"That's a wrap"

The flipped classroom experience is coming to an end.  I am stuck in the future and the past.  There are 3 days left in the semester and I am thinking of "what went well" and "what can be improved next semester".  Looking ahead is exciting.  I hope to make improvements to the Gr 11 course and implement those changes to my Gr 12 course (I'm flipping the Gr 12 for the first time starting in Feb.)

Things that went well, from my perspective: 

• Most of the time... the majority of the students watched the videos.  It was clear that they watched the video's and watched them again.  Toward the end of the semester, when the content became more challenging, the number of views increased.  Some videos had 90 views.  There are only 45 students between my two sections.  So on average, they each watched it twice (although, I know some watched it more than that).
• Use of class time.  Again, the class time was used very well by most students.  The ability to go around and support students where they were, was very rewarding.  This year, I had fewer students seeing me outside of class time.  There still were a few students that did not use the time wisely, nor did those same students watch the videos.  It was frustrating, however, as my colleague says to me "You can't breathe for them".  Some students will just 'not care', no matter how much I care.
• Shorter video's are well received compared to longer ones. Video's that were over 8 mins, I would say got "complained" about the next day.  The ones that were short and sweet (even if I made them watch 2 in one go) were appreciated.
• Class averages.  My class averages are 75% (before final summative and exam) which, I have to say isn't that much higher than I've had in the past, however, one of my classes has a few students who are failing and then the rest of the class is very high.  I believe the failures are skewing this average down.
• TaSQ sheets were very helpful to the students.  Those that always had them, seemed to exceed those that didn't.  

Things that need improvement from my perspective: 

• Question time at the beginning of class.  Students did this for about a week, then I know they were just wasting time chatting.  I realized this early and started getting them to bring questions to the SMART Board and we went through them as a class, but that seemed too much like traditional teaching to me at times.  I still don't really know how to set up my class for next semester.  I have learned from a colleague in my board who is also flipping, through his blog  Beyond Angry Birds that he breaks his class into 3 groups: "KNOW, WONDER AND LEARN".  They are pretty self explanatory.  The "know" group, goes on and begins the work together, the "wonder" group, watched the video's but have questions and the "Learn" group did not watch and, therefore, needed to do so.  I think I might give this a try.  I will spend my time with the wonder group.  The other thing that I could do is give a "warm-up" question each day.
• Students who didn't watch videos really didn't have consequences, except for my "disappointment conversation", "put a brick in your house conversation", and the odd call home.  What I will definitely do this semester I also learned from another colleague who is flipping.  He uses Remind101 (I've mentioned this before), and once a student didn't watch the video for the third time he contacted the parents and got them to sign up for Remind101 so that they would see the work for each day.  I plan on trying this, however, it will require me to send message each day - but I'm willing.
• Remind101- Well it went well for those who signed up, but I didn't make it mandatory for all students.  I will make it mandatory this time for all three of my classes.  The only thing is that when they don't have their own phone, they have to use email.  I might, take this a step further, and pair the students up with others who do not have a phone.  Put the onus on them to be responsible for each other.
• More use of Collaboration and Practice Assessment. The virtual classroom environment that I use "ANGEL" has tools that I can make better use of.  I could use the "Discussion Board" for those who want to help each other, or I could use it for them to post their Questions on.  I could also put practice quizzes that they could use to see how well they grasped the content in the videos.  Oh, to have more time.....

All of these items were from my perspective.  I am going to get each student to do an on-line assessment of "the flipping experience" as part of their exam.  I will share this feedback within the next two weeks.  Also, another teacher and I, will be videotaping interviews with some of these students to use in presentations that we will be doing at spring conferences .  I will be presenting at this year's OBEA in April.

REFLECTION TIME!!

Well, I think I have finally finished making all of my Gr 11 Accounting Videos for this year.  So I think it is a good time to reflect.  I had a discussion with the students about my videos and we had a vote.  One question that they got to vote on was how I should finish the remainder of the videos for the course.  I asked them "Would you prefer, shorter videos (4-6 mins) rather than longer (8-14min) ones".

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!

Peel District School Board Flipped Video

Yesterday was a surprise.  A colleague of mine came up to me and said "I saw your video and it's pretty cool stuff - I never realized what a flipped classroom was until I watched it".  I was wondering how he saw my video and what video he was talking about.  Then I realized that PDSB Communications Department has posted this video about the flipped classroom on the front page for all PDSB staff.

The video is pretty informative and has the perspectives from other PDSB staff who are also flipping.

Take a look when you get a chance.