There is a lot of information out there on why you should flip and blend your lessons. To give a short explanation before I get into the true purpose of this blog post, a flipped lesson is simply using student Homework time to cover content. This could be done to explain something particularly tricky, or to simply get the chalk and talk portion of your lesson out of the way, so class time can be spent on more constructivist / application work. Blended lessons are simply using technology to assist in the learning process.
Now, getting to the main purpose of this post I want to go over an implementation strategy for both blended and flipped lessons that is sustainable and will not kill your planning time. It is focussed around creating lessons in a digital format (I use PowerPoint), so you can extract the parts you want to blend and flip. In my context, I flip my lessons to increase the prior knowledge of my students and use it as a homework exercise. This is not necessary, but I teach English Language Arts (ELA) in a non immersive ELL environment and my students are heavily motivated by marks, so it is something I have to do.
My blended lessons are usually a combination of vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension (my school uses the scholastic learning zone, so I give my student practice questions for the literacy pro test). I then add one of the themes from the previous week I want to ensure my students have understood. I track both my blended and flipped lessons in excel, and unfortunately I have to manually add the results into my school’s learning management system Rediker. I have created a video showcasing my strategy, so without wasting any more of your time here it is: