Flipped: A Teacher's Reflection

What did I think about my first attempt to flip a classroom? What were some positives and negatives? What might I need to adjust or change?

Some of what I liked:

Students, as whole whole, seemed much more engaged. Students would ask questions about what they viewed and about quizzes they took. The pace and structure of class time (sans lectures) forced students to be attentive; there was always something to DO, as idle or even passive moments were few and far between.

The class was incredibly active. Not having to spend time introducing grammar material in class, time could be spent doing activities: discussions and group tasks, cognitive and physical, at the board and even on the floor. This helped maintain students' focus and kept student from always just sitting in their desks for 50 minutes.

The class was incredibly interactive. Students' questions drove "teacher time". Students sought feedback throughout class activities. Yes, I transitioned from activity to activity, but so many of those transitions were based on the pace  and needs of students. Lesson plans became lesson concepts or even lists of possible activities, all contingent on how students reacted to the activities in which the students where engaged. It was like one big feedback loop.

I could enter class with more confidence that I knew which aspects were causing students difficulty, which things they "weren't getting". I knew the content they were to have covered, and I could see which questions were proving troublesome to many students or which students were having trouble with which questions or tasks. Much more than ever before, I could enter the classroom with data-driven understandings rather than intuitions and perceptions.

Class time was maximized. At least this is my estimation. The time I most value is the time to work through the difficulties students have. Close behind is the time used to strengthen students' skills. By taking the lectures (which would have otherwise occupied time during class) and moving them online as homework, significantly more time became available to focus on those things that I, as a teacher, can really bring to the classroom.

What I didn't necessarily like:

Busy Busy Busy
Record keeping and observations were never-ending. Which students completed the quizzes? Which students watched the tutorials? Who is completing homework. You need to be aware of this every morning. (Thankfully, Moodle keeps statistics, which meant I could see the exact times that students watched tutorials, completed quizzes, or even clicked links to extra resources!)

Which quiz questions or topics are causing difficulty? If you don't know this, you won't know to address that in class. This meant that almost every morning required assessment of problems, record keeping, and adjustment to planned lessons, all before 8:30 a.m. It sometimes felt overwhelming, but it always felt worthwhile.

Also, as this past term was not a "flip" I had planned, I was doing all my work on the fly, usually only a day "(sometimes a few minutes) ahead of the students. The stress was palpable. Once done however, only tweaks are needed. I think I'm sitting relatively pretty for this next term.

Participation
There were three students who rarely (if ever) could be cajoled into participating in the flipped model. One student had excellent grammar skills already. That student only sporadically watched tutorials or took quizzes (ungraded) when he felt necessary. I wasn't worried about him. A second student was a bit more consistent, but his skills were lower and he could've used more practice. He still passed.

The third student simply would not do the work outside of class. Could he log on? Yes, he showed me. Did he log on? No. In spite of repeated encouragements and admonitions, in spite of emails and after class discussions, the student simply would not watch the tutorials. He never watched even one tutorial and completed but one quiz. It showed in his exam scores.

Had it been a traditional classroom style, would he have done homework? Perhaps not. Nevertheless, it is cause for pause when students refuse to "flip" with you.

Conclusion
Flipping a class is a lot of work. A LOT! (Unless, of course, you can rely on other people's Youtube videos. That would never do for me.) Nevertheless, I loved it. The students, by and large, loved it. I've spent this winter holiday tweaking quizzes, reorganizing materials, and reshooting some videos, all in the excitement of trying it again in just over a week!

Do students like it flipped?

If a teacher "flips" a course, obviously that teacher believes it is a useful thing to do. Rarely would a teacher go through the work to completely revamp a course without thinking it is to their students' benefit. But, what do students think?

Personally, I received an overwhelmingly positive response. Anecdotally, I had three students mention how much they liked being able to watch lectures at home, skipping ones they already knew, and reviewing areas of difficulty. Another students mentioned that he used the online lectures to review before tests, and the usage logs bear this out.

In addition, there were some great comments in the evaluations*. Some of those comments (the more instructive and exciting are listed below:

• The Moodle videos that Matthew prepares for his students as a review are very helpful. Even if we miss a class we can understand them.
• This teacher is really good. He do a lot of activities to practice all the topics and to involve all the students during the class.
• I have had class of listening and speaking with Ms. Showman before in the last term, and I did not like so much, but I always notice your effort and interest in class. Now in Grammar and Writing I love his classes. Also it is important to say that his videos in moodle are SO helpful and great. I am learning grammar as never before. And he is so kind and patient with our questions. Your organization is amazing.

Of course, not every student connects well with a given method. Below is a criticism** of the method and, I suppose, me:

• The teacher explain most of his ideas using Moodle website by uploading videos. I think it is better to explain the lecture materials inside the class, an that help us understand and ask some questions that could help us. I think the teacher try to escape from the questions that students could ask during the lecture. There is no interesting because there is no questions, ideas, and interactions during the lecture, and that because most of lecture materials that we study are online.

My reaction to this: I need to make the purpose of a flipped class even more explicit. Given that my class was questions-focused, given that I began every lesson by eliciting their questions, given that I assigned homework with the instruction that students were to write down any and all questions, I find it hard to believe that the student thinks I try to avoid questions and interactions.

That said, I know I can also make adjustments to make it clear that questions are not only welcome, but necessary to our class. I will need to be more explicit when explaining that the whole point of online lectures is to maximize time for questions and inquiries.

Onward we go!

* Evaluations are done anonymously and without course instructors present.
** Two administration aspects not related to flipped instruction were omitted.


Coming Soon: My own reactions

Flipping it

This past term I made a decision to "flip" my classroom.

I wasn't thinking about "flipping" when I did it. It was something I simply fell into.

A day or two before the term started, I was daydreaming about how my grammar lessons could be delivered more effectively. Between the cognitive psych research I read and my own experience of giving in-class introductions to grammar concepts, introductions that didn't seem all that useful anyway, I thought there must be a better way.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I had both Moodle and Blackboard at my disposal. I had Google Drive/Docs, which I was already using for in-class activities. I knew how to shoot videos from my laptop and Moto X, which I'd already been using to create materials for Listening/Speaking class. Everything I needed was quite literally at my fingertips.

What if I made short videos of the grammar lessons and hosted them on Drive? What if I posted all of these in Moodle or Blackboard? What if I wrote online quizzes to both (a) ensure students were interacting with the materials and (b) assess which points students were having difficulty with before ever entering the classroom? What if I focused in-class attention on those points? What if in-class grammar lesson time was focused completely on students' questions, practice, and quizzing? What if I never lectured at all?

It's not my personality to do something little-by-little. I'm not one to say "If I have time, then...".
No, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.

This was a busy term. If I wasn't prepping materials or marking homework or grading assessments, I was writing and shooting videos and writing hundreds of quiz questions. In the end, however, I had a course that excited me, excited (most) students, and left me satisfied. Over this winter break, I will be reshooting some vids and I'll be revising some materials, but as a whole it was a great experience.


Coming Soon: Reactions, both my students' and my own.