Post date: Jan 05, 2013 7:3:9 PM
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday over the break. I personally have been busy flipping my classroom over the break. What does it mean to flip the classroom? Well, this is where you pre-learn the key concepts of the lesson by taking notes at home instead of having class time dominated by the lecture. When you come to class, we'll do our usual warm up, have some Q&A on the lesson and get right to the business of practicing the math. Why am I doing this? There are several reasons...
Students often get stuck on homework problems because they didn't get enough time to practice and absorb in class. Now the student won't be doing the problems at home, they'll be doing them in class with me there to help them. I'm really excited about having more one-on-one time in class to explain as needed to the students as they work. In addition, the students will also have more time to work in pairs and small groups increasing the number of helpful resources available to them. With the new homework, they won't be stuck since it will only involve note taking and viewing lessons.
Students who are absent can still experience the lesson and take notes. Usually I have absent students copy my journal but they miss the explanations that go with the notes and they have to schedule time to come to my room to take the notes. Additionally, I am trying to get up a significant part of the unit up ahead of time so if a student knows they are going to be out they can do the lessons ahead of time.
When we take notes, I can only go at one speed. It is too slow for several of my students, just right for many and too fast for some. By taking notes at home with videos that the student can pause and rewind, this allows the student to take notes and absorb the concepts at their own pace. If a fast student wants to double time the video, that's fine too although I do go a little faster on the videos than I would in class because I know the students can now pause and rewind. Students who prefer textbooks will find their Holt Geometry book quite helpful in helping them fill in the notes about the concepts and theorems so I am referencing helpful chapters on the page for that lesson. Those who prefer the textbook will still want to watch the videos where I work through the examples for the notes to see how to show work.
It's a resources for parents and tutors. Having professionally tutored UT students, I wish I had the time to tutor each and every one of my students but I know that is just not possible. Now I can make sure that parents and tutors are comfortable with the lessons. I still would love to see my students in tutorials who need that extra help.
Students can go back and review lessons they haven't absorbed. They don't have to rely on the their memory of the lesson, they can actually redo it if it helps them.
Where are the lessons? They are on the lessons tab on my website. My goal this weekend is to get the entire unit up for 4A Similar Triangles by Sunday evening and have a few DVDs burned for those students who do not have access to a home computer and internet.
How can you help support me in this transition?
Please make sure your student watches the videos ahead of time. I don't mean this weekend, except maybe to just make sure you can see the videos. School hasn't started so there is no homework yet, but after the first day of Geometry their homework for next time will be watching the video and filling in the notes I will hand out. You can access the videos and notes at my website on the lessons tab. If they don't watch the videos they will miss on valuable classroom time for practice. I am still grading homework on completion instead of accuracy although I will have a notes key in class for students who completed their homework but need to check the accuracy of their notes.
Let me know if you are having or will have trouble getting to the videos. It wouldn't be a bad idea to preview the first lesson this weekend on Ratios just to see if you have any difficulties accessing the videos. Some of the videos use flash and have built in quizzes so please be sure to update the needed drivers. The quizzes aren't mandatory but are helpful in checking for understanding and I show the answers after the quiz is taken.
If you don't have internet access at home, either have the student watch the videos with me after school OR if they can't, let me know and I can make a copy of the videos for the unit onto a DVD to take home. I don't think I'll be able to have the quizzes on the DVD. We do have a late bus on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays that runs at 5:15 for students who want to do the videos after school.
Donate any old video playing devices like old unused ipods, smartphones, tablets or e-readers so we can have extra video playing resources in class. I am bringing in some of my old devices so students who didn't do the homework of taking notes can do it in class but I only have a few. Again, students are missing on valuable practice time if they skip the homework.
Speaking of supplies, we are running low on calculator batteries. If you didn't get a chance to send in the requested AAA batteries when we collected school supplies at the beginning of the year, I would still be happy to take them now. I don't mind spending my own money on glue, tape and scissors and other classroom supplies but batteries really do add up when you have nearly 30 students using calculators all of the time. Also please remind your students to bring their journal since we will be taking notes in class on Monday and Tuesday of this week as we watch the Ratio and Proportions lesson in class. Their first homework will be viewing and completing notes for the next lesson on Similar Polygons and Dilations. On the similar polygons lesson, I also have an interactive scale factor so students can see it's effect on dilations. I will try to keep the video time to a manageable amount, i.e. less than 30 minutes of total video for homework to account for the fact that they may need to pause or rewind for notes.
I hope you are excited as I am about this transition since it can address many of the challenges we face in the classroom. Believe it or not, it is a lot more work for me as the teacher to switch to this mode rather than the traditional model but I see so many potential benefits that I truly believe the effort will be worth it. Please remember that this is a transition and there will probably be adjustments, especially as we work out the technology issues.
Please feel free to call or e-mail with any concerns.