An open letter to teachers//educators

An open letter to teachers

"Read not to contradict and confute ; nor to believe and take for granted ; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider" - Francis Bacon

        My name is Faizul , and I'm an A-level student who is currently studying in Kolej Tuanku Jaafar, in Negeri Sembilan , Malaysia. For the past few months, I've been working on promoting the flipped learning, something I learned from the Internet while I was preparing my presentation on Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs) for the school assembly. To those of you who are unfamiliar with the flipped learning, you can visit my blog here http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html . Included in this blog are some rebuttals on common misconceptions about the flipped learning.

      I'm lucky that the principal and the deputy principal in my school are in support of this idea, they are open to new possibilities. Unfortunately,not many people in Malaysia have heard of the "flipped learning"  as far as I'm concerned. When I wanted to make a presentation on the flipped learning in one of the weekly Monday school assembly in my school, I was told that I should not appear as if I'm trying to tell the teachers how to teach, for I am only a student. The deputy principal asked me to use the term break(which was 2 weeks long) to figure out an effective way in presenting the flipped learning.

      At that time I'd been reading Sal Khan's book , The One World Schoolhouse:Education Reimagined. In his book, he mentioned something about the flipped learning, and I think the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) really does complement with the flipped learning, so I made a presentation on the Khan Academy for the school assembly after the term break, hoping that the teachers will get a hint on the flipped learning. -- ever since then , some people have been calling me Mr.Khan!

       3 days after the presentation on the Khan Academy, the deputy principal emailed to the teachers on the flipped learning, hoping that we can have our own video lectures, which is more aligned to the A level syllabus than Khan Academy or other resources that we can find online. Unfortunately , I think most of my teachers seem to be skeptical as to whether the flipped learning is going to work, which is understandable because it is unfamiliar.

                                                      Deputy Principal's email to the teachers

Here are some common questions on the flipped learning:

1. Does it make the teachers less important?

With the flipped learning, the role of a teacher is empowered, by giving perspectives, inspire and mentor the students instead of rote-lecturing. The class will be student-centered instead of teacher-centered. Students will be more likely to claim ownership of their education. It's not just about the student-teacher ratio , it is about student-teacher time ratio. With this,struggling students will receive more help from their teacher, and students will also get to see things from many different nuanced perspective, which develops their critical thinking skills.In short, technology doesn't replace,it complements with the teachers.

2.Isn't it more like an opportunity to bring boring lectures to a different location?

I believe that there are many approach that can be made to make the video more interesting, such as having more dialogue, make it approximately 10 minutes short and etc.

3.What if the Internet is simply too slow?

We can always consider using flash drive , or burn the videos into a disc.

4. What if the teachers are interested, but do not have the time to produce the videos?

Not all the teachers are expected to make these videos for their classes. Besides , as for a start , we do not need to flip the whole subject , we can begin by using the method only for difficult topics, as pointed out here (http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html) on myth no.2. 

On top of that , I believe that school leaders should find those with the highest ability to combine the subject with their ability to present this in the most creative and engaging ways. For mathematics , we can also use the materials from the examsolutions (www.examsolutions.net  , this website has been very helpful with my maths!) 

        As many of us might be aware, change is happening at an unprecedented scale. New job markets emerge, technology is changing exponentially, an it is evident as we can see from Moore's law. It is most likely that we students are preparing ourselves for jobs that don't exist yet.

              The education system we have now is based on the Industrial Revolution, it is human construct and a response to certain conditions in certain places and time. The world is very different compared to back then. It is evident that our education system needs to be changed. There has also been a degree inflation , in which jobs that used to require degree , now requires masters , and jobs that used to require masters , now requires PhD. 10 or 20 years from now , does it mean all of us need to acquire PhD?  You can visit my blog here on my thoughts about the education system. http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-education-system.html.

          Since the world is ambiguous and ill-defined , the context always change given the pace of change, I think what we students need to be is creative, curious and lifelong self-learners. Being creative is about making fresh connections so that we see things in new ways and from different perspectives. As Robert Greene quoted, "The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways".Besides, human communities depend on diversity of talents,not singular conception of ability. I believe flipped learning is the best solution, given the restrictions of the education system. 

          I'm sure many of us heard of the cliche that change is constant, change is inevitable-- So what about progress? I believe that progress is a choice. And it is our choice if we want to progress. I believe the first step for progress , is by applying the flipped learning. The choice is ours to act within our circle of influence. And it is certainly an important choice for it concerns our education.

If you wish to be in touch , here's my twitter account : https://twitter.com/FaizulZuraimi  

or you could send me an email on faizulzuraimi@gmail.com 

        Thank you for your time to read this , I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Faizul