A Coalition of Universities Offer Just-in-Time Help for Classroom Teachers Facing Learning Recovery Mandates

Seven universities collaborate to provide a framework for organizing, managing, and teaching classes where students have the most widely different academic skills and social-emotional needs in recent history

Irvine CA – August 20, 2021 — Today, the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Science (AALAS)  announced that a coalition of seven universities is collaborating to offer just-in-time skills for K12 teachers and university professors who will be teaching students returning to school with widely different academic skills and needs. The initiative is aimed at filling the gap in many top-down learning recovery plans where classroom teachers were not at the table. The program will provide crash courses in the classroom level skills required for teachers to differentiate instruction for 20 to 30 students or more with the widely diverse needs. The coalition offers off-site, onsite, and virtual crash courses based on the Flipped Learning 3.0 framework.

“Differentiating instruction has long been a need and a challenge for most educators. The need for this competency has moved from desirable to a mandate because of the diverse learning gaps caused by COVID-19,” said Dr. Diana Galindo Sontheimer, president of the Coalition of Flipped Learning 3.0 Universities.

Educators Dislike the Term

Though many educators dislike the term “learning recovery,” plans for learning recovery are a top priority in education systems around the world.  In the US, a federal program earmarked $126 billion for K12 schools. Five percent of those funds must be spent on evidence-based learning recovery programs. The program will prepare educators with an evidence-based framework they can use during regular class periods to provide the personal attention students need to close diverse skill gaps.

Evidence-based

The program is based on the Flipped Learning 3.0 framework, which allows educators to spend less time teaching from the front of the classroom and more time working with students individually. During the pandemic, Flipped Learning experienced a surge of interest because of its ability to support online and hybrid learning.  Many K12 teachers and university professors received crash courses in the model when COVID-19 closed schools around the globe.  Now the Delta variant is disrupting back-to-school plans and creating a need for more advanced competency with the Flipped Learning model — this time, with an emphasis on more individualized instruction.

The new initiative is based on the global best practices identified by the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Science and adopted by the Coalition of Flipped Learning 3.0 Universities. The coalition adopted the framework to support a more evidence-based approach to teaching Flipped Learning to university professors and K12 teachers.

“Though there is a significant body of scholarly research on Flipped Learning’s ability to support differentiated instruction, there has been very limited work done on identifying the best practices for teaching differentiated instruction using the Flipped Learning model,” said Dr. Caroline Fell Kurban, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at MEF University.  “The work we’re doing in collaboration with Anahuac University, the University of Northern Colorado, Dominican University, the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and the University De La Rioja moves Flipped Learning instruction from a matter of professional preference to an evidence-based framework that has been validated globally,” said Kurban.

Inviting Teachers to the Table

To ensure that the program meets the practical and evolving needs of classroom teachers, the coalition has formed a k12 advisory board of classroom teachers. The board is led by Dan Jones, an original AALAS delegate, the first Certified Flipped Learning Masterclass Facilitator, and an educator who currently teaches middle school history at a charter school in Ohio. The board currently includes classroom teachers on three continents and will expand as needed. Based on input from the advisory board, the program is offering micro-credentials that qualify for graduate credit and CEUs in various localities.

About the Coalition of Flipped Learning 3.0 Universities

In 2018, 100 delegates from 49 countries collaborated with the non-profit Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences (AALAS) to identify the global best practices of Flipped Learning. Several universities reviewed and embraced those best practices and launched programs based on the AALAS Flipped Learning 3.0 framework. This charter group of institutions makes up the Flipped Learning 3.0 Coalition and continues to curate and apply the most advanced research and best practices shared through an international network of Flipped Learning Certification Centers. The Anahuac University Flipped Learning Certification Center for Latin America opened this month and the Flipped Learning Certification Center – Europe is set to open at the end of September.

The Flipped Learning 3.0 Coalition was formed to take over the core mission of the Flipped Learning Global Initiative.