Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms?

Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms? or Why has English instruction avoided the Flipped Classroom model?

I attended the NCTE convention in Chicago the last few days and these two questions, virtually the same, have been bouncing around in my head.

What led me to really begin asking these questions?
Up until 2 years ago, I had been gradually introducing more technology to my classroom. One piece this year, another piece the next. However, I decided one of my strengths as a teacher was my ability to infuse the curriculum with technology. I worked formerly as a Television Writer/Producer and was required to continually learn and be on the cutting edge of technology. I was stupefied to come into the classroom and see such an aversion to technology in a lot of areas. I decided to take the leap to more technology by cannon balling in and stop the piecemeal disorganized way I had done it in the past.

I already used the Writing Workshop model. Then I read "The Digital Writing Workshop" by Troy Hicks and got inspired to forge forward. Last school year, I also attended the NCTE Convention in Orlando. One of the biggest highlights happened on day 1 when I saw Troy Hicks, Bud Hunt, and Sarah Kajder present in a session titled "Creating Opportunities for Learning with Newer Literacies and Technologies: Three Reports from Cyberspace". Hearing these speakers not only gave me great ideas and inspiration to bring into my classroom, they also validated my decisions on the uses of technology.

After that, the convention sessions where informative but not mind-blowing until day 3 (Saturday) morning when I lucked into a session called "Using Google in Ways That Haven't Even Been Invented Yet: Visionary Reports From Cyberspace." In this session, I watched Andrea Zellner, Sara Beauchamp-Hicks, and again Troy Hicks talk about their uses of Google Apps. I sat in that session seeing small snippets of what they could do and said to myself, "I want to do that." Their presentation inspired me to become a Google Certified Teacher, which I accomplished this past summer in Seattle.

One of my biggest take-aways from the convention was there were people doing what I was trying to do. And, these people were getting respect and adulation for that work. There was hope!

As my teaching and technology infusion progressed, I came across the Flipped Classroom. As I researched this, I saw it as a way to effectively implement the Writing Workshop model. I previously blogged on my decision to move to a Flipped Classroom, so I won't rehash all that here. However, up until this point, the most support I've found in building my Flipped Classroom PLN has been from science and math teachers.

A few weeks back, in a twitter #edchat, the topic of the Flipped Class was discussed. As I have done some presenting on the Flipped Class and had been researching it extensively, I followed the chat and contributed when I felt I could. Brian Bennett was going a great job of answering many questions. Then one of my responses drew criticism from Bud Hunt. Yes, the same Bud Hunt that I had admired just 11 months ago (and still do). It seemed to me that Bud didn't agree with the Flipped Classroom model. I felt he was oversimplifying the issue, but in his defense, in 140 characters, everything is oversimplified. I don't think I swayed his leaning much, if any. I told a colleague the next day that it was difficult for me to have someone whose work I admired be against something I had so embraced. I hoped maybe I mis-interpreted Bud's argument because of the concise nature of twitter.

When the online program was released for NCTE11 in Chicago, I immediately began searching for sessions that I would like to attend. I typed "Flipped", "Flip", "Flipping", and any other variation into the search box and came up with zero results. There were still many other good sessions I planned to attend.

On Thursday evening, I participated in a Google Plus Hangout with a handful of Flipped Class gurus (Aaron Sams, Brian Bennett, Dan Spencer, Jerry Overmyer, Ramsey Musallam, and Karl Fisch) discussing a project. I was the lone English teacher in the discussion. All the others are math and science. I was the "red-headed step-child" of the group. Here I sat in a hotel with 6000+ English teachers and I was spending my time talking with math and science teachers. It didn't quite seem right (no offense, guys).

I sat in 8 hours of sessions on Friday and got some good information. Almost every session, I noticed, brought up Google in some way. I saw presentations by fellow Google Certified Teachers, and learned small tidbits of useful knowledge here and there. But, nothing was said about the Flipped Classroom anywhere.

Things changed in my second session on Saturday. I have been considering implementing a NaNoWriMo project with my students. For those that don't know, NaNoWriMo refers to the National Novel Writing Month and helps writers gain the skills to write a novel in one month. I attended a session that included Tracy Becker. She seemed very knowledgeable and well-read as she quoted John Jazwiec, John Steinbeck, and others. Her work was clearly researched based. Then it happened....she mentioned the Flipped Classroom. My ears perked up and my tail started wagging like a dog hearing its name. Tracy was looking for ways to get more in-class work time and had decided to try the Flipped Classroom model later this school year. There was no reaction from the audience. None. Almost as though they hadn't heard her. And, like that, she was on to her next point.

I listened to the rest of her presentation and the two presenters following her. After the session, I introduced myself to Tracy and told her about my experience with the Flipped Class. (Jon and Aaron, since she is from Michigan, I also told her about the Flipped Class Conference coming to Chicago in June!) We only had a few minutes to talk, but listening to her verbalize her decision to move to the Flipped Class, I saw she was where I was about 7 months ago. I was thrilled to meet another English teacher, a respectable, intelligent one at that, come to the same conclusion about the Flipped Classroom that I had. Coincidentally, she got the idea from some math teachers at her school.

This leads me back to my original questions: Why has the Flipped Classroom evaded English Classrooms? or Why has English instruction avoided the Flipped Classroom model?

I'm not saying the flipped class is right for every teacher. But, I'm surprised more English teachers haven't embraced or even tested the Flipped Class in a small way. I was discussing with a parent early in the school year the amount of English teachers that have flipped. I said, "I realize that if I am one of the few people doing something, I am either 1) extremely progressive or 2) terribly misguided."

The Writing Workshop, while a great method that I am still implement, wasn't fully meeting the needs of my class. So, I toil forward, either being extremely progressive or terribly misguided, hoping to find more English teachers willing to try Flipped Instruction. Thank you, Tracy, for giving me hope. Thank you, Bud, for challenging me to really assess what I am doing. I am still committed to the Flipped Classroom because I am seeing great learning happening in my classroom and wonderful work coming from my students.

I've proposed a session for ISTE in June titled "Flipped Instruction in the Language Arts Classroom". I am considering a similar proposal for next year's NCTE. I know it's a gamble (that's a joke for the NCTE folk as they know the conference is being held in Las Vegas). But maybe it will put the Flipped Classroom on more English radars.

So, in answer to my initial questions, I have no idea. Do you? I'd love to discuss this with any English teachers either for or against the Flipped Classroom. Comment here, tweet me @tcockrum, or accost me at an upcoming conference.

21st Century Skill: Adaptability

Currently, I am in Chicago attending the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention. The events of the day made me really think about what we should be teaching our students. I decided to write this post. And, although some people may take offense to parts of the post, as all good blog posts, it is intended to generate thought and discussion.

We hear this term "21st Century" learning/tools/skills/etc thrown around a lot in the educational field. The implication being we need to teach children skills that will help them in our ever-changing world.

In Adam Bellow's Tech Commandments, he asserts that the most important 21st Century skill is Collaboration. He argues the tools we use aren't that important because tools will change, the skills needed will not. I agree with Adam. After the events of today, however, I believe adaptability should be right up there with collaboration.

As Karen LaBonte said in her session, "The first rule of technology is something will go wrong." Those of us that use technology frequently in the classroom understand and accept this.

Reliance on Paper
I use Google Docs extensively with my students. Before I left for NCTE, I told my students their most recent assignment needed to be submitted to my by printing it on paper. My students were stunned. I explained to them that I would be traveling and may potentially not have access to the internet and I wanted to be able to grade their work regardless. I was planning ahead for my own sake, but also modeling that skill for my students.

The first session I attended today was called "Power of Audience: A Collaboration in 21st Century Literacy". I will admit, it wasn't my first choice, but that session was full when I arrived, so I moved to my next choice. To my delight, it was an excellent session by Tom Zuzulock and Perri Sherrill from Bozeman, Montana on using Google Docs for collaboration. Their presentation was well organized, demonstrated at a level I thought was appropriate to the audience, and gave some good "take-aways". They opened the last 10 minutes up for questions and the very first question was, "Do you have a handout available?" The presenters handled the question well and responded, "Send me an email and I will send you a Google Doc." I wanted to scream, "Have you not been listening to this entire presentation?"

Why such a reliance on paper? I was taking notes on my iPad2 and saw many others as well. I saw some taking notes with a notepad, which is fine if that's what works best for you. But, to sit through a "21st Century" presentation and expect a paper handout seemed unreasonable to me.

Until the next session that is. I won't mention the session title nor will I give many details as I don't want to insult the presenters. They seemed to know their content well and were very qualified to be presenting. However, their presentation relied heavily on paper handouts. When many participants didn't get a handout, they had no back up plan. If you didn't have the paper handout, it was difficult to participate. So, I left the session and went to an informative session on using video games with writing.

The next session I attended was titled "Fly Me to the Moon: Making That Giant Leap Into Digital Pedagogy". One of the presenters was Jen Roberts. I knew Jen from our time together at the Google Teacher Academy and knew she was technologically very savvy, so I expected a good presentation. I was not disappointed.

The first presenter was Karen LaBonte and her main message was that we need to embrace technology. We need to embed it (pun intended) into our daily lives. Jen Roberts followed. Her main message, which I whole heartily agreed, was that our goal as educators should be getting to the moon (she made an analogy to Apollo 8), but many of our colleagues aren't even in orbit. Therefore, we need to help them get "into orbit."

Along these same lines, tweeted by Carl Young during the day was the statistic that only a little over 5% of teachers are using technology for writing instruction. And, the main technological tool is an overhead projector. He got that information from a session by Arthur Applebee and can be found here. It seems we have a significant amount of teachers that aren't even looking up, let alone preparing to be in orbit.

I wish our paper reliant colleagues had seen this presentation. I felt it was a gentle push in ways teachers could get into digital pedagogy. I have a Masters in Mass Communication (from a life before I was a teacher) and there are some principles of advertising known as the push strategy and pull strategy. I won't spend time explaining them. I think you'll figure them out using context clues. But, applying them to education, I'm more of a pull strategists. I move forward at a fast pace and expect my colleagues to be "pulled" along with me or to drop out. These presenters did a better job of using a push strategy than I could have. They are "pushing" colleagues through the process. I certainly admire that. I just don't have the patience to do it. And, again, no paper handouts were provided! The presenters instead posted a link to their presentation and also encouraged the use of twitter to communicate with them and others.

My afternoon sessions were great, but don't really apply to this post, so I'm not detailing them here. However, I did find out the Jon Scieszka was a very humorous individual and had great interplay with M.T. Anderson and Chris Van Allsburg. I hope to attend his session on humor tomorrow.

What? No Wifi?
Speaking of Twitter, I was following the hastag #ncte11 all day. The "trending" complaint of the day was the unavailability of wireless. Many of the tweets seemed to imply NCTE was to blame for this. Many pointed out the irony that the title of the convention included the phrase, "writing the future".

Granted, lack of WiFi was a bit frustrating, but it is far from NCTE's fault. As a matter of fact, NCTE books their conferences 5 years in advance. I'm basing this on the fact that they have the next 5 years published in their program. Could NCTE have known 5 years ago that the Chicago Hilton wouldn't provide free and/or reliable WiFi? WiFi could be purchased for like $15 for a day. I didn't check the actual price because I didn't need it. My hotel right next door had free WiFi! But, that is what I think I heard someone say. I'm sure NCTE will make a note when booking their conferences 5 years away to get WiFi included if possible. But, by then, we could all have 14G technology in our mini-tablets or whatever device is the popular choice at the time.

I heard one attendee complain that a session put on by two very good presenters ran awry when they couldn't access the WiFi for their presentation. My thought was, "What was their plan B?" Would we accept this excuse from our students? I don't. Every time my kids give a presentation, I tell them to have a plan B. If the technology fails for some reason, they should still be able to give a reasonable good presentation given the circumstances. I've presented at conferences with spotty WiFi and I downloaded the Google Presentation to my computer in advance just in case.

Interestingly enough, I just wrote an extensive grant to get multiple Chromebooks for my school. One could argue that, had I brought a Chromebook to this conference, it would have been virtually unusable. I love working "in the Cloud." I'm a Google Certified Teacher, so I embrace new technologies before many others do. I love to see technology perform the way it was intended.

However, opposite to our paper reliant colleagues, we also seem to have many WiFi reliant colleagues. This is why I believe adaptability should be looked at as a vital 21st century skill.

What do we teach our kids when we allow lack of access to frustrate us? What do we teach our kids when we panic when technology doesn't perform as expected? What do we teach our kids when someone gives a presentation and doesn't present it in the manner we prefer (no paper handouts)? If we're teaching students to be good learners, we must to teach them to be adaptable.

What do you think? Is adaptability vital? Or, should it be realistic to expect certain givens in our field? Should NCTE have provided us with free WiFi? Let me have it if you disagree. Let me have it if you agree. As I said, I want this post to generate discourse. That's how we improve our field.

Digital Anne Frank Museum Final Thoughts

Previously, I wrote about the process behind converting my Anne Frank Museum project into a Digital Anne Frank Museum. This is my follow up post to let you know how it went.

Here is where you can find the Digital Anne Frank Museum final product. Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of the project.

Positives:
Creativity: I didn't specify the technology that needed to be used in order to encourage the creative use of technology. I was pleased to see some impressive projects I myself would have never thought of. Two students created the Annex residents in Sims 3 and then recorded some of their daily interactions. Two other students used Minecraft to build a model of the Annex. I am familiar with both of these programs, but would not have thought of tying them in with Anne Frank. Two groups used Glogster and one took those Glogsters and embedded them into webpages without any help from me.

Content: I felt the students did a good jo of showing understanding of content. Only one project, although very creative and artistic, failed to show a solid understanding of the book. I use the project in lieu of a test to assess understanding. It appears the majority of the students came away with a firm grasp of what Anne Frank is all about. However, I don't just want content understanding, but also a clear understanding of the significance of the book. In my opinion, that was achieved.

Negatives:
Death to Powerpoint: Like I said, I didn't specify technology as to allow creative uses. However, I strongly considered banning Powerpoints. Forty percent of my projects were Powerpoints. All of them had good content, but just weren't very original. Also, all of them had a technical issue the students couldn't solve. Some didn't get their fonts or images to appear as planned. Others couldn't get their audio to work correctly. I would say that this was my biggest disappointed. I encourage them to use Google Presentations (this was prior to the recent Google Presentation upgrade), Slide Rocket, Keynote or some other presentation tool. I, personally, can't remember seeing a good Powerpoint presentation, or actually any Powerpoint presentation at many of the conferences I've attended over the past few years. I've been to NCTE, ISTE, and a few smaller conferences and just don't see it. Maybe its my personal bias, but Powerpoints always looked dated and cluttered to me. Recently, I saw on YouTube Adam Bellow giving his Tech Commandments at the 140 conference. The MC implied Adam used Powerpoint for his presentation. I was surprised how good it was and didn't think Powerpoint could do many of the things he did. However, I asked Adam what he used and apparently he used Keynote '09 for his presentation. I assume the introducer was using Powerpoint as a generic term, like Kleenex.

Another teacher at my school recently assigned a Powerpoint specifically (even though we are a Google Apps school). I believe that is a lot of the problem. Too many teachers are still assigning Powerpoints, making students believe making a Powerpoint is an important skill. Presentation skills are important, the ability to make content presentable is important, but the actual Powerpoint program, I believe is counter-productive to that goal. Feel free to disagree and send me wonderfully produced Powerpoints that prove me wrong. I just haven't seen them.

Classroom iPad: We have a classroom iPad2 that the students share. I was hoping to see some students use it for something extremely creative. About halfway through the project, I had one group that was having difficulty with getting video to a mac to edit. Since the iPad has iMovie on it, I suggested they record video with it and edit on it. They got all the video complete and did some work in iMovie, but ended up exporting it and editing on a Macbook in iMovie because that is what they were familiar with. One other student used it to search for images for his Powerpoint. Oddly enough, he moved the images to his Google Docs account, so he could work on his Powerpoint at home. Disappointingly, other than that, no one came up with a creative use for the iPad on this project. At the point, students still see the iPad as media consumption only and are not seeing the production capabilities it has as well.

Overall, it turned out to be a good project that I will continue into the future. Some of my disappoints will require a cultural shift in thinking, not only amongst the kids, but also other staff members. Small steps I guess. Small steps.

Feel free to let me know what you think of the project.

Reading and Discussing is not a Flipped Classroom

I had read the USA Today article about Stacey Roshan's Flipped Classroom a couple of weeks back. This morning, while going through some other sites, I came across a video of the same story. What jumped out at me was a quote by Ms. Roshan where she said, "In an English class, you send the kids home to read a passage, and then in class, you discuss that passage."

As I wrote this, Jon Bergmann tweeted out a story in the Virginian-Pilot about Megan Edwards's Flipped Class. This article reads, "She compares it to English teachers asking students to read a piece of literature at night, then having them discuss the work in class the next day."

Before I continue, let me say, I don't know Stacey Roshan or Megan Edwards personally and I'm not being critical of them at all. I agree with much of what was presented of them in the story. Having had a story done on my flipped classroom recently, I realize you are at the whim of what the reporter decides to use.
In addition, I am a huge supporter of the Flipped Classroom. Many proponents that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for have also presented this argument to support flipped instruction.

The gest of this argument as I understand it is that teachers in English have done the flipped method for years by assigning a novel or other reading to be completed at home and then discussing it in class. I guess at a basic level, it is similar, but I would argue it is not the same thing.

Here is how I would describe the flipped class at its most basic: a method to free up class time to individualize instruction in the classroom. Those of us who use the flipped class know it is so much more than that, though.

Using that basis, sending the kids home to do their reading is the same as sending math students home with math problems. In other words, we are still asking students to use skills at home which they may not possess yet. I'm referring to reading comprehension skills.

In my school, we have reading and English as two separate classes. In English, I teach writing and grammar. In reading, I teach reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. Discussion is a common practice in many Language Arts classrooms. I believe discussion is used for three main reasons: 1) to promote higher level thinking, 2) to assess understanding, and 3) to link basic text to societal, historical, or cultural context. These are all great goals, but is there a better way?

I'm not proposing I have all the answers. I just know, if my students don't have solid reading comprehension skills, discussions aren't productive, nor are they the best method for students to learn.

Last year I was meeting with a parent about her daughter. My 7th graders were reading A Chrismas Carol at the time. The parent told me she liked how I posted the pages to be read online, because she would look them up, read the assignment during the day, then sit with her daughter at night and help her understand the passage. The parent wasn't complaining, but rather praising me for listing their assignments online. But, I couldn't help but feel like that parent was doing my job for me. Wasn't it my responsibility to make sure that child had the ability to read and understand the material? And, if the child didn't understand, was it not then my job to identify what skills she lacked and help her get them? How could I do that if the student was primarily reading at home?

Based on that situation and other similar ones, I am attempting to flip my reading classroom. I have successfully flipped my English classroom and am enjoying great success with it. I'm still bouncing around ideas for successfully flipping my reading class. To this point, I've added video content of terms or ideas that would come up in a reading discussion....like antagonist or plot structure. I've also given days were students read entirely in class and I circulate to have individual discussions to assess understanding. But, the individual discussions don't allow me the time to have deeper meaningful discussions that can be attained in a collaborative group setting. I've also considered and dabbled with a Socratic questioning method to ignite better understanding.

When I was interviewed for the NPR article, the reporter asked me if there was a "light bulb moment" where I knew I was going to flip. I couldn't think of a particular moment. It happened gradually as I researched it more. I attended The Flipped Class Conference and had multiple "light bulb moments" if you will. However, something of this magnitude, I explained to the reporter, isn't something that just happens. It takes time to grow and develop. I believe I'm trying too hard to force flipped instruction into my reading class. I need to take my own advice, it seems, and let it grow more organically based on the students' needs.

I've preached to many that no two flipped classes are alike. Well, it appears even for the same teacher (me), no two of my flipped classes are alike!

So, back to the main topic of this post that got me thinking: I'll say it again, simply reading at home and discussing in class is not the same as the flipped classroom. I cringe when I hear that comparison, because saying that, I believe, takes away some effectiveness in one's argument. Please, keep that in mind during future flipped classroom discussions.

ELA Problems, Explore-Flip-Apply Solution

Last summer at the Google Teacher Academy in Seattle, I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Ramsey Musallam and heard him speaking about different models of the Flipped Classroom. Of particular interest to me was the Explore-Flip-Apply model. Currently, I am doing the traditional model (isn't it odd to call a flipped instruction method "traditional"?), where I front load the information and then assign a project or activity to assess that content. I liked the concept of the Explore-Flip-Apply for the Language Arts class and decided I eventually wanted to move to this model. I wanted my students to get familiar to flipped instruction first and transition them into what I would consider a more difficult model.

Ramsey Musallam recently posted a more detailed explanation of Explore-Flip-Apply and gave some examples from his Chemistry background. This post really got me thinking more about how I can use the Explore-Flip-Apply model. The more I think about this, the more I'm realizing this might alleviate some of the obstacles I've seen in English instruction. I realize every discipline has its own set of challenges. Following are some that I've seen in English Language Arts that many struggle to address. And, after each problem, I've presented an Explore-Flip-Apply solution.

1. Show your work
When was the last time you heard a teacher talking about all the extra English tutoring she did? How often do kids come in before or after school for English help? At my school, our principal runs after school math help (he was a former math teacher), but kids rarely ask for after school English help. My point being, for the most part, kids don't think they need extra help in English as often. If a student has trouble with an English assignment, they will call a friend and get the answer. There isn't the need to show your work as would happen in a math class. There doesn't seem to be an expectation to show your work in English. Sure, we teach writing as a process and may require rough drafts to "force" kids to show their work. But, students used to doing English work at home in isolation, tend also to not to see the need for showing their work.
On a similar note, I love the "revision history" in Google Docs. I can see my students' writing process and "rough drafts" right there in the document.

Explore-Flip-Apply Solution: This model seems to be based around "showing your work". I'm envisioning a lesson in which I present a problem or task. Ken Shelton presented an awesome activity at the GTA on Google Search tools that required us to work in groups to fill in answers to some questions in a short time period. I can see doing something like this initially as exploring. Give the students a short time period to answer some questions. At the end of the time period, hopefully, no one will have completed the activity. Then, have the students brainstorm how or what tools they needed to be more efficient. That's the Explore.
Next would be providing a video, screencast, podcast, or other digital means for them to be provided a list of tools and their uses. Maybe you could even demonstrate finding the answers in the allotted time emphasizing what tools you used. That's the Flip.
Finally, the students return to class and are given a similar, but possibly even more difficult, task. Again, they are given a specified time limit to find the solution using the tools they learned about the previous night. Once they've shown progress in their search efficiency, assign a larger research project. That's the Apply.

2. A lot of writing is collaborative
If we think about times we use our writing skills in really life, many times it is in a collaborative process. Right now, I am working on two presentations and a conference proposal with other teachers. We are collaborating the writing process. Unfortunately, when we ask students to collaborate, all students don't learn or focus on the same skills or content. With some projects, that's acceptable. However, even when students contribute equal work, they still contribute to different tasks. Students will work toward their strengths, which is what real-world collaborations are, but we need them to work on their weaknesses.

Explore-Flip-Apply Solution: I can see doing a project where students teach each other as part of the explore. For instance, I assign a presentation. The presentation has to teach the class a skill or topic on which the group has a lot of knowledge (sound like a conference presentation?). As a group, they have to brainstorm what topic they will be covering and then proceed to determine what skills they need for a successful presentation. If you want to narrow it more, it could be a topic of some content related to your class. Students determine what they are going to need to complete this project successfully. At the same time, they have to identify and document what each partner's strengths are. That's the Explore.
Next, they watch a video, podcast, or other means and see which skills they really do need. Here, I might throw in a twist and require them to perform a weakness of theirs as opposed to a strength. And, at the same time, they need to teach their other group members their strengths and learn from the others how to improve their weaknesses. That's the Flip.
Then, they use all the tools they learned and put together their presentation. That's the Apply.


3. Authentic writing
In English, we always want to work on what is known as authentic writing, or real-world applications. While I love this idea in theory, I don't always see it as attainable. Maybe it is the fault of standardized testing, but students struggle sometimes to make that connection between what they know and how it applies to the real-world application. For instance, I do an advertising unit with my students to cover some media literacy skills as well as persuasion. Rarely do I get a student that makes the connection between the formal persuasive essay they write for class (either my class or other teachers' classes) and persuasive advertising. Here in lies part of the problem. On a standardized test, they are going to asked to write a letter to their principal explaining why school uniforms are bad or good, or some other contrived "real-world" problem. It is simply asking for a persuasive essay in the form of a letter. Some kids don't get that and write these long drawn out letters with poor organization or supporting evidence. I've even had some kids ask if the principal was really going to read the letters. Do you think that kid is formulating good ideas and focusing on the writing process? Not likely. And that is the crux of the problem. If we focus too much on formula writing that the tests want to see, kids miss real-world applications. If we focus too much on real-world applications, kids can struggle to make the connection needed for standardized test type writing.

Explore-Flip-Apply Solution: Well, both my other examples were real-world solutions. However, in this case, I may use a similar contrived assignment that could be seen on a standardized test. I could assign writing a letter to our principal about some topic that needs persuading.
In class, students brainstorm on what skills they need and what steps they'll take in the writing process to compose a solid letter. That's the Explore.
At home, they'll learn the links to other assignments they've had in the past.....persuasive essay, compare/contrast, cause and effect, etc. whichever one I want them to apply here. Or, I may just give them videos on these types of essays and see if they make the connection on their own. That's the Flip.
Then, they compose the letter in class. That's the apply.
Note to self: this exercise might be good to try a couple weeks before we begin statewide testing.

4. Common Sense or "I've spoken English all my life"
Students oftentimes see English as common sense to them. English content is what I like to call cyclical. Or so it appears. As opposed to math or science, in which you build on each topic, English content comes back around and is re-covered time and again, year after year. I can look at my school's 5th grade textbook and find many of the same concepts as my 8th grade textbook. We begin talking about nouns, for instance, and my students say, "We already know what a noun is. We had it in like 5th grade." What they don't realize is that nouns in 8th grade are subtly more comprehensive than in 7th, 6th, and 5th. They might be thrown some collective nouns or gerunds. But, they have their blinders on and are thinking "I already know nouns; I can tune out for awhile." Therefore, they aren't going to ask for help understanding nouns because they haven't even realized there is new content being presented.
Many teachers believe, as do I, that grammar is best taught in context. Meaning skill and drill worksheets, while possibly good for picking up terminology, don't improve grammar in writing. And, isn't that where we want to see good grammar? In their writing? I've always been a bit bothered by our standardized tests that say, "Identify the preposition and object of the preposition in this sentence." My students can write wonderful and correct prepositional phrases with ease. Yet, some of them come to that question and can't identify the preposition. When they get older, will they be more aptly served writing prepositions or pointing to them?

Explore-Flip-Apply Solution: This might be bit harder to pull off in the Explore-Flip-Apply model. I might be reaching here, but I'll still give it a go.
In class, students might be presented with a problem. Explain what goes into writing an effective paragraph. Maybe even focus it more by adding nonfiction or fiction. Let the students brainstorm what makes a good sentence, attempting, at the same time, to use proper grammar terminology. While they are throwing out what they think are grammar terms, asked some pointed questions like, "does the type of noun we use matter?" Or, "why might introductory clauses be important?" At the end of the period, we should have a list or guide to writing an effective paragraph, with what they believe is proper terminology (but not telling them if they are correct or not). That's the Explore.
At home, they watch a video explaining all they really need to know for writing an effective paragraph, confirming some of their previous work or dispelling any myths or misunderstandings. That's the Flip.
Next day in class, use my list or guide, maybe even spend some time comparing the two guides and coming to a common agreement about certain items. Maybe even have a discussion on why my guide is wrong and theirs is correct. Ultimately, you have them write a paragraph using the guide they learned, at the same time, identifying prepositional phrases, introductory clauses, etc. That's the Apply.

In this post, I solely covered the writing part of English Language Arts. I didn't tackle the Reading Comprehension part at all. That's down the road some time for me. As I stated earlier, I'd like to move my students to the Explore-Flip-Apply model away from, or complementary to, the Tradition Flip model. I have my sights set for doing something like this after Christmas break. We'll see if it happens. In the meantime, I'd love to hear other suggestions on using the Explore-Flip-Apply model to solve the problems I presented. I would also love to hear your problems (content problems that is) so I can help brainstorm solutions. If you have ideas or literature units using the Explore-Flip-Apply model, let me know those as well. I see this model having so much value in the ELA classroom.

Flipped Class Week 5

My thoughts on Week 5 of my Flipped Class

1. Pages of content...
It's official, based on my students' notebooks, I have delivered as much content as I did all last year. Well, that's not entirely true. However, last year, students took notes on my lectures, but I never really had the time to check the quality of their notes. I checked a students' notebook I had from last year. It had 36 pages of notes. No, I didn't count them. I have my kids number their pages and put in a table of contents. I noticed this week that several kids are easily to 36 pages already. By that standard, I will deliver at least 4 times the amount of content. I'm not sure that is true, but I know I am still delivering significantly more content than I've ever been able to in the past. As I'm planning my videos, I've already finished my list for 2nd quarter and have made most of the videos. I am beginning to plan 3rd quarter videos and am having a bit of a struggle filling out the video list. I know some content I traditionally cover in 3rd quarter. But, with the extra time flipping provides me, I am stretching to come up with content. I'm worried I may run out of material in the 4th quarter. I'm realizing that I will have the ability to teach the kids material that I haven't even considered in the past.

2. My new toy...
I mentioned in my last post that I received a Livescribe Pulse pen. I found an excellent use for it last week. Many of my students were struggling to determine the difference between linking verbs and action verbs. As I circulated the room, I was getting many of the same questions. I went home that evening, pulled out the Livescribe pen, and created a quick pencast explaining an easy way to tell the differences along with examples. The pencast was 6 minutes long. Including upload time, the whole process took maybe 20 minutes. I offered it to the kids as extra credit. The feedback I got from the kids that watched the pencast was that it was very helpful.

That's all the thoughts I had for this week. I'm really getting into a groove with the video process. Most of the kids are as well. I did have a kid say one day, "I hate this flipped class, online thing." She was actually saying,"I'm not organized enough to keep up with my work and that frustrates me." Her and I had a short conversation about her organizational methods. I plan to follow up this week. Just one more benefit to the flipped class!

Flipped Week 4 - Are Middle Schoolers Mature Enough?

I was out most of last week with my 7th grade homeroom at an outdoor leadership camp. That was a positive experience and is always worth the time taken away from school. So, I returned for week 4 of my Flipped Class anxious to see how things would be when I returned. Here are my thoughts from Week 4.

1. Is it the Middle School age?
I remember at the Flipped Class Conference this summer, someone said that most Middle School kids don't have the maturity to handle the independence of the Flipped Class. I knew some of my kids would struggle, as mentioned in previous posts, but I thought most could. My belief is that if you make the expectations clear and reasonable and hold them accountable, most Middle Schoolers will meet that expectation. Many have told me they like the independence they're given and appreciate being trusted to do their work. They like being treated "like high school students" since they are getting older, as opposed to the teachers that still treat them like "little kids".
Well, before I left for the camp, I gave the kids all the work they were expected to complete in my absence. They had ample time to complete it in class. I left the list with the sub and asked her to remind them everyday what they had to complete. In addition, they had other assignments that they could work ahead on if they completed the due work. When I returned on Monday, I expected every student, with the exception of maybe 1 or 2, to be ahead of schedule. I got no notes from the sub about any disruptions to class, so I knew they had 3 full class periods to work. She also said the kids were well-behaved, so I went in to school on Monday very encouraged. Unfortunately, that was short lived. I have all my 8th grade classes early in the day and it turned out roughly 75% of the students completed little to none of the work. I was baffled. How could so many students have 3 full class periods to work complete absolutely nothing? Even worse, they didn't do the work over the weekend to have ready on Monday.
They came to class and seemed to expect to be allowed and capable to complete all of it during that period. I was very discouraged to say the least. True, this isn't a product of the flipped class. But, up to this point, most of my students have shown excellent responsibility in completing their worked with flipped instruction. What this told me is that these students (and maybe most Middle School students) can't be trusted to complete their work without me checking in with them almost daily.
I gave the kids zeros for the work they didn't complete. I did get one parent email that claimed her child should not be responsible for the work because, according the her daughter, "the sub told them they didn't have to do it." But, don't we always have one of those regardless of the instruction method?
I'm going to be out for a day in October for a conference. My thought right now is to assign a worksheet due at the end of the class period. No computers, no ipods, nothing can be used during the class period. Just their textbook and a pen.
What do you think? Do Middle Schoolers have the maturity to handle the flipped classroom?

2. Textbook is still available....
With each video, I include the textbook page number for the same content. I got that idea from Aaron Sams. Most kids payed no attention to that part of the list and have kept doing the videos. Which is fine. On Wednesday, I saw a student diligently working from a textbook. At first I thought she was doing work from another class. As I made my way towards her, I noticed she was using my English textbook. I was pleasantly surprised by this and asked her what she was working on. She said the video didn't make a lot of sense so she was trying to learn it from the textbook. "Great," I said. "Let me know if you have any questions." I normally keep the textbooks stacked in the classroom for their reference. At the end of the period, she asked if she could take a textbook with her to keep at home. Certainly, I told her I had no problem with that as long as she returned it at the end of the year. The next day, another student asked a question and she suggested he use the textbook. His surprised response, "You mean its in there? Cool!" I was thrilled that one student is figuring out optional ways to learn the material. I was disappointed that the other student was amazed that the content would actually be in the textbook. I have to remind myself that its a process and they're still learning.

3. Excuse to be a bad teacher?
I will have to say, on Thursday of this week, I was extremely tired. I had made a couple videos on Wednesday night and was up later than I should have been. As the day went on, I was dragging more and more. My classes were working quietly and being productive. By the time my afternoon classes rolled around, I realized I was doing a lot of sitting and not engaging with students. With the flipped method, it became easy to sit doing nothing, just watching the students work and become a bad teacher. Now, this was only one day, so I'm giving myself a pass this time. But, it is certainly something to be cognitive of in the future. I went to this method so I could have more meaningful conversations with kids about their learning. I need to make sure I'm doing that even on the days its easy to not.

4. New technology - Livescribe Pen
I received a Livescribe pen this week as part of their Educator Ambassador Program. I saw Jason Kern at the Flipped Class Conference discuss ways a Math teacher at his school used it. I would like to find a way to use it with grading students' work. I plan to do some pencasts and turn them into video lessons, but haven't figured out the topics I want to use it for yet. I'm also considering having some of my better note takers take some of their notes using the Livescribe pen and notebook, having them talk through their thought process as they decide what to write in their notes. Then, I can use that as a model for some students that need help with note taking skills. I showed the pen and some of the things it could do to a few students and 1 other teacher. By the end of the day, I had 3 other teachers come ask to see the pen in action. I'm talking with our Resource Department about putting together a grant to get more of the pens.
I can think of a lot of math pencasts using the pen, but am struggling with Language Arts pencasts. Any suggestions?
If you haven't seen these pens in action, Google them. They're pretty cool.

Those are my thoughts for Week 4 of my Flipped Class. I was concerned the kids might start getting burned out on the videos. I asked a few kids for some informal feedback on the workload and videos. The ones I talked with still liked the system and didn't feel the workload was too demanding. Our 5th grade teacher wants to try some flipped methods with her math class. Our GT teacher is considering doing this with her 3rd and 4th graders. Her and I brainstormed some ideas for lessons that it might work with. I showed her Ramsey Musallam's Models of Flipped Instruction and she really liked the Explore-Flip-Apply model. I want to move my students towards this model more often, so I will be interested to see how it works in her class.

I'm still very encouraged by the results I'm observing. I'd love to hear your thoughts to the question I presented above. Do most Middle Schoolers struggle with the maturity it takes to handle the independence of Flipped Instruction?