Time's fun.....flies.....

Time is just flying by.   "What has Fitzee been doing since her last post?" you ask.     

Well, I've been "evolving" my flipped classrooms, been trying out new approaches, and I've been sharing what I've learned, what mistakes I've made and trying to help others (among many other things that would just take up too much space here).  

Apart from holding Professional Learning sessions in my school, visiting with other flipped teachers, and not blogging (oops), I was honoured to speak at this Education Technology Strategies conference held at the Metropolitan Hotel, Toronto. (February 27, 2013). 

Originally, Principal Greg Green from The Flipped Highschool in Clintondale, MI, was scheduled to speak and unfortunately couldn't make it.  Jan Courtin, Superintendent of Education, Peel District School Board, and I spoke in his place.  Jan gave some insight on The Peel District School Board's pilot on "The Flipped Classroom", shared our learnings from Clintondale and a bit about their story and amazing results.  She also  elaborated on the professional learning and sharing we are doing in our board.  She turned it over to me to give an up-front and personal account of what an actual flipped classroom is like.   It went well and there was a lot of interest.

Tomorrow, I will be meeting with a team from the Toronto District School Board to share what we have been doing.  

Key themes that keep coming up are how to overcome challenges when starting your flipped class.  Here are three such challenges:

• "It takes so long to make the videos!" - yes of course there is a learning curve when trying anything new.  This is natural and you will overcome it.  But it is frustrating.  My advice is that we are not trying to win an Oscar for the best motion picture and the students don't expect it.  They want you to be yourself and natural.  When I first started making my videos (a year ago now.... wow, time does fly), It was taking me 5-6 hours to make them AND I was prepared.  Now, if I really put my mind to it, I could pull off a video in as long as it takes me to record it, provided, I have the material ready.  Some teachers only do 1-take and they like it that way.  I edit my video's.  Why?  Well to be honest, I record them in my kitchen, and I often get many interruptions from my family that I need to "cut" out.  Plus, it allows me to take out my "uhmm's" and "all rights".  Which does help to shorten the video.  In addition, I do like to annotate and add some pictures/shapes/arrows etc to my videos to, hopefully, make them more interesting and/or easy to understand.

                                             

• "Students don't always watch!" - students will be students.  I don't sweat this one as much as I did at the beginning.  What I've realized is that, even if you let them watch it at the beginning of class, or not, they are probably still going to do more work than they would have otherwise without you "in their business" everyday.  Just by freeing up your time to wander around and help, you can urge them to get going.  Watch this video on Katie Gimbar's approach and ideas on this topic.

•  Another strategy that I'm using, which I've learned from my Colleague Velisa Anusic (Castlebrook S.S.), is to get parents to sign up for my www.remind101.com. (Mentioned in an earlier blog post). This way the parents can see what is required each day and can be a nagging support for the teacher at home.  On that note, I now have student volunteers from my class posting my reminders each day. 

                                    

• "What to do in class?" - Going from teaching every day (being the "Sage on the Stage") to now not, is strange.  This does take some time to get used to.  I still struggle on a daily basis to make the learning and activities in my classroom more rich and engaging.  I really enjoy the opportunity to get to know each student better and try to make connections with them.  If you read, Prensky's book on Digital Natives you will see that "partnering" with your students is so beneficial for their learning and acceptance of learning.  Give yourself time and don't be hard on yourself.  I'm still trying to come up with a routine that sticks, a seating arrangement that works and more.  As I said earlier, it is still evolving.  I feel that I'm getting closer to a strategy that works.

There are a few other challenges that are easily overcome, however, I felt that this would be a good start.  

Fitzee Out!  (BTW, this is how all of my video's end).

End of Semester Student Feedback

SURVEY RESULTS

I made it!  I made it to the end of the semester in one piece.  I can't believe I actually flipped an entire course for an entire semester.  I believe I made a total of 50 videos.  Wow!!!

In my last post, I promised to survey my students and post the feedback here.  On exam day, I asked each and every student to complete my on-line survey before they left.  I almost got 39/40 students to actually do it.  That is an 86% response rate. (I could do better next time....).  Anyhow, I was pretty surprised to read their comments and see the results.  The following results show exactly what the students had to say.

Also, there were some open ended questions in the survey.   Please find those responses here.  This data not been altered in any way.  I have not deleted or changed any responses.

The Best part about the Flipped class was......

"We did our homework in class and by doing this we could get help if we needed it.
We were able to get more help in class and we had less homework.
Where you could go and watch the videos as much as you want until you start to understand it.
that it was an easier way of learning and it was easier to understand.
I can review the lessan as many times I want which is very helpful for the preparation of the test summative or yeoxaumcan go and see the lesson on video again to study for a test
I got to review the lessons when I needed to.
everything is layed in parts and its straight to the point in the videos.
being able to review things easily by watching a video
i can study at home and ask questons in school
I could watch the videos over and over if I did not understand. Also before my summatives and exams i rewatched a lot  of the videos too study and review.
The videos/lessons were online at all times so if i didnt get anything i could always go back and rewatch the dleosisnognt.he homework in class
time saving in class
re watching the videos
I already knows what i'm going to do the next class. And therefore it's not kind of new thing to me when i'm in class and have  to do homework
Making my own time to watch the different lessons.
we always have time to discuss our problems with the group and with the teacher.
No homework. Learn at own pace
That you could go back and watch a lesson if you didnt understand it the first time
that we did our homework in calssw so if we did not understand anything we could ask the teacher
You can watch the video over and over.
you were able to pause and rewatch videos at your own pace
EVERYTHING!
doing the homework at school and not at home.
The best part was that you could rewatch as many times as you like if you didn't understand something.
we got to do the work in class and got teacher's help.
Barely any homework
Homework in class
Being able to do the homework in class so you could get the teachers help if you had questions
Being able to rewatch parts of the video to understand the lessons better.
it was easy to learn and seeing it visually really helped me. It was a awesome tool for my tests and showed meexactly how to get ready for my tests. This will now prepare me for my exam! I LOVE THE FLIPPED Convienent and easy to understand and work with you can go at your own pace and rewatch to clarify on topics you didnt understand. it is better becuase it's less homework first off and you're being able to look at your lessons before tests and exams
I was able to rewind and watch video's days later. I also like that I can rewatch video's to prepare me for my
exaams "

The Flipped class would be better if.......
"The videos were shorter.
If the videos weren't as long aa they were.
If they all were a little shorter in time.
N/A
the possibility of doing homework can also be available because its sometimes hard to complete the entire amount of work in class. if there is possiblility  of doing it at home can be available it'll be wonderful.
We did more of the harder lessons in class.
we did more inclass review work from the video.
a search function was added to ANGEL in order to locate topics quicker
If the teachers and students can communicate each other more
I think the flipped classroom is great but if all the videos were all 5-­‐8 minutes in lenght it would be better.
the videos were shorter
Not sure it was pretty good. I likes how we got help during class. Maybe in the videos if you bolded things that were important and we would know what to write down.  And also in the videos write in a colour that you could see better?
shorter videosThe videos were 1-­‐2 minutes shorter
The Videos weren't so long and were divided more.
the longer chapters would be broken down into many days because it confuses everyone. I dont know
The videos were shorter
it was perfect nothing was to be changed
we discussed what we learned the following day after every lesson everyone watches the videos.
nore teachers do it.
It would be better if we had less long videos.
Shorter videos!
The lesson wasn't taught again in class
The videos were shorter
We took more time reviewing the work and going over difficult parts in more detail.
the sound was a bit louder sometimes it was hard to hear even when I had the speaker on full volume. video sepereated into shorter time lengths
Nothing really comes to my mind that isn't good about flipped class just when internet is down or there a technical difficulty
 was nothing bad about it
everyone watched the videos so we didn't have to wait for them
I thought it was fine the way it is.
They weren't so long"

The worst part about the flipped class was.....
"The videos were too long.
I found it harder to focus on the video than I usually did when a teacher is explaining in class
Well some of the videos were long and got harder to pay attention to.
N/A
sometimes its hard to complete the entire homework in the class period.
watching the long videos
That if you don't watch the video you won't know what you were doing.
Forgetting to watch a video.
it was boring to sit down and watch a 10 minute video however I still believe it is better than doing homework flipped class is not for every class. EXAMPLE MATH! It's hard to undertand and communicate with a comptuer Sometimes the videos were to long and i would get side tracked since signing in angel is on the internet. forgetting to watch a video because its hard to understand in class the next day
I can't think of anything too horrible about it. It was fun. (:
i dont know
homework :(
nothing
I cant think of anything
Nothing To Report.
when my group mates are not in the mood to do anything and in turn do not help me with my work. SOmetimes I just write the note without understanding what the video is actually saying
For me there was nothing that i would consider the worst part
nothing
Long videos
sometimes you still wouldn't understand a concept because you are unable to ask questions right then and there
NOTHING
nothing.
The worst part was when the we had to watch a lot of long videos in a row because sometimes you have a hard time paying attention half way through  
Making longer videos into two videos it would be better.
I didnt think there was a bad part
Nothing
Wasn't able to watch the videos sometime
Some days I didn't have internet or I was unable to watch the videos through my computer.
nothing. I truly enjoyed this experience and I wish my future classes are all like this! I would like to thank you ms.fitzee for introducing me to such a new concept of learning! it was honestly a wonderful experience being in Glitches or no internet available but that's not really flipped class's fault so overall there arn't any issues!
Not having enough textbooks
trying to learn at home you get lazy and want to sleep and not watch it.
Was if you missed a video you would be behind. But since Central has wifi that should not be a problemsometimes it take longer to watch than do do actual homework "

Where to now?

This semester I will be flipping two classes.  Gr 11 and Gr 12 Accounting.  Gr 11 will be the second time around and I plan on making some improvements to the videos and the flow of the class and the use of ANGEL for student collaboration.  Gr12 will be the first time and I still have a lot of videos to make - That will be my focus for that class.  The nice thing about this class is, I will have a few of my 11's from this past semester joining us... and they already know the flow of the flip.  They can help the other students out.  I also will be teaching Gr 11 Marketing and I will be doing a combination of more inquiry based learning, flipping and use of Blended E-Learning through my ANGEL class site.

Cheers and stay tuned for more!

"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.