How to Flip Your Classroom - Part 4 and Beyond

Thank you to those of you who have read and commented on my previous posts or sent emails.    I am by no means an expert in this concept, just very passionate about it.  This will be my last post in this series.  Why you ask?   Mostly because this is the point I am at in my learning of flipped classrooms and am now depending on you all to help me out.  :) 

Making videos while learning the common core and finishing up grad school was about all I could do last year.  I forgot the three boys and a husband I also tried to keep up with.  :)     I attempted the differentiation of in-class time but I know it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.   The heart of a flipped classroom lies in the collaborative, hands-on, differentiated real-world problem-based learning that is happening in the classroom during the school day.   You will find that when you flip your classroom, you really do have a lot more time to do these kinds of things.

Now on to the fun part...planning and designing instruction! 

This summer I have been working diligently to unpack each of the math common core standards.  I've been really looking at what each standard looks like and what differentiated learning looks like at each standard.   I have a storm cloud of ideas going on in my head about what my math block will look like next year and I get more excited each day.  (More on these to come...)   I am finding some really great resources to use to incorporate the real-world problem-based learning I wasn't able to wrap my head around last year.    I've even found time to create some of my own.   I can't wait!!  :) 

I know you keep asking yourself....really you had extra time???   Yes!  :)     On Mondays, I would use this as an assessment day. Assessments don't take forever so we would have lots of extra time to do review games etc. to keep skills sharp.   I would do this because I would not start a new lesson on Monday.  Instead I would flip a video on Monday night for Tuesday's lesson.   So right there was an extra hour of math.   This upcoming school year I will be implementing Monday as a STEM integration or PBL day instead of keeping skills sharp games (those will come in review centers).    There is no set day on when to flip.  I selected to flip on Monday and Wednesday just because it kept my younger ones on a schedule. Parents also liked the consistent schedule and there was no guess work in what homework was for the night.  Tuesday's math class would start with a quick discussion about the video, questions, etc.  I would do a quick assessment either informally or formally.  My kids really loved our SENTEO clicker system.  These came in really handy for quick assessments and gave me great data!  Tuesday would be a day for me to pull in the children that didn't fully grasp the concept. But for the kids that did...they started working on differentiated or extension activities.  I would also meet with these children in groups to facilitate their critical thinking and problem solving skills.   Wednesday would be one more day for me to grab the kiddos that needed support (and this group of children was typically smaller by this third day).  I would flip again on Wednesday night, repeating on Thursday and Friday pulling small groups based on assessments etc.    On Monday I would give a formal assessment and then start the cycle over again.  The data on Monday would be used to design my intervention groups or focus for RtI groups that week.    What do you think...can you see where you would find some extra time during your math time to really take students deep into learning?    The kids really become the collaborators where you become the facilitator and catch them when they begin to form misconceptions in their learning.

As you can see this type of instruction is fully data driven.  It also takes a lot of time to create the enrichment/extension lessons, remediation lessons, assessments, SENTEO lessons, and videos.  This is partially why I stated earlier, flipping a classroom takes more than a full year to be really effective.  HOWEVER, you will see benefits very early on!   I promise!    I am at the point where I have the video library and assessments handled and can now focus on differentiating and extending learning during the school day.  Hopefully by summer's end I will have a great plan of attack.  And to think....this is only one subject area.   :)  Next year, I am planning on taking on some ELA standards as well.

I'd love to hear your feedback.  Are any of you ready to try a flip?   What other information, suggestions, or resources can I offer?    

P.S.   I promise my future blogs won't be this long.   I just had so much to get out.  :)