The Not-Quite-Flipped Classroom

I have read so much information about flipping classrooms. I can see both the benefits and the disadvantages. As I am not quite ready to experiment with this technique until I know my students will find success with it, I decided to try a Not-Quite-Flipped lesson.

I'd Like You to Meet My Class

 The group that I used for this experiment was my grade 8 Pre-Algebra students. There are fifteen students in my class, seven boys and eight girls, and one student with a specified learning disability (SLD). I teach in a private middle school, grades six through eight, with a total of 77 students. We are in our first year of a 1:1 iPad program with iPads that the school purchased, and students are assigned one iPad for the year to use in school and take home each day.

The Backend

Prior to class, I had a bit of work to do. On my iPad, I used the educreations app to sign up for an account with http://www.educreations.com/. Then I created a video tutorial with the app for the lesson topic. A few things to note: Create all the backgrounds for the slides first, then go back and record your voice while you write, and once you have recorded your voice, there is no edit feature. Next I went to the educreations website on my computer and created a class and added the tutorial I had just created. Finally, I sent an email to my students with a link to the class in educreations.

The Not-Quite-Flipped Lesson

When my students arrived to class, I announced that we were trying something new and then students would get to vote on how much they liked it. I informed students that they would be required to take notes on the material they would see today. I directed students to the email from me and started to walk among the students to trouble shoot. Within the link, students were asked to set up an educreations account, and a few had questions on this. Other students had already created accounts, but forgotten their password or created teacher accounts which have slightly different features.

As I addressed the questions that arose, I noticed an wonderful thing: My classroom was slowly growing very studious. Students were using headphones and intently watching the video tutorial, pausing it to take some notes, then starting it up again. Some students did not have headphones with them, so they found a partner, found a quiet corner in the (very small) school building, and worked together. Other students had follow up questions as the video progressed, and they raised their hands in order to get my attention. I was able to work one-on-one with these students to address their specific question before moving on to the next student.

I chose a long block to use for this experiment as this gave us 65 minutes to complete the lesson and determine its success. After 25 minutes, some students had completed the video and their notes, and were able to begin the assignment: a set of 25 problems to practice the presented material. Other students needed 45 minutes to complete the video and notes. These students were able to pause and rewind the video as many times as necessary to understand the material. They could do this in private without the pressure of having the rest of the class as an audience while they tried to work out the information.

Ten minutes before the end of class, I had all students turn their attention back to me at the board where I had a written a difficult problem from the lesson. We used the steps outlined in the video (and written in the students' notes) to solve the problem together. I asked students for feedback on their level of comprehension of the material using the Thumb-O-Meter: Show me from thumbs up (I could take a quiz on this now and ace it!) to thumbs down (Wait, this is MATH CLASS?!?) and everything in between how well you understand the material from today. One enthusiastic thumbs down and all other thumbs way, way up.

Students Vote

Five minutes before the end of the class, as promised, we used the Thumb-O-Meter again to vote on the process of using the video in class to learn and take notes then starting a written assignment. Guess what? One enthusiastic thumbs down and all other thumbs way, way up. Same thumb down. I thanked the student for being honest and asked what she did not like about using the video. Her response went something like, "When you're up there" pointing at the whiteboard "and talking and we are asking questions ... it's just ... for example when  ... if I ..." - starting to look embarrassed - "I don't know." She just couldn't quite put her thumb on it. (Yes, pun intended!)

Reflection

I can relate to the student. I can't quite express it either - the loss of interaction as a group, the great questions students ask that allow me to introduce another concept without fully getting into it (I call this Marinating), the funny moments we have when a student comes up with a silly way to help others remember a concept... Is this how I judge my class? No. Well, not exactly, but somewhat. I love learning and teaching. I want my students to enjoy the process and the knowledge as much as I do. But I also want them to learn it. So, I guess the real test is yet to come: How well will they retain, recall, and apply what we did?