Reflecting after 13 Days

    Today was my 13th day in the flipped classroom and, while it feels like my first year some of the time, I'm certainly way ahead of where I was back then.  I don't have to worry about classroom management, about school policy, or about who I am as a teacher.  I am confident and collected.  The first-year feelings seem like they should be bad, but they aren't.  I'm re-focused, re-energized, and re-motivated.  I don't feel like I have the crisis of faith I had at the end of last school year about my role in public education.  A lot of good is coming from this model.  Here are the positives and improvement areas I've discovered.

Positives

Calculus Student Buy-In: On any given day, I won't have more than three who didn't watch the video or complete their summary.  The questions that calculus is asking are amazing - many of the are thirsting for knowledge and how everything's related.  In algebra 2, we usually have somewhere between half and two-thirds of the class prepared, depending on the day.  At this point, only a couple seem to truly be repeat offenders with a definite pattern of not watching.  I'll be better able to keep track of these students with a little more data.

Blank White Paper: At the start of each discussion, each group gets a blank sheet of white paper.  On this paper, a group member records the various topics that are discussed within the group.  This paper is submitted to me at the end of the period.  It really helps me to know where certain groups are at, what misconceptions exist, and questions that are posed.

Student Achievement because of the Videos: It's kinda funny.  I'm using the same words as I did before.  And a lot of the same examples as I did before.  Using the same logic that I did before.  But now that it's in a video, the students get it.  They come to class with a lot of knowledge to share, and they are excited to be asked a question to which they know the answer.  I've noticed this to be immensely helpful in my algebra 2 classes, where most students have failed at least one math course and many would rather be anywhere else.  The fact that they're successful is a huge plus for them.  (This, unfortunately, does not apply to all topics.  Absolute value inequalities are impossible for my sixth period.  But my fifth period understands them just fine.  And they watched the same video.  Go figure.) 

Period 1 actively learning!

Active Student Participation: Just look at this picture.  That's my first period - every day - for at least 90% of class.  In my old class, I would talk a lot.  90% of class used to be lecture and used to be directly guided by me.  Students probably only worked like this 10% of the time.  Now, with the flipped classroom, my kids work 90% of the time, collaborating and learning in a very active way.  It's not perfect, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.  Especially now that there are different assignments available for the groups, each group could conceivably be working on something different, all at the same time.  In the words of MJ (that's actually Michael Jon, not Michael Jordan, but Michael Jon is sort of like the Jordan of education...) "The things you can do in a flipped classroom!"  Boy is he right!

Video Length and Quality: I've now figured out how best to work the document camera software to record my lessons.  This seems to be the easiest and, now that it's easier for students to read, a quality option.  I think that every algebra 2 video will be document-camera based just to make my flip a little easier on me.  I'm still going to try to do as many in-person "live" video lectures for calculus.  It's a little easier to put in an extra hour of work when everyone will watch it.

Improvements

Student Summaries: The summaries in calculus are all right - they include the main points from the video.  The algebra 2 summaries are really poor.  Many are only a few sentences (but, thank goodness, they are sentences complete with capital letters and punctuation).  The algebra 2 summaries really only cover surface-level information - the title of the video and perhaps one major thing to remember.  I really have to do a better job of critiquing their writing.  How can I spend more time with each summary while efficiently moving group-to-group so that I don't spend 45 minutes of class time critiquing summaries?  I'm thinking about showing students examples of good and bad summaries - good summaries emphasize how to do it or why to do it.  This might help better direct students.

Questions: Calc questions are awesome.  Algebra 2 questions are nonexistent.  I REALLY need to remember that AP students are not the students in my algebra 2 class for students with math anxiety, math phobia, and math issues.  It will certainly take some time before good questions are asked regularly.  I think I average a student-asked higher-order thinking question once every two units.  Crystal Kirch, the amazing teacher after whom I have modeled my initial flipped classroom, recently blogged that she has some students who do not have any questions, but cannot seem to answer basic questions correctly.  I need to do a better job of identifying those students immediately.  Perhaps open-note quizzes about the basic facts in the video, such as a problem or two?  Can you do it, like I did it?  That name isn't half bad....

Discussion Time: While students do get to talk during this period and I want it to be open to the students to discuss as they need, the structure appears to need a fix, especially at the algebra 2 level.  Some students don't participate (they did the WSQ, they know the material, but they don't want to turn around and talk).  Some students are off-topic.  Perhaps if I asked students to write their perfect 5-sentence group summary, write down questions they have about the topic, and do one or two questions as a group that are very similar to the problems explained in the video.  Perhaps the doing problems, just one or two, will help to bring out the questions.

Practice Time: I regularly under-estimate the amount of time it will take my algebra 2 students to complete practice problems.  I'm sure part of the problem is motivation, but I feel it's more than that.  They work slowly and make a lot of mistakes.  Often, they don't realize that they've made a mistake, even though their solution process is nowhere close to the process they have in their notes.  Today, in sixth period, it took 30 minutes for two problems.  And some didn't complete both by the end of the period.  It's tough for them to replicate a process - this is the most frustrating part of being a math teacher.  Maybe they don't see the how; maybe they don't see the why; maybe they don't see the logic.  I can't explain it, but I know that we need to be able to do more practice.  I'm sure a creative solution will present itself soon.

What have you Learned?

    I really need to ask this question to my students, and the sooner the better.  My ability to reflect and analyze on my work is one of my strongest suits.  Asking "what have you learned" can only help to better improve my students' reflection skills.  Perhaps Monday they'll get a survey to complete as a warm-up.  The worst possible scenario?  The results make for a great post.