I went to a seminar yesterday with my friend John Williams (not of Star Wars fame.) As we sat down to began the seminar we had this feeling that this seminar wouldn't be for us. It's not that we were in the wrong one or that the seminar was too advanced for us. What it was is that we are doing this in the classroom already. Two-thirds of the seminar was going to be on making and uploading videos to the classroom which we already do for our lessons. What we need and were not going to get was strategies for implementation for a flipped classroom.
So, here's how it works with my classroom:
We use a 1:1 lab and 1:1 iPads. All notetaking, quiz taking, and most presentations are done using the iPads. Notes are available as videos and online presentations for students to study to prepare for the lesson or to review concepts they didn't quite understand. Students are rather diligent IN CLASS. The problem I am running into is that students ARE NOT diligent out of the class. When it comes to doing the homework (done all online), reviewing the notes (all online), or studying for the upcoming lesson (all online), about 80% are not doing the required work.
One thing I took away from the class was the implementation of an entrance ticket to discover which students did the preparation for the lesson. The entrance ticket would ask students for a special keyword from the lesson. If they did the lesson, or even just perused it, they would know this, and answer the entrance ticket correctly. The issue happens for all the other students who did not do the prep. They would have to log in and do the prep while the other students moved ahead with the activity.
Ideas are great but implementation is hard when I have such a large group NOT doing their work. So, the flipped classroom is going on but the first year language classes have a limited amount of work outside the classroom. When the students get past my first year language course, they are better prepared and actually rise to the expectations when in second year German with me.
So, here's how it works with my classroom:
We use a 1:1 lab and 1:1 iPads. All notetaking, quiz taking, and most presentations are done using the iPads. Notes are available as videos and online presentations for students to study to prepare for the lesson or to review concepts they didn't quite understand. Students are rather diligent IN CLASS. The problem I am running into is that students ARE NOT diligent out of the class. When it comes to doing the homework (done all online), reviewing the notes (all online), or studying for the upcoming lesson (all online), about 80% are not doing the required work.
One thing I took away from the class was the implementation of an entrance ticket to discover which students did the preparation for the lesson. The entrance ticket would ask students for a special keyword from the lesson. If they did the lesson, or even just perused it, they would know this, and answer the entrance ticket correctly. The issue happens for all the other students who did not do the prep. They would have to log in and do the prep while the other students moved ahead with the activity.
Ideas are great but implementation is hard when I have such a large group NOT doing their work. So, the flipped classroom is going on but the first year language classes have a limited amount of work outside the classroom. When the students get past my first year language course, they are better prepared and actually rise to the expectations when in second year German with me.