My flipped classroom

About October of last school year I came to the revelation that I HATE lecturing. I hate that my 12 year old students sit there in silence for almost 45 minutes and I talk at them. It's not a discussion, its a lecture. It is me imposing what I know on them whether they care or not. And I was done with it.

Right after parent teacher conferences I decided to curb the madness. I would make videos to get my "lecturing" out of the way and then we could DO math in class. It was definitely an ever changing process and my kids were wonderful in hanging in there as I modified and changed. Sometimes we would have 4 videos in a week, sometimes none. It all depended on content and their understanding.

At the Christmas break I asked students and parents to fill out a google form asking how they felt about the flipped classroom so far. For the most part, the response was wonderful. Parents were saying that their child who had hated math since kindergarten was suddenly excited to do homework. Kids were saying they loved having less math homework and felt like they were doing well. I did have some kids say they preferred bookwork, which I totally get. The most jarring comment I got was from a parent who obviously didn't understand what I do during the day.

It went something like this:

           You are being paid to teach our children not make videos and then just sit around all day.

I was taken aback, alarmed, confused, concerned, and angry. How could this parent really think that's what I do??? I had discussed my plan with principals, parents, and students in depth and she really thought that was what I did?

I had to let it roll off and look at all the other positive and supportive responses to how I had chosen to teach. This one parent was simply uninformed. About a week later there was a special on PBS about the flipped classroom and I wanted to force that parent to sit down and better inform herself.

So... what is it that I do? What makes my flipped classroom different than a traditional classroom?

My traditional math classroom routine: EWWWW

Bellwork-
     - While students complete a problem on the board, I checked the dreaded homework. Up one aisle and down the other. Checking off VERY quickly if they had completed the correct questions, all the while trying to keep them quiet. For all I knew, they could have shown me someone from another hours homework. I did have a couple kids try to pass off a different homework assignment altogether!

Homework Answers
     - I would read off answers to homework problems as they checked. In theory, they should all ask questions when they get one wrong to better understand the problem right? Wrong. If they got them wrong they didn't want to be called out for it so they may miss 9/10 problems and remain dead silent. Super. Great learning going on there.

Lecture
     - Me wandering the room (my biggest complement of the year was that they could never be on their cell phones because I move around too much) and talking at them... Woo hoo...

Homework Time
    - A worksheet or a selection of problems from the book that they may or may not understand how to do based on minimal time talking at them.

Doesn't that just inspire you to be in my classroom??

My flipped classroom routine:

Disclaimer: my school district has adopted a 1:1 technology program where every middle schooler will come to school next year with an iPad air. This helps with a lot of my technology problems. My kids can watch videos and get practice without my having to check out laptop carts. Yay!

Mondays look somewhat similar to a traditional but minus the bell work and homework parts. It's a little more lecture heavy but I definitely still have them practicing the skill. Why Mondays? Because I have learned from experience that even the best student won't do homework over the weekend. Why fight a battle you can't win.

Monday Night Homework: A video and 3-5 questions. I try to make at least 2 of the questions review of something from either the week before or that week and 3 questions over the new stuff from the video.

Only 3 questions over the content?????

Yep, only 3. Imagine this scenario: Jimmy watches the video and comes away thinking that the area of the circle is A = pi x r x 2. He then does 20 questions using that formula. He has now cemented that in his little brain and will never unlearn it.

Versus Scenario 2: Jimmy watches the video and comes away thinking that the area of the circle is A = pi x r x 2. He does 3 problems using that scenario. His brilliant teacher notices that he got them all wrong and he corrects his problems in class, learning the correct formula. Success!

They answer the questions on a google form and it automatically submits their answers to my spreadsheets.

Their answers look something like this:

I have them coded to turn green if they had the correct answer and red if they didn't. This allows me to EASILY see who is getting it and who isn't. I also tell the form to send them a copy of their responses to their school email.

Tuesday - Thursday

• First 5 minutes- 
• Students put their bell work answers onto a google document so we can see everyone's responses at once. We then discuss any common problems or solutions we see. Sometimes its short answer, sometimes its a number. 

• Activity/ Group Work/ PBL / Lecture (when needed) - 15 minutes
• This is my flexible-add instruction- do activities etc. time. It is entirely based on what the content is and what the kids need at that time. It might be the majority of the class working on one thing and a small group working with me. It just depends. 
• I will need to work on KEEPING MY MOUTH SHUT. I tend to want to start talking and teaching and talking but that is not the point of this time. 

• Flex Time (20 minutes- 2 x 10 minutes)
• This is something new I'm trying and like most everything I do, it may change. My thinking is that I will provide 3 options for them to work on. 
• One will be an individual worksheet covering whatever the previous nights video was on. 
• One will be a buddy activity. 
• One will be an online practice link or application based questions.
• We will have 2 fifteen minute chunks and they have to do 2 of the 3 options. The thinking is that the kids can move at their own pace, get help when they need to, and get the practice they need in an environment where they can get help. 

• Wrap Up (5 minutes)
• This is something I completely STINK at. I am really hoping that building the time and structure in will help. I think I may connect this to their bell work google doc so they can write 1 thing they are still struggling with or a question they have. 

Friday- Quiz Day usually.

And that, dear critic parent who thinks I sit around all day and eat bonbons, is what we do during the day.