2014-01 Chua Chong Wen, Clement

Instructions

Your personal page serves at least three purposes. It is a place for you to:

1. take notes

2. enable your flipped presentation

3. submit your individual assignment

Use the rough scaffold below as a guide. You may add headers and content, but not remove any.

Part A: Imagine that you are submitting a Wikipedia article on the flipped classroom. Draft your article here. Bear in mind that your writing will be public and subject to scrutiny and critique. What would you write to educate others like your school principal and colleagues about the flipped classroom.

Part B and C: You are a manager of other teachers, Suggest a plan for a group of teachers to flip their classrooms. Prepare a flipped presentation in Part C to get formative feedback on your plans.

Refrain from uploading presentation or other files to this space. Instead, host your files in the cloud and embed them in your page. For help on how to do this, refer to the iTunes U courses provided by CeL in the Resources section or search Google or YouTube.

Name: Clement Chua

School: Holy Innocents' High School

Role: HOD/Humanities

Part A: Article on Flipped Classrooms

1. Definition and origins of the "flipped classroom"

a. Origins in Inverted Classroom, Just-in-time Teaching

b. 3 dimensions of flipping:

i. flipping the location - learning of content & concepts takes place at home while traditional homework assignments are done in the classroom in a collaborative manner.

ii. flipping the teacher - students learn not only from content that the teacher creates, but also via the many different resources that the teacher may post or direct students to engage in to further their learning. Students also teach their peers during the collaborative assignments/tasks in the classroom.

iii. flipping the creator of content - students also help to co-create content for learning via platforms in which they collate their learning and share with their peers.

2. What the flipped classroom is/is not

Is not:

• 1. More curriculum/ teaching time

  2. Replacing frontal teaching with videos

  3. Teacher not having to do any work (or having less work and preparation)

Is:

• 1. Using ICT and different modal texts (eg. videos, comics, podcasts) to engage students in meaningful learning at home before going to class to engage in activities to deepen learning.

  2. Meaningful activities created for classroom learning

  3. Gives more time for "remediation" by teacher as facilitator

  4. Give increased time for interaction and collaborative learning through application of learning

  5. Gives teacher more time to assess individual student's learning (ie. more time for Assessment for Learning) and to give appropriate attention and help to each student as much as possible.

3. Designing, developing, evaluating, and managing flipped classrooms

A. Designing and Developing

a. Student-centricity as focus. Students' learning has to be the main reason for the adoption of the flipped pedagogy. Hence, to get students to engage deeply in their learning, the planning and design of the lesson must be made from the learners' point of view: to adopt the type of text and modes of transmission that students take to naturally (eg. short videos, comics, podcasts, online activities)

b. Teachers' Metacognition. Teachers must be cognisant of the different pedagogical skills and moves involved in the flipped pedagogy, and to apply them efficiently and appropriately at different points of a flipped lesson. For instance, a teacher must know how long an average student's attention span is, so that the home-learning portion of the lesson is delivered in an appropriate mode and of an appropriate duration/length. (ie. videos should not last longer than 3-5 mins (estimated)).

B. Evaluating

a. Learning Objectives. Teacher's learning objectives must be clear and measurable.

b. Measuring Student Engagement. Students' engagement in learning must be obvious - learning at home has taken place, engagement in discussion and peer learning in the classroom is high.

c. Students' Metacognition. Students should begin to chart their own progress in learning and are able to ask good questions.

d. Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Assessment for Learning Opportunities (AfL). Teacher must have opportunities to have DI and AfL while facilitating the students in engaging in classroom activities, tasks and assignments. Teacher must be able to assess individual student's learning and address gaps in a personalised way.

e. Top-Down Approach? Difficult to "evaluate" a flipped lesson without teacher feeling "evaluated", hence approach must not be top-down - ie. classroom observation. To create a safer environment and culture, a lesson study approach may be preferable.

C. Managing Fliippers and the Flipped Classrooms

a. Teachers' Motivation. Teachers may not want to try flipped pedagogy due to reluctance to move away from the familiar and the sheer increase in effort in lesson design and preparation. Hence, a team/community approach would be preferable, while allowing it to be a grassroots movement rather than a top-down or school-wide approach. Adoption may be slow, but with the unprecedented advances in technology and the increasing need to engage a generation of students who are more plugged in to the virtual world and cyber space, teachers may become curious when students rave about flipped classrooms and hence ask for help.

b. Professional Development. Need to get HOD/ICT onboard. Sharing may take place at school-level meetings, and training sessions could be arranged for those who are interested.

c. Engendering Flipped Culture. Attempting to flip other platforms such as department meetings and professional learning sessions/workshops may help colleagues experience the benefits of having a flipped lesson (eg. time-saving, efficiency etc). As mentioned below, the building of communities of flippers within the school would also help to engender the flipped culture.

d. Staying Connected. To continue to keep abreast of the latest platforms that students engage in, managers of flippers may need to occasionally conduct focus-group discussions (FGDs) with students so that their modes of lesson delivery remain relevant.

4. Flipped classroom issues and solutions

Issue 1: Not all teachers are pedagogically and technically ready to implement the flipped classroom pedagogy.

Solution: Build communities such as Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) such that teachers share their ideas and learn new skills/applications from each other. Moreover, teachers within PLTs can collaborate to create flipped lessons, tapping on each others' strengths.

Issue 2: Time and space for teachers to prepare adequate quality resources

Solution: Collaborative work by teachers in same department - professional development, co-construction of resources. Also, allow students to recommend good resources.

Issue 3: Not all students have access to computers and online learning outside of school.

Solution: Creative solutions needed - eg. negotiating with school librarian to keep PCs available before school, during recess and after school for students to learn; engaging help from school's HOD/ICT and IT technician to open up a computer lab during a fixed time once a week for students to use.

Issue 4: Difficulty in gaining by-in as the genesis of the pedagogy is at the grassroots level - little by way of evidence of its effectiveness in terms of statistical improvements in terms of real student achievement in academic results.

Solution: To adopt the lenses of student-centricity in terms of engagement in learning and self-motivation, plus growth in students in terms of their ability to assess their own learning and that of their peers, plus witness their growth in 21st Century Competencies (21CC), Self-Directed Learning (SDL) and Collaborative Learning (CoL).

Issue 5: Maturity of students may be an issue, especially in terms of using mobile devices in the classroom or even at home.

Solution: Inform parents of flipped learning pedagogy to be employed while assessing cohort's maturity before allowing use of personal mobile devices for learning in the classroom (with consultation of SLs and DM).

5. References

Part B: Flipped Classrooms in My Context

Outline a plan for mobilizing a group teachers who will flip their classrooms. You might:

• • Describe your context (what levels, what content areas, how many teachers, etc.)

  • Devise plans for communication, buy-in, professional development, evaluation, etc.

  • Provide a timeline

1. My Context.

• • Co-ed mission (government-aided) school that is traditionally strong in culture of care. Students generally of slightly above-average ability that match national average for passes and distinction rates at national examinations.

  • Newly-appointed HOD Humanities

  • New to the school - ie. no experience of school culture other than few meetings attended in late 2013 and conversations with SLs and fellow KPs

  • Experience in teaching History and Social Studies with a developing understanding of the requirements in Geography

  • More than 10 teachers within the Humanities Department, out of which there are 3 other KPs (and 1 of them is the incumbent HOD/Hums who will be taking on another portfolio when I return to school)

  • Teachers of mixed teaching experience - 5 are BTs with less than 4 years under their belts, 2-3 have about 10 years, while 5 have more than 15 years experience - different motivations, different readiness to accept change?

  • New leadership in school - new Principal, new ideas - announced that (some) change should be anticipated that would begin in late 2014.

  • Young KP team - many newly-appointed KPs in the school who seek a more authentic learning experience for students

2. Plan & Timeline

Phase 1 - Building Genuine Relationships & Looking for Flipping "Allies" - May to July 2014

• • To build an open culture by being sincere about listening to colleagues within department and being humble enough to admit that I don't know everything

  • Look into department to see who has attempted (or at least heard about) flipping the classroom, and who may be inclined to attempt it

  • Trying out flipped pedagogy in my own classes and inviting potential Flipping "Allies" to sit in and to give constructive feedback

Phase 2 - Piloting Flipped Pedagogy through Department PLTs (with Data Collection) - July to September 2014

• • With potential Flipping "Allies", create a PLT within the department (preferably across all 3 disciplines) to support each other in flipped pedagogy.

  • Preferably, at least 2 teachers per discipline so that there is mutual support in creation of flipped lessons.

  • Create templates to monitor flipped classroom and build in checkpoints eg. class test scores, student engagement surveys

Phase 3 - Flipping Department Meeting (Just a portion!) - September 2014

• • Attempt to flip on department meeting, all in the name of achieving greater efficiency in information dissemination & to allow more time for meaningful discussion.

  • Garner feedback from department colleagues about flipped experience.

  • Having a quick sharing about flipped pedagogy for those within the department who are interested.

Phase 4 - Getting other KPs onboard (beginning with SSD & HOD/ICT) - August to September 2014

• • Updating SSD & HOD/ICT of actions within department and asking for their support, especially for sharing by the department during End-of-Year Staff Meeting/Retreat.

Phase 5 - Evaluation - September to November 2014

• • Refer to data collected to collate learning points for improvement

  • Note what skills that require more training and development; approach HOD/ICT and SSD for help

  • Possible areas to measure (what has improved or otherwise):

    • Student engagement via perception surveys

    • Test scores

    • Consistency of student submissions

  • Are teachers in the department that are not involved in the pilot study interested in the data?

Phase 6 - Sharing Pedagogy and Some Data at Department & School Level - November to December 2014

• • PLT to share pilot at Year-end Staff Retreat to create buy-in

Phase 7 - Enculturalising Flipped Pedagogy in Humanities Curriculum - November to December 2014

• • Allow PLTs to decide which portion of the curriculum they would attempt to flip

  • Preparation of flipped resources for identified portions of curriculum

  • Getting non-flippers to assist in creating "traditional" teaching resources such as worksheets to compliment flipped resources

Phase 8 - Dare I Dream? - 2015

• • In-depth sharing and training for colleagues outside the department who wish to flip (especially non-IP departments which may require higher levels of engagement)

  • Attempt to flip my presentation at a SMC meeting

  • Convince SLs to flip a segment of a Staff Meeting

  • Sustaining the flipped pedagogy: building the community and creating resources; collaboration with flippers in other schools who teach Humanities via OPAL

  • Using Lesson Study or Action Research (or other professional development tools) to thoroughly engage in studying the outcomes of adopting flipped pedagogy

  • Adopting flipped pedagogy for inter-disciplinary projects

Part C: Flipped Presentation

Embed your presentation for Part B here. You may include notes in a shared Google Doc if you wish.

Your peers will view this presentation before the last session and provide formative feedback.

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