Flip Your Writing Workshop: A Blended Learning Approach

by Sonja Cherry-Paul, Sonja Cherry-Paul

How many times during writing workshop have you thought, "If only I could clone myself!" Dana and Sonja have a solution for finding more one-on-one teaching time during your writing flipped learning. Imagine students having access to instruction and support when they need it as often as they need it. While definitely not a replacement for you, the teacher, flipped learning allows students - access a variety of minilessons on their own
- work at their own pace to study the minilesson
- move ahead or review concepts, depending on individual needs. Meanwhile, you'll have more time to maximize individual instruction and conferring. Dana and Sonja walk you through the "how's" and "why's" of flipped learning, and provide guidance for determining which minilessons should be "flipped." They'll illustrate what flipped learning in a writing workshop looks like by modeling a flipped lesson, and explaining the technology used. Whether you're a novice or advanced technology user, you'll find tech tips throughout the book that help you choose the right tools and resources for creating flipped lessons and incorporating them into your workshop.
Discover how a blended approach using flipped learning can increase efficiency in your writing workshop, while fostering independent learning and student engagement at the same time.

Genres: Teaching, Education, Professional Development

112 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2016

Reviews

[Melissa Voss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for writing teachers ready to begin blended learning. Ideas in this book are concrete and well-explained.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Flip Your Writing Workshop because I was hoping for more strategies to help me manage the teaching-of-writing workload.

The first bit of gold I came across is that flipping writing workshop allows students to self-assess and self-manage their writing process. Instead of students being dependent on me to tell them what’s not working in their writing and how to fix it, a flipped writing workshop asks kids to review their work, figure out what they need to improve on, and then access the tools which will help them make that improvement. If I have online resources, such as videos of myself reviewing a key concept, kids will be able get “my” help virtually.

The second bit of gold was the suggestion that a good way to determine which lessons to flip is to think about the lessons I teach and re-teach throughout the year. These lessons, the authors say, are the ones that students need to be able to come back to and revisit.

[adeservingporcupine · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great set of resources for providing students with flipped writing lessons. Incredibly practical, with ideas for any comfort level with tech. I really appreciated the idea that if we go back to online learning I can use all of this -- but if we go back to the classroom I can (will) use it, too. I honestly should have started thinking about this years ago.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ideas on flipping--I wish the examples were beyond middle school, but the book is designed for upper elementary and middle school. It introduced me to some apps that I wasn't aware of for tech resources and provided plans for flipping small bits of instruction.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful for remote or blended learning. Excellent for newbies to technology.

[Holly Mueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Practical book about how to flip the writing workshop. Lots of great strategies to share with teachers.

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read with several applicable mini lessons that could be implemented at any grade level.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read, this book provides a predictable structure for making decisions about what lessons to flip, how to flip them, and establishing the purpose for using technology as a more intentional teaching tool.