Reflections on my First Attempt at Flipped Learning

[I finally consolidated my notes in order to summarize my initial experience with the flipped class from last year.]
 
During the fourth quarter of last year, I tried a basic flipped class, where students watched videos at home and completed traditional assignments in class. But within only a few days, the class started to split into noticeable groups: those who could move on and learn at a deeper level, those who's pace matched my assignment sheet and those who needed more time to process the material. It also happened that some students missed classes during that week. I didn't know how to respond, other than just to let things go. I allowed students to watch videos in class if they didn't do it for homework or were ready for the next topic. It was actually pretty exciting. It felt like I was meeting the needs of my students. 

The unanticipated benefit was that I was able to hold students accountable for demonstrating knowledge. If students were working at their own pace, then why not make them redo unsatisfactory work and prevent them from going on to more difficult content, especially in a cumulative course? 

This accidental mastery model raised some interesting questions and issues. 

1) How was I going to manage kids ready for the test or quiz? How would I ensure test integrity if some kids saw the test earlier than others? 

•  Since I had not planned for asynchronous learning, I decided to keep tests and quizzes on certain dates, perhaps pushed back a few days from originally planned to accommodate stragglers. In summary: asynchronous activities within each unit but an ultimate unit deadline. 

• However, I decided to make online Moodle quizzes during the summer to accommodate mastery learning in the following year. The plan was to generate an exhaustive question bank to make each quiz attempt different from each other. Students can take exams early without ruining test integrity and make redos possible.  

2) How would I keep track of student progress?  

• During the first three quarters, I used an assignment sheet with the aim, agenda and homework clearly laid out for each lesson. But that accommodation became obsolete as soon as the course became asynchronous. I decided on a stopgap measure: a spreadsheet organized by students and dates. I checked in with each student during each class and suggested a nightly homework assignment depending on their progress. Students who worked ahead did not get nightly assignments while others did. It was effective considering the "klugey" nature of it but seemed unsustainable for an entire year. How could I keep students accountable for homework in such a haphazard way? Next year, I needed a more effective method but wasn't quite sure of the solution. 

3) How would I approach labs and data collection? One of the historic strengths of the course was the collection of data-rich experiments. The way I achieved and emphasized statistical analysis was through repeated trials conducted by multiple groups. How could students who work ahead have access to a wealth of data if they were the first to collect data? 

• I decided to minimize changes to lab procedurs between years and share data from previous years of experiments. Quicker students add to older data sets and can still draw conclusions.  The implication was slower students would have access to more data. 

• I have to admit that setting up multiple labs was hard at the beginning, really hard! I had to be very organized. Biology teachers, who frequently work with perishables, understand the difficulty of this task. Imagine placing multiple orders for items, sometimes weeks in advance, some of which have a week or a less shelf-life; imagine doing it in a way that would allow students to conduct the experiment they needed on the day they needed it. Imagine trying to make these projections and accounting for unreliable shipment and students who change their work pace.  

• I lucked out a lot in the 4th quarter; the human body lab materials were either easily purchased from a neighborhood grocery store or nonperishable. Had I conducted a DNA or fruit fly lab, I would've been in trouble.  

• Truthfully, I still haven't figured out a great solution. 

• So far, I plan to switch between asynchronous periods and synchronous activities. Right now, I'm thinking asynchronous 3 days then a break for synchronous activities, like labs, on the 4th day. It's not a perfect situation because labs ought to be relevant to contemporary content in the course. Students should follow up labs with relevant application. I wouldn't want students to complete labs before they're ready or so far after they learned the important background information. 

4) How would I hold students accountable for watching videos?  

• The easy answer was mandate notes, like I did for assigned readings years ago. But I have to admit that the video notes were a disaster. I'm ashamed to admit that I took it for granted that kids could take notes from a video, especially considering that they can pause and rewind. In hindsight, this oversight is embarrassingly obvious. Students are used to passively watch videos, rather than actively take notes. I solved that problem by creating guided notes templates and collected them. The quality of notes tremendously  increased.

So what were the results of this experiment with flipping? 

Class was so much more enjoyable. I was excited to go to class. My students worked, laughed, collaborated, designed and redesigned experiments, volunteered to be test subjects, and argued about how the body worked. They edited previous answers to questions, quizzed each other, and explained ideas to struggling students. It felt like a community. I had tons of fun. Sometimes I joked around with a group of students, gave feedback, coached a student, or gave a mini presentation to 2-3 students at the board. Sometimes I gave an extra hand helping out a lab group, settled disputes, gave hints to frustrated students, and shared online resources. I even recall being a group's test subject here and there.  

Test and quiz scores were different between the two classes. One group maintained the same average since the beginning of the school year. The second group dropped by 8 percentage points. It's hard to make a conclusion about this data for several reasons. 

• First, the final unit only had a quiz and a test, which is about 2 quizzes shorter than the other units. Not a great sample size. 

• Second, the skills of inquiry were more prevalent in the flipped quarter but not greatly assessed. I used similar assessments from the previous years. It hadn't occurred to me to document the increases in inquiry skills emphasized in that quarter. 

• Third, flipping was a new way of teaching. Video production was also new. It's hard to expect the same level of effectiveness when I've taught one way for a decade and the other way for a few weeks. The mistakes documented earlier in this post is enough evidence of that fact. 

• Four, flipping was new to my students. This was the first time most of them even heard of that method. To make matters worse, they had to adjust midstream. Some students made the transition effortlessly while others did not. The students who were highly motivated, organized and independent had a great time, while the students who were slippery, disorganized and unmotivated, struggled greatly - which is probably true for any method.

I'm eager to compare my results with a group of students who were in a flipped course from day one. I'll be glad to write a blog post about my next reiteration of flipped learning a year from now.

What did my students say?

At the end of the year, I asked my students to fill out an anonymous survey evaluating the course. I added questions about the switch to a flipped class in the 4th quarter.  The responses were overwhelmingly positive and reaffirmed my desire to continue this flipped class endeavor. I also took to heart the cool feedback and planned for some changes (like having students fill out a Google form while watching the video to submit questions to me.)

The questions I asked and student responses are below: 

I'm encouraged by my first attempt at flipping the class. I think it worked well and the negative feedback was fair and not surprising at all. I've made some changes and now I'm ready for attempt # 2 (this year) in my flipped class!

The Potential of the FLIP Meets Workflow & Tech Issues Head-on: week 1 reflections

Successes: 

It was great seeing my new group of 8th graders. After working through some projector issues in the morning, most of my introductory lessons on day one accomplished my goals: explaining the Flip, intro to the course, workflow and tech tools. I do admit to explaining the Flip at the front of the room and definitely understood the irony. Despite interacting with students during this introductory monologue, there was a moment of clarity which reinforced my decision to flip. I couldn't say with certainty which students were listening, understanding or day dreaming. I felt relieved to say that this will hopefully be the last time I lectured at the front of the room. I'm trying it cold turkey. 

With that being said, I did employ some flipped strategies on day one. Students worked through a introductory course scavenger hunt, where they learned about the course, important tech tools and workflow. They produced a google document containing screen shots and information about the course. Of course, they had to watch introductory flipped videos. This worked well. Not only did students demonstrate that they knew how to use the tech tools and information about the course, but it had the added benefit of finding out which students had problems with their google drive accounts, wireless access or iPads. Since the scavenger hunt was flipped, I was able to spend class time on tech troubleshooting and helping students one-on-one. I learned most of their names on the first day! 

After day one, we jumped right into the content. We started a data-rich lab with tons of moving parts. Students put what they learned immediately into practice, whether it was collaborating on a google spreadsheet or navigating through the Mentormob playlist. There were questions but less than I expected. I walked around, talked, joked, and quizzed myself on names. I answered questions, asked (sometimes begged) how I could be helpful, demonstrated tech tricks on the iPad, and ran around a lot (the lab required some students to use hallway space.) Needless to say, I was so tired but had fun and was not stressed at all. 

So far, I've gotten positive feedback about the helpfulness and clarity of the videos. In addition, some of the students are starting to realize the potential of the Flip. For example, a student mentioned to me in the hallway that he went ahead because he had a sporting engagement later in the week. What a testament to this student but the model made that possible. Students are working in random spots in the classroom and in the hallways. They are helping each other. Another student received permission from me to skip a video because he already knew how to do something. I also have a high-achieving student who is considering blasting ahead in order to learn some concepts beyond the scope of the course. There is great potential in this model. 

Adjustments: 
The iPad is new to 8th graders this year so a good number of questions stemmed from that. I need to learn the Reflector app to screen cast how to do certain things on the iPad. I imagine I'll get fewer of those questions in future years since the younger students now have iPads. I might also consider documenting all of the quirks of iPads; for example, you can't insert images using the Google Drive app, there's a way to switch from the mobile to the desktop version of Google Drive, or editing a cell on Google Sheets in the mobile version opens the edit option for the entire row - not good if other students need to edit the same row. I won't speculate how much data had to reentered because of this ridiculous quirk in Google Drive.
 

My plan is/was (still not sure) asynchronous units with ultimate deadlines. So students will work through the content at their own pace during a unit but must complete the entire unit by a deadline. Throughout the unit, perhaps once per week, there will be synchronous full-class activities like peer instruction, lab set up or data collection. But I decided to shrink down the asynchronous time to a week rather than a unit. Students will work at their "own pace" during the week, deciding the best use of daily class and homework time, but must have their work completed at the end of the week. I'll keep this model for the first few weeks until I feel students have a good handle on this new type of control. I worry about students who typically have issues getting work done. But I do want to transition to my Mastery Learning Cycle model to give students more say in their education. I'm hoping students will appreciate this change. 

I added due dates for activities, which basically means the end of the week. I only recently added estimated duration times to give students some help with planning. I'm embarrassed this didn't occur to me sooner. How did I expect students to plan days ahead if they had no idea how long activities would take? Of course, I'll stress that these guidelines are my best estimation of uninterrupted work time. I'm eager to find out if these estimations are true.

It also became clear that I needed to make videos outlining the weekly tasks. Each week's video will explain the tasks, known obstacles and pitfalls from previous years, and some workflow suggestions. During this week, students watched the video in class but I'm convinced this ought to occur at home during the weekend. So I'll set a date for publishing and sharing the videos with students during the weekend. Even though I'm concerned with keeping up with video production, this change should prove to be useful. The video will be current, based on the flow of the class, potentially geared to individual sections and can also keep parents in the loop.  I'll post the video to the top of the course website homepage (week #1 video is below.)

A student's question pointed out something I hadn't considered. While this is my first full year of flipping, I do have some videos that I made in previous years. This year, I changed the order of some content but neglected to edit past videos. Unfortunately, one video I shared took certain facts for granted that the students did not learn yet. Urgh! I definitely will have to pay attention to past videos.  Anyhow, I was able to edit the video and add the missing parts within 30 minutes. The silver lining is this was an example of "Just in Time Teaching." I made and shared a video in response to a question. (Yes, the question stemmed from my mistake but it is still a demonstration of the potential of flipped learning!)

Student questions really are an indication of the effectiveness of a lesson, instructions or general clarity. This week I received several email messages from students unsure about which graphs to make for the lab. They told me that they understood from the videos HOW to make the graphs (good!) but not WHICH graphs to make. At first, I concluded that the confusion stemmed from students neglecting to read the packet, which is probably true for some students.  However, when some messages started with the disclaimer that they read but did not understand, I knew the problem was on my end. Instead of editing the lab packet, I just edited the week one video and added more information then sent an email telling them where/when in the video to get this information. This might be more effective because the screen shots also provide examples of graphs and the location of the data to be graphed. Again, this intervention did not hold those who understood hostage. I'm so happy about the Flip because students who already figured out which graphs to make can continue working in class, while the other students can get up to speed by watching the video clip. Everyone getting what they need! 

One of the email messages I mentioned previously was interesting because it asked if I was going to "teach" tomorrow. I might be sensitized to that phrasing because veteran flippers warned me that some students and teachers will not equate flipping with actual teaching. 

After fielding some questions related to workflow, I also made some tweaks to improve the clarity. For example, I made the error of over sharing Google Drive documents and folders. The accounts of my students were flooded with documents that they did not need yet. I unshared several folders. I also added a sign to the homepage indicating which learning cycle and unit we are investigating. I'm hoping these tweaks and more time students getting accustomed to my workflow, will lead to more clarity. If not, I've also sent a Google feedback form so that I will stay aware of emerging issues. I suspect that the workflow will need to be greatly condensed this weekend. I'll take a look at what worked well last year and student responses from past feedback forms to reconsider what I'm doing with workflow. I'll be sure to share my thoughts on workflow in next week's reflection.

Related articles

• New Beginnings on Flipped Day
• Admitting my Fears of Flipping my Class.
• Curating Learning Materials via MentorMob

How I Spent Flipped Day

Probably by coincidence, our school's Online & Blended Learning Committee presented their findings on Flipped day. Knowing that I flipped my class, I was asked to participate in the presentation. 

Here's the basic outline of my presentation, minus some things I mentioned on the spot. The beginning of my talk was greatly inspired by Amanda Meyer, who blogs about a presentation she recently gave. Since then, I've adopted this message and shared it with my students on the first day of class.

"Stand up if you agree with the following statements. 

• You want your students to engage in critical thinking.
• There are times where you need to give direct instruction - explain a concept, demonstrate how to do something, give information or instructions.
• Some students instantly understand while others do not.
• Some students need to hear or see things at a slower pace than others.
• Some students need to hear or see things multiple times to get it.
• Some students pay attention during direct instruction and some do not.
• Some students are absent when you give direct instruction.
• Some students need and/or request your help outside of class time.
• Some students are reluctant to request help.
• Some students do not complete their homework because they are genuinely confused. (Some expected chuckles here.) 
• Some students would benefit from your presence during those times.
• Some students get inappropriate help during those times.

Keep your responses in mind when viewing the next clip.

So I was faced with an important question, what is the best use of my class face-to-face time. Is it me delivering information to my students or is it working with my students?

I decided the second option was the best way to spend class time and that's what led me to flip my class. "

I went on to explain what I did during my first flipped class attempt, which was 4th quarter of last year. I provided tangible examples of how flipping improved my class and how I plan to enthusiastically build on my progress this year. I mentioned how a previous presentation on digestion took about a class period and a half in previous years and how the video turned out to be only 10 minutes. This recovered time was spent answering questions, letting students spend more time on designing experiments, even revising experimental designs and collecting data. I answered questions and grabbed a few students who struggled and did small group instruction at the board.

There were thoughtful questions and issues raised. But at any rate, a couple of teachers approached me about connecting with other flipped teachers and learning more. Even though I did not have a class of students, it was a great Flipped Day!

Related articles

• New Beginnings on Flipped Day

New Beginnings on Flipped Day

Happy Flipped Day! The beginning of this school year marks a pivotal transition in my teaching career. Due to a summer of reflection, professional development and growth of my PLN, I will make a slew of changes. Perhaps, I'm taking on more than I can chew and this is analogous to diving into the deep end; however, once I get an idea, it is full speed ahead. Like Mike Greenberg constantly says on my favorite ESPN show, and I recently repeated in a #flipclass chat, "once you find the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want to begin living that life immediately."

The same rings true in my class. Once I realized that I wanted to flip my course, use Standards Based Grading (SBG) or have students blog, I needed it to happen yesterday, not tomorrow.

Here are the changes I'm implementing:

• Flipped class - started 4th quarter of last year
• Mastery learning
• Learning cycles  
• Projects aligned to Higher Order Blooms Tasks
• Student voice and choice
• Moodle quizzes
• Student blogging - next year
• SBG - next year

It is an overwhelming list. The flipped class would've been a great accomplishment in a given year. However, the reason I'm flipping is because offloading direct instruction gives me the opportunity to make a responsive class. By instituting mastery learning cycles with blogging, SBG and voice & choice, I'm creating the class that I've always wanted. The flipped class gave me the vehicle to achieve, what I hope to be, teaching Nirvana. 

I know the road will be filled with obstacles and roadblocks but I'm happy to have a wonderful PLN,  a toolkit of teaching techniques and pedagogy to navigate the road!

Related articles

• Mastery Learning Cycles: a Mash Up of Mastery Learning & Explore-Flip-Apply
• Educators Encouraged to Flip a Lesson on the First "Flipped Day"
• Flipped Classrooms: The Future of The Educational System
• What educators need to know about Flipped Learning Day

Admitting my Fears of Flipping my Class.

CC Courtesy of Do Not Fear by Tomasz Stasiuk

As the school year approaches and I embark on this flipped learning endeavor, I'm confronted by my fears. I hear it's therapeutic to name your fears. Even as I admit these fears, I feel empowered. Admitting these fears have allowed me to build safety nets into my course. They have inspired me to reflect.

I fear that my students won't be be able to learn content from a video. I'm worried that they'll need to have their questions answered immediately and the next day will be too late for them.

I fear that I will be overwhelmed with creating videos on top of the normal duties of grading, designing learning activities, paperwork, etc. My presentations are already made and some have been improved over multiple years. It would be so much easier to use what I have. 

I fear my impatience. I fear that I see the great potential in the advanced flipped instruction models and won't take the necessary baby steps before moving onto mastery, explore-flip-apply, etc. 

I fear students and parents will not understand what I'm doing and why. Most importantly, for students who struggle, I fear the blame will be placed on the flipped classroom.

I fear asynchronous learning. I fear my class will be an organizational nightmare. How will I keep track of all of the work students have completed and still need to complete? I fear that unmotivated students will be content wasting time and will only learn a fraction of the concepts in the curriculum.

I fear the flipped class is a fad and I'm diving into an unsustainable movement. I fear my YouTube channel will become an embarrassing reminder of my naïveté. I fear the silent "I told you so" of colleagues.

I fear that I've overestimated the amount of free time I've gained by offloading direct instruction. I've been adding more inquiry, PBL and student voice & choice. Perhaps I've added too much and will feel rushed as always.

I fear that I won't maximize the potential of the flipped class. I fear that I won't see student gains in achievement. I fear that I'll invest time, energy and resources into a model that will not produce results. I fear that I have wasted school resources. 

I fear that I don't quite understand the paradigm shift above the obvious. I fear that my class will become about the videos and not the learning. 

I fear letting go. I fear that students will no longer see me as a teacher. I fear they won't think that I'm valuable. I fear not being needed anymore. 

So what are your fears in a flipped classroom? Which ones are real issues and which ones are imaginary? Which ones have you solved? 

Tools of the Trade

When I made the plunge into flipping, I was equipped with an iPad, Macbook and the Explain Everything app. But as I planned to redesign the entire course, I wanted a more powerful option. After some research and discussions with the Tech department at my school, I now have a good toolkit to make videos. For anyone who has access to money, below I describe the hardware that I use. If you were so inclined, you could purchase these materials and be worry-free. 

There are two major types of videos that I make: screen and lab casts. Primarily, I make screen casts to teach concepts. The lab casts contain live footage to demonstrate lab procedures and the use of equipment. 

Screencasting

Computer: Macbook Air

This is a fast and powerful machine, even though it is just an Air. Although, I will make the switch to the MacBook Pro in the fall for more memory and power. But this is a good and less expensive option (although Macs are typically more expensive than their PC counterparts.)

External Hard drive: Seagate Backup Plus 1TB

I purchased this to store my Camtasia projects. Even though I feel pretty secure uploading videos to Youtube and backing them up on Google Drive, I want a hard copy of the Camtasia projects. Storing these projects are important because I do plan to make future edits to my videos. I started with an older model of Western Digital drive but I wanted an upgrade and love the lightning speed and portability of this drive. Make sure you purchase a little case for it.




Tablet: Wacoom Bamboo Splash

This seems to be the go-to tablet of flipped teachers. I've read great reviews and it is relatively cheap. It is the wired model but that doesn't bother me because I always make my videos on a surface that can hold my computer and tablet. An overlooked but important feature is the pen holder. This is a must-have because you don't want to misplace your pen.



Computer Mic: Samson GoMic


Again, this is a popular but inexpensive USB mic. I don't know much about microphones but the voice quality is noticeably superior to the built-in mic. It also comes with a handy case.

Labcasting

HD Camera: Canon Vixia HFR200     




This easy to use camera will come in handy when I need to tape instructions for labs and other activities. It can also be helpful for taping work on iPads as an alternative to the reflector app. Originally, I opted for a flip camera but the zoom on this Canon is much more powerful.







Directional Microphone: Rode Videomic Pro

Like the USB microphone, the directional microphone will produce superior sound quality than the built-in mic. This will come in handy when video taping labs and other activities.





Tripods:



There are two tripods here. The larger one is a standard tripod and the smaller one can be helpful if I need to hang a camera from weird positions.




Optical Drive: USB External Slim SuperDrive Disk Drive Burner

I only needed an optical drive because I had a Macbook Air. While these computers are sleak and beautiful, they lack an optical drive. There were issues downloading hardware drivers to my computer, so the optical drive was invaluable here. This drive could also burner DVDs containing my videos if students couldn't get Internet access at home. I won't need the drive after the switch to a Macbook Pro.

Wishlist: I wouldn't mind getting a set of USB drives to lend students who are having Internet issues but still have computers at home.

Grading on the iPad - A Look at Gradebook Pro

Gradebook Pro is a wonderful iPad app that can replace an educator's grade book. I'm sure some teachers will find this app indispensable.

Some of the features that I have found the most useful are -

• Easy to use.
• Protected with a passcode.
• Calculate weighted or standard averages, even if all assignments are not graded.
• Organize assignments (eg, tests, labs, quizzes.)
• Add notes to each graded assignment.
• Grade summaries can be sent via email.
• Backup to Dropbox.
• Vote to request new features.

Probably the most important and relevant to the flipped class is that the app is on the iPad. As I moved to a mastery model, recording grades and notes on the spot became important. On a daily basis, multiple students completed assignments and I needed a reliable way of keeping track of completed assignments. Gradebook Pro did that and so much more.

If you have the time, check out this other positive GradeBook Pro review.