The Perusall Experience

Throughout my journey in flipped and mastery based learning, I’ve come across many apps, websites and tech tools. I routinely joined the Early Adopter crowds for a lot of wonderful tools. Nowadays, I rarely add a new tool. I much rather mimic the behavior within my LMS or Google Drive ecosystems - even if performed in an inferior way. Perusall may have broken through my apprehension. 

I’ve been aware of Perusall for a couple of years or so. It is a social annotation tool that began with giving teachers the ability to assign texts and embedding questions and discussions withi  the text. Students can add and respond to these annotations. Had I been an English teacher, I probably would have dove right into that early adopter pool. But since the majority of the content in my class is covered through flipped videos, there was only limited value added from that tool. 

Even when Perusall began to include videos into their platform, I remained hesitant to embrace this tool. Yes, my students could benefit from greater interactivity in my videos. It is surely better than relying exclusively on basic checks for understanding through EdPuzzle or the post-video discussion forums or Google Forms assessments. But I’ve remained skeptical on just how MUCH better is the Perusall way of handling videos. 

Two recent experiences have caused me to reconsider. During the pandemic, I’ve really been much more mindful of how I spend my face to face time. With the changes caused by remote learning, this time is scarce and more precious than ever. I’ve leaned more into student collaboration and discussion. I’ve also turned over class time for more student presentations this year. Student presentations are tough for me as a flipped teacher because I rarely use synchronous time to lecture anymore, so it stands to reason that using precious face to face time for student lectures is also problematic. But, presenting is an important skill, so I press on. I’ll come back to this idea later.

The second experience is the recent asynchronous conference: The Perusall Exchange. This was a two week conference about Perusall hosted on the Perusall platform. As far as I can tell, the presenters were all college professors who use Perusall to support student learning. On the first day, I “attended” two presentations. These presentations were actually flipped videos created by the professors and posted within a course hosted on Perusall. The presenters posted questions and discussion starters, while audience members responded and participated. Audience members also asked questions to presenters, who were able to respond mostly asynchronously. Perusall allows for comment tagging and also lets you know who else is watching the same video. This was truly an innovative and interesting professional development experience. I was able to learn at times convenient for me. But I’ve also been able to interact with the presenters, evidenced by a response to a comment I left at 5am on the first day. 

One idea I’m excited about is offloading the student presentations to videos. This is not a new idea. I’ve done this before with limited success because student peers had limited engagement with student created videos. The logistics were tough to figure out. How can I encourage legitimate engagement with student created videos and hold students accountable? How can I help student presenters encourage engagement with their content? If my student presenters post their videos to a class on Perusall, then I can help presenters create engaging questions and prompts throughout the video, give peer audience members guidance about how to engage and hold the audience accountable for their level of engagement. When students create presentations, I’m not as interested in whether peers can answer factual content questions, as they would with my videos. Rather, I’m interested in peers being engaged with the provocative questions and issues presented by other students. (To be clear, I am also interested in students engaging with my videos in this way as well, but the entire learning cycle of activities are designed to elicit this deep and rich application of the content I present. I don’t have the luxury or even desire to create these post video activities aligned with student presentations. Rather, I need a quick yet powerful mechanism for students to engage with their presentations of their peers.) Perusall appears to address this need. 

The beauty and unintended consequences of this approach is now it would absolutely make sense to make the most of Perusall. Prior to using Perusall for engagement with student created content, using Perusall for the ocasional article or text within my class did not seem worth the hassle. Adding this function with Perusall now makes a lot of sense and I'm looking forward to testing this in the new school year. 

Onto my Second Iteration of Flipped Learning: A Post FlipCon14 reflection

If my personal lessons learned from FlipCon13 were about the logistics of video making and setting up a flipped class, then this year's lessons were all about the "second iteration" (as Troy Crockum frequently mentions) or tweaks to my flipped class and connecting with the community of flipped educators.

Last year during FlipCon 13, so many flipped veterans said over and over again that flipped learning is not about the videos but it was a message that a baby flipper, like myself, could not internalize. But now that I have a YouTube library of good but not great videos and I'm primed to tackle more important questions of inquiry, project based learning, standards based grading, student blogging and 20 percent time, I really have internalized that mantra.

This year during FlipCon 14, I strategically selected sessions that would help me improve my second iteration of flipping. This meant that most sessions were part of the "Beyond Flip class" strand. Some of my thoughts and take-home lessons regarding a few sessions are below.

Keynote: "Living in Beta" with Molly Schroeder
This was a wonderful keynote that challenged me to further promote working in beta, or experimentation and revision in my class. Since I use a mastery model, I feel pretty confident that my students are usually working in beta. They're encouraged and even mandated to revise their work until proficiency. The real lesson I took away from Molly's session is that I need to be comfortable with allowing myself to work in beta. If companies like Google can fail with tons of unpolished products and still be seen as a successful company, then surely I can dare to fail as well.

Flipping DI with Lee Dewitt
This was a timely session for me since one of next year's goals is to differentiate instruction. The pre work and the session gave me some neat ideas about how to differentiate instruction. Although I'm happy with the Mastery Choice boards as my main vehicle to offer student choices, I can see the benefit of mixing things up. Perhaps some learning cycles will work best with choice boards, a 2-5-8 menu, a RAFT assignment, tiering or cubing. I'll play around with these options during the summer.
The most exciting thing I learned from Lee's session is how she scaffolds mastery in her course. My 8th graders struggled with staying on track and I'm hoping a better transition to self paced learning will minimize these issues.

Making the Grade with Jennifer Haze
This session was advertised primarily about standards based grading, although I learned some neat tricks about formative assessment as well. I really like her peer to peer techniques in formative assessment like "quiz, quiz, trade" and "find the matching answer." Adding these techniques to peer instruction will enhance the synchronous offerings in my asynchronous course.

Engaging videos with Jonathan Thomas-Palmer
My videos are serviceable and usually get good ratings in terms of learning. However, my videos are not particularly engaging. I do use the engaging design techniques Jonathan mentioned in his session, like changing the screen every few seconds, use transitions sparingly, purchase an external microphone or limit background light for the picture in picture feature. After the first few videos, I even included questions throughout the video to encourage students to pause and think. The most important thing Jonathan said that I needed to hear was that I need to enjoy myself in the videos, like I usually did during live direct instruction in the past. I'm too formal in my videos and need to make sure I'm having fun when I record the videos. I don't see videos as the most important aspect of my class and will most likely avoid redoing most on my videos; however, I will use that important piece of advice to make new videos.

Innovative Pedagogies with Julie Schell
I've been looking forward to Julie's presentation since I missed her during FlipCon 13. I already incorporate peer instruction into my class at least once per learning cycle. It has been successful and most students rated this strategy favorable, even more so than flipping. In this presentation, Julie explained and demonstrated how Just in Time Teaching and Peer Instruction work together. The Just in Time Teaching (JITT) technique requires students to answer two conceptual questions and submit one feedback question (e.g. what they found most difficult or what they still wonder about) regarding a concept they learned in a coverage assignment outside of class (e.g. flipped video or a reading.) The teacher reviews these responses prior to class and uses the responses to generate ConcepTests to be used for peer instruction. The hardest part about Peer Instruction is generating the higher order engaging questions. JITT can help me generate more of these questions.

In addition to these wonderful sessions, I met great people whom I already follow on twitter. What a wonderful community of welcoming educators. I look forward to further connecting and learning with my PLN and incorporating lessons learned from FlipCon14 into my class.

Related articles

• Flipping is really not about the videos: a post FlipCon13 reflection
• Flipped Learning Network Announces Program for 7th Annual Conference
• Flipped Learning Network Launches Interactive Online Program for FlipCon14

Teaching Screencasting Through Flipped Learning Cycles: a post Camtasia Workshop Reflection

Camtasia Studio 7.0.1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A colleague and I led a workshop on Screencasting through Camtasia. The premise of our workshop was to organize the full day workshop in a 5E Learning Cycle of Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate.

Engage: 
The purpose of this first segment was to generate interest in screen casting and demonstrate why participants should want to learn to use Camtasia. I handed out my son's karate belts and demonstrated how to tie them and asked participants to do the same. Immediately, the limitations of live direct instruction were obvious - different participants got lost at different spots. This introductory activity led to a nice discussion of how videos can be helpful when teaching concepts. Participants understood that sharing a video showing how to tie a karate belt would have been more helpful because participants would've been able to rewind, pause and rewatch at their own pace. 

Explore: 
The next phase demonstrated what can be done in screen casts and identify best practices for screen casting. I shared one of my first (and flawed) Camtasia screen casts with the group and tasked them to provide feedback (eg regarding clarity, color scheme and sound quality.) Participants submitted feedback and questions via a Google form and we used those responses to brainstorm a list of best practices, which included the need for contrast between text and background, keeping videos short and asking questions throughout the video, to name a few. We also briefly touched on some crucial pedagogical issues: how videos are part of a larger learning cycle, why you should avoid spending too much time perfecting the videos, the limitations of recorded lectures, etc.

Explain:
The Explain phase included direct instruction where we led a quick orientation and walk-through of Camtasia. Participants followed us in real time to record a short screen cast with the webcam enabled.

Elaborate:
The bulk of the workshop was the elaboration (or application) phase, where participants worked at their own pace to edit and/or create videos. We shared a Zip folder with editable Camtasia files, which all had a flaw that could be corrected with a specific skill, like trimming, annotations, zooming, etc. We shared a document outlining the task for each video along with a link to the TechSmith tutorial demonstrating that particular important skill. In addition, we also shared the link to the entire TechSmith library of tutorial videos.

Participants spent four hours spread out in different rooms working through the guided assignment and/or creating their own videos. 

Evaluate:  
We provided access to a Google Drive folder for participants to upload their videos or provide links in a Google document of their videos hosted elsewhere. We spent the last hour of the workshop showing the videos created by participants. We all commented on the videos and ended the session with final thoughts and participants provided feedback about the workshop via a Google Form.

Final thoughts: The feedback was unanimously and overwhelmingly positive! Participants appreciated how we framed the activities through a learning cycle and used screencasts to teach screencast creation. The powerful thing about our decision to use videos was that it allowed for participants to work at their own pace and to select what they wanted to learn, which only reinforced the strengths of screencasting in education. We've all been in technology workshops where the presenter elected to run a synchronous live tutorial: the advanced participants get frustrated waiting for the novice stragglers to catch up; and of course the moments when the presenter pauses to troubleshoot for the one or two folks with tech related problems. Leading the workshop only strengthened my resolve to continue developing my flipped course with elements of asynchronous learning and content organized into learning cycles. Hopefully, some of the participants were convinced by their experience in our workshop that flipped learning and screencasts can add wonderful elements to their courses.

Related articles

• Review: Camtasia Studio 8 raises the bar on interactive video creation
• Camtasia: Screencasting on the Mac with Style [Review]
• Camtasia 2.5 for Mac (Review)

Leveraging the Power of Google Forms, Scripts and Formulae

Last week, I led two workshops at my school's professional development day. One was relevant to the flipped class. It was a presentation inspired by a webinar led by Ramsey Musallam. He framed the use of his tools as solutions to design problems. I took his lead and discussed VLookUp, Formemailer, editing the form confirmation page, and Flubaroo as solutions to four design problems in my flipped course. Incidentally, I learned about Formemailer and editing the form confirmation page from Ramsey as well.

Here is a link to my presentation and below is the YouTube playlist of my tutorial videos demonstrating how to use the relevant hacks, scripts and formulae in Google Forms. 

Screencast 101 - a Comparison of Screencast Apps

There are tons of screen cast programs. A person new to flipping could be overwhelmed with the choices. Hopefully this post will prove to be helpful.

(feel free to edit the spreadsheet above to add programs, features and update outdated information. Since this is a publicly edited document, I can't attest to its accuracy.)

My favorite desktop program: 

Camtasia is hands down the iMovie of screen casting. It is a powerful feature-rich program. It has a longer history on the PC, so it has fewer features on the Mac. I hear ScreenFlow is the powerhouse on Macs but never used it. Nevertheless, it is an amazing program. It is costly though and has to be downloaded to your desktop. It has tons of editing and annotation options like zoom & pan, highlighting and even custom animations. You can export directly to YouTube, as well as TechSmith's screencast.com. Unlike the simpler alternatives, Camtasia supports recording from the webcam with a picture in picture option. 

My favorite web-based program:

Hands down Screencast-O-Matic is the best web based screen casting program. Assuming you have Java enabled, this free app is a great alternative for someone who doesn't want to download software. With an inexpensive upgrade, there are some nice editing and annotation features. Like Camtasia, you can either download the video or export to YouTube or a propriety website. Screencast-O-Matic also supports webcam recordings. 

My favorite iPad program:

Explain Everything is a feature rich video producing app. For only $2.99, you can import images, videos, and presentations from cloud based accounts like Google Drive, Dropbox and Evernote. You can export to YouTube and pretty much everywhere else. You can even import a website into your video. In addition to the annotation options, a cool useful but undervalued feature is the customizable laser pointer. And as expected for an iOS app, it integrates well with iTunes and the iPad's native photos and videos. 

Simplest/Easiest to Use
Jing (harddrive), ScreenR (web) and Quicktime Pro (harddrive) are the simplest and easiest to use screen casting programs. The drawback to these programs is that they produce one-take videos without editing and any helpful annotations. I use Jing for screenshots but not for screen casts because the videos are recorded as swf files, which do not upload to Youtube. Quicktime Pro has a relatively unknown screen recording feature. It's as easy as selecting "New Screen Recording" on the File menu and pressing record. This is my go-to program when I wish to do a quick one-take screen cast.

Importance of Adjusting to Student Feedback - Week 2 reflections

This was a shortened week since we had our annual overnight grade trip. Even so, we managed to get an exploration activity completed and some tweaks to workflow. 

Successes: 

Hands down the highlight of the week was when a student encouraged me to patent this way of teaching. He sounded disappointed when I informed him that thousands of teachers flip their class. That is my #eduwin for the week!

A new student joined the 8th grade and it became obvious during the exploration activity that he already knew the content for the upcoming week. We agreed that he didn't need to watch the next video, take notes nor submit the associated Google Form. He'll skip to the problem set to demonstrate proficiency, and if successful, work on an alternative project or move on to the next learning cycle. In the traditional model, he would've suffered through one period of lecture, demonstration and sample problems. Flipping the class will allow this student to use class time much more effectively. 

After some anxiety about students understanding the content presented in the videos, I'm relieved to share high ratings regarding the helpfulness and clarity of the videos with average ratings of 2.7 out of 3. (The average would've been higher but I neglected to have a 3 rating as a choice and was made aware by students who wanted to use a rating of 3.) In addition, students answered the understanding level questions correctly on the Google form responses. A handful of negative reviews can be attributed to students assuming the video would give information about something that I opted to put into a different video or an upcoming activity. A few incorrect answers on the Google form appeared to be careless arithmetic errors. Two students mentioned that they preferred the old method and one wanted to a question answered in the moment. 

On a personal but related note, I'm becoming less concerned with perfecting videos; rather, I'm focusing on getting useful videos published in a timely manner. I can now appreciate Jon Bergman's joke, "do I need the video to be perfect or do I need it on Tuesday?" This new focus should reduce stress and anxiety. The hours I put into earlier videos created an unsustainable workflow. The encompassing theme of the Flip seems to be intentional use of time and energy for students and teachers alike. Think I've internalized that message, finally!

The FormEmailer Google Form script works marvelously. This script sends email responses to form entries directly from the spreadsheet, rather than necessitating the crafting of separate email messages to each student. One concern I had about the Flip is the inability to answer questions during video-viewing or shortly after. One way to alleviate the concern was the addition of a Google Form, where students can submit questions. Adding the FormEmailer script greatly decreased the turnaround time for a response to student questions or concerns. I typed my responses into the spreadsheet, clicked a button or two, and students got an email response. There's some setup required but it is well worth it. Some of my email messages were sent minutes after the students submitted their form. I plan to enhance this with other scripts that can indicate which students have not submitted a form response. 

Gradebook Pro (on the iPad) has proved useful as well. If you take the time to input or import student email messages and determine values for each assignment, you can send a grade report to students directly from the app. The report can inform the students which assignments they are missing, current grade and even notes that you recorded about assignments and/or conduct. After sending these periodic messages, my inbox shortly gets flooded with Google Drive share notifications, indicating students submitting their work. On one or two occasions, the message prompted a student to correct a mistake I made in record keeping. 

Since we're on the topic of Google Drive documents, I reminded students in class that I needed to see their video notes. Apparently, I must have mentioned printing the notes as a submission option. A student replied (and I'm paraphrasing), "it's better to share on Google Drive with Mr. Wilson because his best use of class time is working with us, not checking assignments." Wow...this student is really starting to internalize my daily message - think about YOUR best use of class time. 

After class, I informally chatted with two students and asked whether the new assignment sheet format (more info on that later) was an improvement. They both agreed, one more emphatically than the other. The one criticism was deadlines were missing from the assignment sheet. Before I responded, the other student said, "that's the point, you're working at your own pace." Sounds like more students are starting to buy into the philosophy here. I met with the student who desired due dates and helped him set daily deadlines. This doesn't have to be an "all or nothing" approach. It's about giving each student what they need to be successful. If some students work more effectively with deadlines, then I can make adjustments for that student without handcuffing the others.

Adjustments:

I got some really helpful feedback about a video. A student mentioned on their Google form evaluation of the video that they would love more practice on the concept, while others felt they understood the concept just fine. Since there is always an application in class, I took this to mean that the student wanted just a bit more practice before coming to class. Typically in the form confirmation page, I share the answer key to the form questions, in order to give students instant feedback. Now, I'm adding a link to additional practice problems with answers. This way, students can choose whether they want the extra practice or not.  

The great thing here is that some students are submitting questions with answers in their Google form response. These questions can behave as formative assessment for the students who submitted them and extra practice for future students.

I'll need to add a table of contents to videos. On several occasions, I referred to a specific part of an instructional video. This will be helpful to allow students to pick parts of videos they need, instead of watching the entire video. 

On my tracking sheet, I have students input the date on a completed cell and change it from red to green. Even though this seems like a simple 2-step task, is it really necessary? It occurred to me that they can input the date and I can set up conditional formatting to automatically change cells with dates into green and set empty cells to red.

I also found a simple solution to the ridiculous issue in the mobile version of Google Drive Sheets, where students accidentally erase other entries because the entire row gets highlighted when a student edits a cell. 

   I switched the rows and columns so if a student edits a cell, they are only editing their row. I suspect they will be more careful and aware of their actions if their entire row can get ruined due to careless editing.

After a brief love affair with Mentormob playlists, I've opted to use an online assignment sheet with links to all resources. [I alluded to this change earlier in this blog post.]

Multiple Playlists vs...

One Assignment Sheet

Even though the playlists are aesthetically pleasing, it became clear that the extra step of navigating through a playlist was an unneeded obstacle. In addition, a student pointed out that a web page with multiple playlists takes quite a bit time to load. I should have expected this because last year's evaluation responses indicated students found the online assignment sheet with links to documents all on one page to be useful. I'm unsure how I got to this point; perhaps it's because I loved using Mentormob to learn about different topics. It's still a great tool but the online assignment sheet just works better for my students. 

Related articles

• The Potential of the FLIP Meets Workflow & Tech Issues Head-on: week 1 reflections
• Reflections on my First Attempt at Flipped Learning

How to get Students to Watch Videos

CC Courtesy of Sign Dvd Music Video Icon 

by Nemo on Pixabay

Probably one of the most frequent questions or concerns I've heard about flipped learning is "how do you get kids to watch the videos?" It is a fair question and the purpose of this post is to share tips for motivating and building accountability into video viewing.

But before I begin, I'd like to share two things. First, there is no magic bullet; there is always the potential for noncompliance. Second, noncompliance for video watching should be seen as and treated as any other behavioral issue. I wouldn't accept fear of noncompliance as a valid obstacle to flipping. Any educational model will present students with the opportunity to misbehave.

Tips for building video watching accountability and motivation -

1) Need to know: the most important tip is the video ought to teach students things they need to know. For that reason, I prefer the explore-flip-apply and problem based learning models over traditional flipping because students watch videos after doing some exploration. The exploration generates some questions and illuminates unknown information that can be shared in the video.

2) Time: students are less likely to watch long videos. I've heard flipped vets recommend 1 minute per grade level. So a 10th grader can watch a 10 minute video and 8th graders can watch an eight minute video. I'm unsure if these guidelines are based on research but I strive for 7-8 minutes and usually end up at 10 minutes. Anything above 10 minutes seems excessive to me. 

3) Accountability during and after video: 

• During the video, I have students take notes (just as they would've done in a classroom lecture.) I provide them with an optional guided note sheet. 
• After the video, they have to complete a google form with understanding-level questions. Their answers get sent to me and organized into a spreadsheet. 

4) Make it interactive: just like any presentation, students will be more engaged if the video is interactive. Instead of just lecturing through content, work though problems together and ask questions. I like to post a question, have students pause the video, then continue watching to work through the rest of the problems and video.

5) Good production: disclaimer here, I don't think students will watch because a video is high quality but they sure will avoid videos that are hard to view and hear. Make the video as painless as possible by thinking through visibility, color scheme, volume, transitions and annotations. I also like to add a catchy tune at the beginning and end of each video to build some excitement.

6) Make it personal: some teachers are not fans of the screen in screen option but I always feel more of a connection when I can see the face of the instructor in their video. There's something distant about a faceless presentation with just a voice over. 

7) Make it required: I personally prefer a flexible model where students can choose how to learn content. However, if video viewing is of utmost importance, then make it required. In addition to using your normal techniques, make sure you don't bail out students. While it's appropriate to help struggling students, don't reteach the content in class for students whom neglected to view the video. 

If you have other suggestions, please feel free to leave comments. 

The Versatility of Videos in a Flipped Class - a Post Flipped Learning Course Reflection

CC Courtesy of Choices by Derek Bruff on Flickr

There are so many take home messages from FlipCon13 and the Flipped Learning course that I couldn't possibly document them all. In addition, deciphering whether these revelations came from the conference and/or the course is unlikely. But I am sure that seeing the final projects of my classmates was simultaneously humbling and empowering. We were tasked to create a video as part of a flipped lesson. The quality and diversity of video projects were staggering. One major revelation: videos can have many uses in a flipped class. When I made my video and lesson (summarized in a previous post), I assumed it would have to teach content. But after seeing the work of my classmates, I'm reminded of the Choices image to the left because a teacher has so many choices of how to use videos in a flipped class:

1) introduce the course to students, administration and parents;

2) explain a project with instructions and expectations;

3) give feedback on a paper or project;

4) act as hook to a unit or activity;

5) act as a trailer to summarize and highlight a unit or a project;

6) document a process; and

7) demonstrate how to use software or equipment.

Aside from being overwhelmed by these choices, I am excited by the possibility of offloading content and the housekeeping of the class. Housekeeping and content combined have dominated most of the class time. And now as a flipped teacher, I'm excited that this time can be reclaimed for mastery, inquiry, standards based grading, and student voice & choice.

I am grateful for the many lessons learned in this course from classmates. I almost feel guilty that I couldn't write a more profound reflection and promise to continue blogging about the lessons learned. Nevertheless, this is where I am today: digesting feedback about my first Camtasia video and figuring out how I'm going to get the first few units done by September. There will be time for deeper thought and analysis. I'm just happy that I've had the opportunity to learn and share. I thank Kristin Daniels for leading me through this journey and all of my classmates, whom I hope will be part of my PLN moving forward. 

Flipping is really not about the videos: a post FlipCon13 reflection

CC courtesy of No videos on Flickr, Please
by Muhammad Ghouri on Flickr

As a baby flipper, I was intrigued by the “it’s not about the videos” talk during FlipCon 13. In protest, I thought “it’s easy for you to say; you already know how to make videos!” I still have remnants of that protest feeling, especially after realizing I’ll have some important edits to my first Camtasia video. But after FlipCon 13, making my first Camtasia video, associated MentorMob playlist and observing that the video was only one in twenty steps of the playlist, I’m convinced that flipping the class is definitely not about the videos!


Demonstration:
Below is a video I made about Punnett Squares. It is about 11 minutes long.

As a novice, this video took me days to create and edit and it still has some important flaws that need to be reworked. I expect the editing time to decrease as I gain more experience. This 11 minute video is the only time that I provide planned direct instruction. It is the bulk of the Flip phase of the mastery learning cycle of Punnett Squares. The students also have to record guided notes from a template handout. After watching the video, they have to complete a google form, which contain understanding-level questions and allow students to pose questions. All of the responses get sent to me prior to class, which can help me plan accordingly. Students see the answer key for the video questions by submitting their responses in the google form. So even within the Flip phase of the learning cycle, the video is accompanied with guided notes and google form questions.

The Flip phase only makes up a part of the learning cycle. In fact, the learning cycle begins with an engage and explore phase, which are conveniently combined into the Explore phase imaged in the learning cycles below.

Mastery Learning Cycles - inspired by @Ramsey Musallam 

In the exploration phase, students are first met with the mastery objectives for the unit. Students are expected to keep track of which objectives they have "met" and which level of mastery they reached. They are also responsible for providing evidence for their perceived level of mastery. After seeing the objectives, they are engaged with a controversial question about designing babies. They complete a poll and participate in a virtual discussion online. The second half of the exploration phase is an activity in which they simulate making babies with a classmate. They use their traits, which were inventoried in a previous lab, to make deductions about their genetic makeup. Once they have ascertained their genetic makeup, they "reproduce" with a partner and make predictions about their offspring using the rules of genetics introduced in the baby making activity. After making two offspring, they answer questions which culminate with an application task to make statistical predictions about future offspring. I expect that some students will be able to derive a way to tackle this application question but most will have some difficulty. This is where the flipped video comes into play. They'll learn about Punnett Squares while reinforcing and introducing vocabulary and seeing a sample problem solved in the video. 

After watching the video and completing the other requirements of the Flip phase, students enter the Apply phase. They apply what they learned from the video (and explore phase) to complete different activities. There are several choices (a problem set and two online simulations) but they all require creating and solving Punnett Square problems. Students get instant feedback. They then return to the application questions from the baby making activity. At this point, they should easily be able to make generalized predictions about their offspring. 

Once students finish the Apply phase, they can demonstrate different levels of mastery. In my current version of this learning cycle, they can choose assignments aligned with the higher order thinking levels of the revised Blooms taxonomy: analyze, evaluate, create. Completion of the mastery task allow students to take a Moodle quiz, which gives each student a different version each time. Students who are unsuccessful on the quiz, can enter a remediation phase. Once students successfully complete the quiz, they complete a mini project where they research a genetic disorder and create a presentation, which must include a genetics problem incorporating the disorder.

All of the steps of the learning cycle are captured in the MentorMob playlist below. Hopefully, through this demonstration, you'll be convinced of one of my major understandings from FlipCon13: flipping is not just about the videos!"

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!