What To Do With The Extra Class Time? – Teach Like a Pirate!

If you flip your classroom – what will you do with the extra class time you free up?

If a teacher’s answer to that is that kids will do the work that would previously have been assigned to them as ‘homework’, then I feel a bit sad (for their students). There are so many more valuable things we could be doing with that precious ‘together time’ – things that can’t be done any time or anywhere else.

Book recommendation: Teach Like a Pirate, by Dave Burgess. It’s not an EdTech book. It really has nothing to do with technology – but in a way, that’s why I’m recommending it. The promise of the flipped classroom model is that class time will be freed up for … whatever you want to use that time for! In my view, that time is best spent doing things that students can’t do anywhere else. Those things are scarce, and if scarce, then valuable. Many of Burgess’ classroom ideas and strategies are time-consuming, (which will be the major blocker in a traditional classroom). But that’s my point really: If you are considering flipping your class and wondering what you might do with all that extra class time, I think Teach Like a Pirate will expand your thinking, or at least give you some inspiration for time-consuming but valuable learning experiences you could be giving your students.

I especially love the thought-provoking questions Burgess has included in the book. Here are three that I found particularly thought-provoking:

1. If your students didn’t have to be there, would you be teaching in an empty room?
2. Do students wait to go to the bathroom until their next period, because they are afraid they will miss something unforgettable in your room?
3. Do you have any lessons you could sell tickets for?

In a world with Google, Wikipedia and YouTube – a world where information has lost it’s scarcity, teachers need to be ever-asking ourselves what do I bring to the classroom that is scarce?, because if I am really doing something valuable in my classroom, my answer  to Dave’s three questions above will be “No”, “Yes” and “Yes”.

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