How I Flipped my Classroom

In a previous post, I explained the difference between a Blended and a Flipped classroom.  While I used both approaches this past year, I am going to concentrate on how I flipped my classroom in this post.

As I have mentioned before, have a plan.  Plan for every conceivable outcome.  I did this ahead of time, so I knew how I was going to handle issues as they came up  ...... and they did.

The methods I used may not work for everyone, or work each year, but this is what I did.  I have a few things that I am going to tweak for this upcoming year, but let's get to that in another post.  In the meantime, let's start with a typical day.

I didn't assign videos every night.  I only assigned a video if there was a new concept that I wanted to introduce.  I also didn't search for videos online already created by others.  Although there are some very good videos out there, I made my own.  This way, I knew exactly what my students were going to watch and made sure to address all content that I wanted them to come away with.  I already had all of my lessons created in the Notebook software from SMART Technologies (the people who make Smart Boards).  This is the software that comes with the Smart Boards and since I use them pretty exclusively in my classroom, I already had these lesson.  To create a video, I would just bring up my lesson (what I would normally bring up in the classroom during typical instruction) and use screen casting software (I used Screen cast-o-matic; it's free!!) to record my lessons.  I said exactly what I would say during classroom instruction and show all work like I would do in the classroom.  I needed to make sure to have a microphone to catch my voice.  I actually used my webcam because it had a microphone built into it.  However, I did not use the video from the webcam.  Most of my videos were created the weekend before the video was assigned.  At home, on a weekend, hair a mess, no makeup.  Believe me, no one wanted  to see that.  After I recorded my video, I would then do 3 things with it.  I would upload it to my YouTube channel, save a copy to my Google Drive folder, and also put the link to it on my web page.  Sounds like a lot, but I try to make the video accessible in numerous ways so there is no excuse.

In class the day that the video is assigned, I also put the link to the video in Google Classroom (see an earlier post about Classroom).  Now, here is where planning comes in.  Students can access the videos through Classroom, go to my web site, or some of them actually subscribed to my YouTube channel and got to it that way.

There were always some students who had devices, but no (or very slow) internet access.  To help these students get access to the videos, I would require them to bring their flash drive.  Remember I said that I also uploaded the videos to a folder on Google Drive?  This is where that comes in handy.  At the beginning of the day, prior to class, I would download the video from the folder in Drive, to my school computer (remember - I recorded the videos at home, so they were not on my school computer).  I had a folder on my computer for the downloads so they all stayed in an easily found place.  I would then just copy the video from the folder on the computer to the student's flash drive and, bingo, they had their video.

Well, what about the students that don't have a computer or any device?  I ran across this too, which is why I planned for it ahead of time.  If a student doesn't have a computer at home, I have found that in the majority of cases, someone in the household has a cell phone.  I know that videos eat up a lot of data, but I let them know that there are public wi-fi hotspots all over.  The public library also has computers available for use.  But there are just times when this is not an option for some students, so I allowed those students to watch the videos in class the following day with no penalty.  They missed out on some of the discussion and the beginnings of some activities, but as soon as everyone else was engaged, I could go to them and catch them up.

I also graded the videos as homework grades.  I required students to fill out a form where they had to list the title of the video, a summary of the video, and any questions that they had while they were watching that they wanted addressed in class.  This sheet (called a WSQ sheet for Watch-Summarize-Question; I can't take credit for that.  I found the idea online.) was then shown to me the following day.  I knew the content of the videos so I knew what should have been written on the sheet; including examples and vocabulary, so it was kind of hard to pull one over on me.  If I didn't think that the student wrote enough (like a sentence? Really!!) then the student would not receive full credit for the assignment.

This is what worked for me.  I am changing a little for this upcoming year based on things that I noticed during the year.  This may not work for everyone, but all in all, I say that I had success with it.  Enough so that I am going to continue the flipped model for this year as well.

Level 2 Google Certification

As of today, I am officially a Level 2 Google Certified Educator.  Got the badge to prove it.  This test was actually longer than the level 1, but I didn't find it quite as grueling.  Now considering what other Google certifications to take.  Decisions, decisions ......

Blended, Flipped, or Both?

This past school year, I tried a lot of new things.  Going paperless was just one of them.  l also experimented with a Blended and Flipped classroom.  Before I say how that experience went, let's first go over what each means.

Blended and Flipped are two of the new buzz words in education.  The meanings basically boil down to this:

A Blended classroom uses a combination of traditional learning with an integration of online resources to supplement and enhance the learning.  This is more than just putting worksheets online.  This is using a plethora of resources available online to make the learning experience more meaningful.

A Flipped classroom takes the traditional role of the teacher as instigator of instruction and flips the role to facilitator.  Traditional instruction is delivered at home usually via video lessons and what was normally considered "homework" has been moved into the classroom with the teacher as a guide to help the students use what they have learned at home and apply it to class activities.

In a math classroom, I absolutely loved this idea.  During normal instruction, I typically only have the attention of about 20% of my students.  Some students already know the material, or pick up on it quickly, then become bored and tune out of the lecture.  Some students are missing background knowledge or are a little slower to pick up on key concepts.  These students quickly become overwhelmed and tune out because they feel like they have no hope of keeping up.  The students whose attention I have then become distracted by those students who are not paying attention.  The result is that I inevitably have to reteach key concepts to students who did not hear it the first time; or the second.

A flipped classroom model takes care of this.  Students watch video lessons of the instruction at home.  This allows them to progress at their own speed.  They can go faster through the video if they want, or back it up and rewatch it if necessary.  They also have time to process what they have watched and learned before they are asked to apply the material.  The next day in class, they already come in knowing what is going to be discussed and with a good idea of how to apply the material.  This is a real confidence booster for some students.  The class time is then spent with direct application of the concept learned.

Here is an infographic that explains the concept of a flipped classroom and has some data to back up the concept:



Created by Knewton

More on how this worked in my classroom in the next post.  Stay tuned ......