Flexible Learning Spaces

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOf5h2zn1w]

As we enter week one of #OpenFlip Spring 2016, I thought I would create a wiki about my thoughts regarding the four pillars (I call them the four facets) of the flipped classroom.  Under its current (rough) form, it offers a slight variation from teachthought's (2014) version, and likely will undergo several more changes as I continue to reflect on the subject over the next few weeks.  Currently, I have this to say about what I refer to as flexible learning spaces:

Flexible learning spaces relate to one of the four aspects of differentiated instruction: learning environment. Differentiating learning environments offers flexibility to learners as to when and where the educative experience might take place. As with any educational setting, the role of the educator in offering such flexibility comes from being a didactic leader (learner as dependent), facilitator (learner as independent), and coach (learner as interdependent). Thus, the value in thinking in terms of flexible learning spaces comes from the degree with which learners become aware of how these spaces facilitate the learning process, creation of products, and retrieval and creation of content based on a set of educational and personal learning objectives. Within a formal education context, the teacher-student relationship exists from having a perpetual feedback loop that is reciprocal and iterative that over time takes the learner from being dependent, to independent, to finally interdependent. With flexible learning spaces this process becomes more ubiquitous.


In a flipped classroom, having flexible learning spaces is using physical and online educational resources in a way that offers the greatest chance for student achievement.

Thus, I attempt to...

• provide options for flexible learning spaces and time frames that set out to facilitate engagement and reflection.
• provide ample amounts of formative assessment that periodically (not continuously) leads to adjustments to instruction and adjustments to learning tactics as required.
• differentiate product, process, content, and learning spaces collectively as needed in order to help learners become more interdependent.