Flipped Classroom
This year, I am running class as a “flipped classroom”. This means that students will watch the lessons on their chromebooks outside of class. They will need to take notes at that time as well. The old routine of “come to class, learn something, do an activity, get homework assigned” will be replaced by the following.
1. Students must watch the lesson on their own time (at home, Owl Time, etc), and take notes. Most lessons will be between 5 and 15 minutes long, meaning students should take between 10 and 30 minutes to watch and take notes.
2. The next day, there will be an open-note quiz based on that lesson to start class. These quizzes will account for 22.5% of their grade in general. They will be designed to be very easy, and students can use the notes they took from watching the lesson to help them. Sometimes, simply taking complete notes will count for the quiz grade.
3. After the quiz, I will have the chance to go more in-depth on the lesson if needed, or clear up any confusion with the more difficult parts of the lesson (parts not covered on the quiz).
4. Students will have the rest of the class to work on an assignment about that lesson.
5. That day, students will have to watch the next lesson and take notes to prepare for the next day. If a lesson is intended to be 2 days, the 2nd day would consist of just students working on the assignment in class, and there would be no new lesson to watch.
This is very different from what the students are used to, especially in math. However, there has been a lot of success using this method, including last year when I used this method of instruction. It allows for several advantages.
A. Students have most of class to work on “homework” with the teacher available to answer questions, and guide them.
B. For students who “are bad test takers”, the quizzes help balance out the fact that summatives count as 75% of their grade, since they are easy and the students can use their notes when taking them.
C. Absent students can still watch the lessons, and not feel “lost” when they return.
D. The teacher has the time in class to remediate with students who need extra help.
E. Students start to realize that the teacher is a facilitator of knowledge, as opposed to the “almighty dispenser of information” on the subject, and they naturally become more independent learners.
F. Students can re-watch any part(s) of the lesson as much as they need, so slower learners can grasp the concept. This also eliminates the fear of “I don’t want to ask a question in front of everyone”.
G. Students can go at their pace, which may be faster than the rest of class.
Last year was my first year running flipped classroom with all grade levels and it worked extremely well for most students. As long as students watched the lessons and took notes, their grades improved, as did their understanding of the topics. However, students who routinely refused to watch lessons or take notes had problems. Even if watching the lessons is problematic at home, we have Owl Time here during the students’ lunch in which students can watch them. I cannot stress enough how important it is to watch each lesson and write down notes/examples. It is often the difference between success and failure in the class. While this system requires more work from the teacher, I am willing to put in the work because this is beneficial to my students.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. You can find my contact information on the syllabus.