation platform is completely free of charge.

Just sign up, download our thesis proposal template and stun your tutor with a professional looking presentation!