Flipgrid

Flipgrid & the "Cross Country Book Club"

In the fall of 2019, I had the chance to work with fellow pre-service teacher, Jared Stonefield (@JStonefieldEd), to create a unit plan on the novel Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. While Jared and I were in Pennsylvania, we partnered with two practicing teachers from West Virginia and their classes, a 9th grade Honors English class and an 11th grade AP Literature class.

Jared and I made short videos for our students using the website Flipgrid to watch that contained a little background information or content about the novel they read with discussion questions for them. They considered these questions as a small groups in their classes, then for homework they created their own short video clips back to us. The awesome thing about Flipgrid is that they each had access to each other's videos, so after posting their own they replied to each other, even if they were from the two separate schools in West Virginia! It was an awesome digital learning experience for all of us.

The unit we wrote focused heavily on social justice and how race impacts our perceptions of identity. At the end of the unit, they each wrote an essay addressing these themes which they then emailed to Jared and I.

The feedback and support I got from my coordinating teachers and college professors was so helpful, especially their feedback on how to write better discussion questions and essay prompts. It was also a unique experience learning to try and cultivate a classroom community with students I had never met in person before. Ultimately, though, it was very rewarding, and I really loved the time I spent with these students!