However, the clincher was... they would be responsible to watch more each night." It was 90% of the students who preferred shorter videos EVEN if they had to watch more in one go. They explained that:
- They can then break it into two or three sessions to do their homework - they felt that once they started a long video... they felt they had to sit there longer and finish it. If there were shorter videos..... they could do them individually at different times. They would pay more attention
- They can easily go back to certain topics and more readily "find" topics/material that they needed to review
- They felt they were accomplishing more with more videos.
- They felt that their attention span would be better with two videos that equalled the same length as one. (It doesn't really make sense, however, I get it.)
So with this feedback, among other suggestions, I made the remaining 10-15 videos into shorter chunks. We will see how it goes.
On Thursday, I had a TaSQ quiz (see earlier posts about this) and they did really well! I'm so proud of them. They are still watching the videos. The implementation of the TaSQ quiz has been good.
Other suggestions to make the course better that I'm slowly realizing (took me a bit of time... to figure this out....should have thought of it sooner)...
- Post any material used to make the video (i.e. power point slides, SMART notebook files, worksheets etc) in my Class Web Site (ANGEL). Some students would like to make use of them as well as the video's.
- Post a master sheet of all video links in your class website. I had a couple of instances where students came to me and said "Miss, I couldn't watch the video.. the link didn't work for me...."... Ok this is a mystery for me, because the other 43 students were able to access the video through the link.... but believe it or not.. I trust this student. And regardless, if you believe them or not, if you give them a master list of video links they can't use the "excuse" the link didn't work.
Other things that I've been thinking about for next semester to make my flipped classroom even better.
- In my class website (ANGEL), I would like to put mini- quiz's that the students can do to test their own knowledge
- I will INSIST that all students join my Remind 101 class group. (right now I have 75% of them.. and it works great for them). This way I will know that 100% of the students can get my reminders.
- Post the list of video links right from the start so students who want to work ahead can.
- Have a "QUESTION" of the day.... related to the topic and the video and use this question as a basis of the lesson.
- Allow the class to work in the lab more often to give them more opportunities to use accounting software and other tools.
- Bell Ringer questions each day (perhaps use these questions in my assessments... this may even get some of the late students to class on time).
- Get parents to sign up to my Remind101. (This would be for the one or two students who may need a little extra help to remind them to watch the video's)
During my class time, I also am looking for ideas to build on what I am already doing. Here is a list of things I do during my class time:
- Question Time: Students question each other (and the group they sit with or the whole class) on the previous night's video. I often get them to come up and write their questions on the SMART board and we answer those questions as a class
- Group Work: Students are responsible to submit, or present, by the end of the period a group response to the day's work.
- TaSQ quiz's ... this has been good to keep them on track. Often I use this as formative rather than summative.
- Problem and Knowledge Time: Work on accounting procedures and problems to actively practice what we are learning.
- Lab Time.... to transfer manual skills we have been working on to the computer (i.e.Simply Accounting and/or Excel) to see how it all comes together. I still like the manual as students learn how journal entries affect the accounts and financial statements. They would miss this (I believe), if we spent the whole time in Simply Accounting.
I feel this year, now that I'm flipping, I know my students better, I know their capabilities better, I know who to focus on more, I know when to get parents involved earlier, I know when I need to review material for the class before the test, not after the test.
I'm glad that I was able to "trial" flipping with my 11's. Next semester, I have an 11 Accounting and a 12 Accounting. I plan to flip both and incorporate my learning's into the 12's class. I'm just starting to make those videos and I'm really trying to make them succinct and interesting. I also hope to incorporate as much of the learning's as I can into both sections. Too bad there wasn't more time in each day... next year will be excellent... I will have the videos done and I can take it TO THE NEXT LEVEL!!!
My other section will be 11 Marketing, whereby I plan on doing much more inquiry based, project based learning with the students. It will be a busy semester!
