What is the Flipped Classroom?

There is a lot of buzz lately about the flipped classroom. So what exactly is it?

In 2007 teachers Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado discovered software that recorded PowerPoint presentations. They used this software to record their live lectures and then posted them online for students who missed class. These online lectures began to spread. And this was the start of the flipped classroom model.

The idea here is that students don't need to be in the classroom to listen to a teacher lecture. If the teacher has prerecorded the lecture or found a youtube video, or a reading passage of some kind to get the content to students then students can access that content from anywhere (or at least anywhere with an internet connection). If this is true then there is no reason for the content delivery to be done during class time. Instead students could get the content outside of class (usually as homework) and then class time would be freed up for other things such as answering questions students have about the content, conducting an activity that will better help students understand the content, asking students to use the content in some way during class, etc.

There are several benefits to this model:
1) Students are able to access content whenever they are ready for it. There is no need for them to wait till the teacher is ready to deliver the content.
2) The content can often be accessed at home and so if the student is sick, as long as they have internet they won't fall behind.
3) This increases the amount of class time that can be spent on collaborative work, student-teacher conferences, and other things that students require an adult or peer for.

There are a few hurdles that teachers will need to overcome if they decide to implement this model:
1) Some students may not have internet at home. In this the work would need to be done during a study hall or the teacher would need to provide a way for the student to access the content without an internet connection.
2) If a student does not review the assigned materials before class then they will need some class time to do the assignment before being able to participate in the classroom activities for that day. This though should not be a huge inconvenience if the assignment takes ten minutes or less.
3) It does take time to record the lectures or find videos online.

If you are interested in learning more about the flipped classroom here are some online resources that might be helpful to you:
Flipped Classroom Infographic
Edutopia: The Biggest Hurdle to Flipping Your Classroom
20+ Tips on How to Flip Your Classroom
The Teacher Report: Portrait of a Flipped Classroom
Flipping with Kirch
What a "Flipped Classroom" Looks Like

If you like to learn by reading books then here are a few for you to check out:
Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams
Flipping 2.0: Practical Strategies for Flipping Your Class by Jason Bretzmann

If you think you might want to try out flipping then here are some technologies that can help you get started:

Quicktime - This is a voice and screen recording software that comes with all computers.

Voice Recording over Keynote slides - If you have Keynote (comes standard with all MacBooks and iPads) then you can record your voice to play over the slides.

iMovie - This software can be used to record a video of yourself using your laptop or you can record with a camera and then edit the video (comes standard on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads).

Garage Band - This software can be used to record your voice (comes standard on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads).

Khan Academy - This website is full of helpful videos and tutorials. You might find a video that help you teach your students already created here.

TedTalks - Another website filled with videos that will teach you something. You might find a video here that will meet your needs.

If you have tried flipping and know a resource or technology that you have used successfully in the past then please feel free to post it in the comments!

How to Make Multiple Choice Tests Work for You

The Maine Cohort for Customized Learning (MCCL) is teaching teachers that content is not enough to drive instruction. Instruction must include three things: content, complex reasoning skills, and habits of mind.

This is great when it comes to designing units that teach students the skills they will need to thrive in the work force or college after high school however, it can make assessment difficult. How can you tell the different between a student getting the question wrong because he/she didn't understand the content and a student getting the question wrong because they failed to use the complex reasoning skill correctly?

Well, in an assessment literacy workshop I took with Anita McCafferty and Jeff Beaudry last year I learned how to make use of my distractors on a multiple choice test to get a better idea why a student got a question wrong.

It's all about how you write the question. Ideally your question should include the correct answer and the following types of distractors:

1) Faulty Reasoning
2) Partial Understanding
3) Misconception

By setting up your multiple choice questions with these types of distractors you can get a relatively good idea why a student got a question incorrect and adjust your teaching accordingly.

If you would like to see an example of a question written like this then click on this link. This will take you to a multiple choice question, the poem the question is about, and a detailed explanation of my thinking process in picking the distractors.

Mass Customized Learning

When my school district first started the discussion of going to proficiency-based education we were given a book to read as a staff, Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning: Learning in the Age of Empowerment by Charles Schwan and Beatrice McGarvey. This book was splendid. It showed a time when students would be in charge of their own learning both in terms of choosing what to learn but also choosing how and when they would learn it. It successfully challenged our views of education in our country today by offering real-world examples of companies that have been able to use technology to make our lives better and easier. It asks teachers to explore how we could make:

1) Different learners learn at different rates
2) Different learners learn in different ways

actually work in the classroom. It offered every educator a vision of what education could look like.

Now for some this vision is more attainable than for others. The book proposes that students have the ability to job-shadow, intern, or even apprentice at local businesses as another way to meet education standards. It proposes that we allow students to pick what classes to take and when to take them. It suggestions giving power to students that teachers are not sure all students are responsible enough to handle. In some places in our state business are few and far between. Many towns find that students must overcome obstacles just to get to school every day let alone take responsibility for their own education.

Proficiency-Based Education was offered up as the more realistic vision of education. It offered the opportunity for every school to offer some customization to students while still meeting state mandates.

It is important to realize that while mass customized education is a wonderful vision for what schools should be it will not be achieved over night. It may not even be achieved in the next ten years. But in order to achieve mass customized learning we must first achieve proficiency-based learning. You can't have mass customized without proficiency-based. And so by striving for PBL (proficiency-based learning) we are making our first strides towards MCL(mass customized learning).

But the two are different. PBL is about helping students gain proficiency in every standard before they graduate from high school. It does suggest breaking each standard down into discreet skills that students can master over time to achieve proficiency and it does mean offering students plenty of opportunities and as much time as is needed. However, it does not require that students be given voice and choice in their learning. It does not require teachers to rethink traditional teaching methods and to consider how best to deliver content to students. It can be achieved without changing the teacher as "sage on the stage" mentality.

MCL asks for more. It asks teachers to give students voice and choice in what they learn, when they learn it, and how they learn it. It asks teachers to think about what the best method of delivery would be for each student and then group and regroup as is necessary.

The grouping and regrouping is where MCL requires PBL. PBL tracks where each student is on a particular standard. MCL requires this so that students can be grouped and regrouped according to what they still need to learn and how they will learn it. Allowing educators and learners both to know what they still need to learn helps both make decisions about what, when, and how.