Many writers have already highlighted the advantages of flipped learning for differentiated instruction. The most oft-cited advantage is that as students have already learnt the core concepts of a lesson in the pre-class learning activities (hereafter ‘the prework’), the teacher can devote some of the class time (the group space) to offering individual help to students. In the previous article, I mentioned the Flipped Learning Global Initiative as a leading international course provider on flipped learning. In fact, they have one whole course devoted to differentiated instruction within the context of flipped learning. In this article, I will focus on one technique for creating differentiated prework videos using the tool Edpuzzle.
Of course, resources for the prework do not necessarily have to be in the form of a video. Teachers who are keen about e-learning have many other resource types at their disposal for the prework. For example, they can create a self-paced Nearpod unit which comprises built-in tasks and quizzes that address different learning needs (e.g. quiz questions of different levels of difficulty; tasks of different formats, e.g., open-ended questions vs drawing tasks). (Another tool for a similar approach is GoFormative.) But so far, the video is still the most commonly used learning resource for the prework. To differentiate the pre-class video, one approach is to use just one video version, which is then followed by quiz questions of different difficulty levels or task types. But with Edpuzzle, it is super-easy to create additional versions with differentiated questions. The procedure is described below:
Step 1
Open an Edpuzzle unit you have created. (In this example, I will use an Edpuzzle unit, titled ‘What is an infographic?’, which I have created.)
If you look at the right-hand pane, you will notice that for this version, I have inserted 3 open-ended questions, which are usually more demanding, in addition to 3 MC questions, which are usually tied to the content of the video.
Step 2
Look to the bottom right-hand corner of the page, and you will find the button named ‘Duplicate’. Click on this button. A duplicated version will appear on your dashboard.
Step 3
Edit the duplicated version to make it more, or less, demanding, for students. In the following duplicated example, there are only MC questions. This version is actually ‘easier’, and is for less able students.
Step 4
Add notes to the viewing timeline, if necessary. The notes can either serve to stimulate thinking, or to provide support to less able students to help them follow the video. Below is one note example I have added to the second version.
Summary
The ‘Duplicate’ function provided by Edpuzzle makes it easy to create differentiated videos for students’ pre-class learning. After a video is duplicated, viewing questions of different difficulty levels, and types, can then be inserted. Viewing notes can also be added to cater for more able, or less able, students. Note that Playposit.com, which is a tool similar to Edpuzzle, provides the same ‘copy’ function. In fact, the ‘copy’ function (sometimes referred to as ‘cloning’), is now available in most other non-video tools (e.g., Nearpod, GoFormative) for creating learning resources for prework. Now is the best time for teachers to create differentiated study materials for the individual space within a flipped learning framework.
***
Comments