A Tale of Two Classes

    It was the best of teaching, it was the worst of teaching.  But, I have to give myself credit - I've seen worse teaching and today wasn't it.  Our first day of flipped class discussions certainly left something to be desired; the end conclusion, though, is that I am convinced that this is a major step in the correct direction and that it will have a profoundly positive impact on the learning on my students.

The Best of Times - AP Calculus

    It was no shock that my AP Calculus students would lead the pack when it came to flipped learning, but I was impressed.  I had 45 out of 47 students show up this morning prepared with their notes and WSQ complete.  One student had access issues which I already knew about.  He spent the first 20 minutes of class watching the video on a friend's phone.  The other student had the notes, but didn't have a summary or questions.  He was able to participate in the discussion just fine.

    The discussion went amazingly well.  Students first talked about their summaries for five minutes and then moved into the questions that they had.  Although first period was a class of 32, it seemed that all groups stayed on task and were helping each other a great deal.  For accountability, I had each group select one person as a recorder and gave them a blank sheet of paper.  Their job was to take the "minutes" of the discussion so that I could know what their group had or had not discussed to that point.  This seemed to help the students stay on task.  While they discussed, I moved from group to group listening to their discussions.  I brought a pad of paper and used it as a mini whiteboard to help students expand on their thinking.  It was probably a highlight of my math teaching so far - we were discussing the "what if" questions and the "why" questions in the first 15 minutes of class.  They were curious and hungered for knowledge.

    I picked four questions from the class to discuss all together.  Questions like "why do we get a different answer than we got last year?", "what's the squeeze theorem?", and "I hate factoring - what's the easiest way to do it?" allowed us to discuss both fundamentals and theory.

    AB will do their practice problems tomorrow, but BC started theirs in class.  I honestly felt useless for 40 minutes today in that class.  Students were collaborating, active, engaged, and moving around the room working with others to find solutions to their questions.  I had to only answer three questions:

1. How to factor a sum/difference of cubes binomial.
2. sin(2x) = 2sin(x)cos(x)
3. (3+h)^2 = 9+6h+h^2

and the students took care of the rest.  I felt like this was teaching at its finest.  My students were responsible for their learning.

    On a critical note, my BC students were unable to finish the practice in the time we had remaining in class.  I believe that I need to shorten the length of the assignment (I'll have to experiment to find just the right length for the class) and we need to have a more efficient discussion time.  If we can limit warm-up, discussion, and group discussion to 30-40 minutes, the students will have much more time for their practice.  That said, everything else worked better than planned.

The "Could Have Been Better" of Times - Algebra 2

    Somehow I knew during lunch that 45/47 was just too good of a success rate to expect entering my first day with Algebra 2.  I knew that they would require more structure - what I could not anticipate were the number of students who wouldn't be prepared.    I acquired a laptop cart so that I could give a student who had not watched the video a computer so that he or she could watch it during the first part of class.  I would be ready if one person or everyone had not watched the video.  Exactly half of the students, 12 out of 24, were prepared.  I quickly arranged four groups of three students each for discussion and sent the other students into the hallway with a laptop.

    I then spent the next 20-30 minutes working not with the 12 who were discussing, but troubleshooting the 12 who hadn't accessed the video.  Some laptops wouldn't start.  Some wouldn't let you access the network.  Some wouldn't access the Internet.  Some wouldn't let you log into Edmodo.  (And Edmodo was the only place the students could go since YouTube videos are blocked by the school server.)  Then, the piece de resistance, once students entered Edmodo, they were blocked from watching the video at all.  There was no way I could get these students to watch the video at school anyways, and we had just wasted 30 minutes.  Top it off with a disruptive student who decided to answer her cell phone in the classroom (after I told her that she could not answer her phone) just added to the disappointment.

    I got everyone back into their original groups and we moved ahead with the planned activities.  The students who had watched the videos did a great job of helping those who hadn't.  The activities went alright, nothing special, and each student deepened their understanding of algebra, permutations, and combinations.  In the end, I don't know how I could deem today as a failure.  We learned, most students stayed positive and resilient, and we're learning what works and doesn't work in providing access for all students.  I believe that we'll be in a much better position come Friday.

    There are two positive notes.  One is that I cannot have this problem tomorrow.  We watched the video as a class on Friday, completing the Watch part of the WSQ.  Students will only need to bring their Summary and Questions to class for our discussion.  I'm excited to see how that works tomorrow.  Second, a colleague of mine reminded me that 50% isn't uncommon for homework completion among these Algebra 2 students.  In fact, only 50% of students in another class of the same level completed their traditional homework.  Twelve out of 24 gives us a baseline - improvement is possible and certainly imminent.

Teaching is a Funny Profession

    As distraught as I was with a 50% in Algebra 2, the positives are massive.  For example, I just got this post to Edmodo from one of my Algebra 2 students.

This is a student who is truly taking responsibility for his learning.  He knows the expectations and, because the homework is achievable, he wants to be prepared every day.  I've even heard of two Algebra 2 students who watch the videos with their families.  Such parental support in high school mathematics is rarely seen in a traditional math classroom.  What awesome families!

    In this way, I've always seen teaching as a paradox.  In one philosophy, it's my job to help each student to achieve his or her learning potential.  It seems like I fail when I can't get 100% to be successful, and certainly state and college board tests allow teachers to quantify the success of everyone quickly.  Yet, at the same time, teaching is so personal - only the individual student matters.  A message like the one above shows the true value of what I can do and what a flipped classroom provides.  It is difficult, but I believe patience with Algebra 2 will yield more results like this.

It Will Work

    I'm convinced more than ever that this is a great tool that will help my students learn.  We have our issues to solve, but any classroom management system will have its kinks.  What's important:

• I'm enthusiastic.
• My students are asking higher-order thinking questions.
• My students want to learn and want to help each other.
• Students are stepping up to the challenge of taking responsibility for their learning.

A flipped class won't be the answer to all of my math teaching concerns, but boy does it look promising.  In the words of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, IT COULD WORK!