AHHHHH! I am so excited! My students and I are embarking on a new chapter- exponents and polynomials- and I thought I would try something different. From the start I wanted the lectures to be my own; I think it makes it more personal for my students and also teaches them exactly what I want them to know and how I want it to be done.
I loved that I had the option to use someone else's videos that perfectly fit my curriculum until I got my feet underneath me. Two chapters in to transforming my classroom into a flipped environment, I was up to the challenge. At my school we have interactive white boards with and application called SMART Notebook. With this program I can make slides, similar to PowerPoint, and then be able to write on top of them. There is a camera feature that allows me to record whatever is on my screen. So I made a few slides for the Multiplication Rules of Exponents and hit record! As you can see, the video is of me talking through a few problems and magically writing on top of the slides. It obviously needs some work, but you've gotta start some where! Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
And Then There Was Fifteen
In order to be in Honors Math 8, you must maintain an 85% or higher in the course. This is because M8H is basically 9th grade Algebra 1 and by taking this course, you skipped Math 8- Pre-Algebra. Well, Trimester 1 just ended and my class of 25 shrunk to 15.
This means that most of my students are now a little more consistent in their abilities and motivation. Because of this, Chapter 7 will not have various levels of work to choose from. I made a weekly packet with more challenging and difficult work that we can all complete together.
So far this week, things are going well. This has fostered much more of a cooperative atmosphere instead of the competitive one we had before. I grouped my students together with purpose and they are helping, encouraging and teaching one another. Let's hope this continues : )
This means that most of my students are now a little more consistent in their abilities and motivation. Because of this, Chapter 7 will not have various levels of work to choose from. I made a weekly packet with more challenging and difficult work that we can all complete together.
So far this week, things are going well. This has fostered much more of a cooperative atmosphere instead of the competitive one we had before. I grouped my students together with purpose and they are helping, encouraging and teaching one another. Let's hope this continues : )
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Questions I Have- How Would This Look in Other Disciplines?
Since I also teach science, I have found myself wondering how flipping would look in not only my other discipline, but all others. I really think for math, that aside from a task/discussion/project based course, flipping is the best way to really teach our students. It makes so much sense to practice material when a teacher can be there to help you, to have time to move beyond the required curriculum and to use class time to have discussions about the best way to approach problems.
I'm teaching 8th grade science this year which is a bit of Physical Science and some Earth and Space science. In the past I have taught Physics and Intro to Chemistry and Intro to Physics at the high school level. In science, so often I don't teach information straight out, like in lecture format. We have a lot of discussion already in class, complete with examples and experiments. I guess this year I have had students read information out of their books that could be watched at home in a video format.
I have a friend in another school district that I know flips her Chemistry class. She loves it because it gives her time to do more in depth experiments and to practice all the problems associated with high school level science.
Does any one flip a non-math based class? What kinds of things do you record? What kinds of things do you practice in class?
I'm teaching 8th grade science this year which is a bit of Physical Science and some Earth and Space science. In the past I have taught Physics and Intro to Chemistry and Intro to Physics at the high school level. In science, so often I don't teach information straight out, like in lecture format. We have a lot of discussion already in class, complete with examples and experiments. I guess this year I have had students read information out of their books that could be watched at home in a video format.
I have a friend in another school district that I know flips her Chemistry class. She loves it because it gives her time to do more in depth experiments and to practice all the problems associated with high school level science.
Does any one flip a non-math based class? What kinds of things do you record? What kinds of things do you practice in class?
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Teaching Math Has Always Been A Little Boring
I love math. Really. I know many think I'm crazy, but I love how all the puzzle pieces fit together. I love that calculus was created to solve a science problem. But teaching it? Eh, not so much...
All but one year of my teaching career, I have always taught half science and half math. I secretly hated that year. Most students are not fond of math and see no point to learning it. That alone makes math very difficult to teach. On top of that, math has a ton of curriculum to get through in a year (more than in science, I feel), math needs practice and math is very difficult to make real to students.
Although I really try to make math fun and interesting, it doesn't happen all the time. I always feel like math is very routine, and it's very difficult to get out of that rut. This year I genuinely enjoy teaching math. I still teach science for half of my day, but I get excited for math!
The only class I decided to flip this year was my Algebra 1 class- Honors 8th Grade Math. The fact that I get to show my students the connections between the material they are learning and higher mathematics has had an impact on them. They are finding math just as exciting as I once did. I see their wheels turning and their lightbulbs flashing.
The other math classes I teach I have been using books from The Connected Mathematics Project. These books led students to a deeper understanding of concepts and helps to prove things that allow for a more genuine connection. There is one entire book dedicated to discovering the Pythagorean Theorem! It's a great way to introduce younger students to the idea of proving and understanding things that are sometime just thrown at them in other curricula. More about those books later...
All but one year of my teaching career, I have always taught half science and half math. I secretly hated that year. Most students are not fond of math and see no point to learning it. That alone makes math very difficult to teach. On top of that, math has a ton of curriculum to get through in a year (more than in science, I feel), math needs practice and math is very difficult to make real to students.
Although I really try to make math fun and interesting, it doesn't happen all the time. I always feel like math is very routine, and it's very difficult to get out of that rut. This year I genuinely enjoy teaching math. I still teach science for half of my day, but I get excited for math!
The only class I decided to flip this year was my Algebra 1 class- Honors 8th Grade Math. The fact that I get to show my students the connections between the material they are learning and higher mathematics has had an impact on them. They are finding math just as exciting as I once did. I see their wheels turning and their lightbulbs flashing.
The other math classes I teach I have been using books from The Connected Mathematics Project. These books led students to a deeper understanding of concepts and helps to prove things that allow for a more genuine connection. There is one entire book dedicated to discovering the Pythagorean Theorem! It's a great way to introduce younger students to the idea of proving and understanding things that are sometime just thrown at them in other curricula. More about those books later...
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Busy Week- PTCs
Parent Teacher Conferences are this week. We have 10 (that's right, T-E-N) hours over three days where parents can come and chat about their children and my classroom. I do really enjoy learning where my students come from- most don't fall far from the tree, in both good and bad ways!
I was especially excited/nervous for these PTCs. The only other contact I had had with my parents was informing them that my classroom style was changing. Now after seeing it in action, I was going to sit face-to-face with parents who want what's best for their children, but learned the old fashioned way and might not understand what I was doing in my classroom. I got none of that! My parents were excited, impressed and curious about flipping. It was such a good feeling (and honestly some relief) that everyone was thrilled about what was happening and how their students were learning math!
I was especially excited/nervous for these PTCs. The only other contact I had had with my parents was informing them that my classroom style was changing. Now after seeing it in action, I was going to sit face-to-face with parents who want what's best for their children, but learned the old fashioned way and might not understand what I was doing in my classroom. I got none of that! My parents were excited, impressed and curious about flipping. It was such a good feeling (and honestly some relief) that everyone was thrilled about what was happening and how their students were learning math!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Organized Chaos?
If you were to walk by my 4th hour today, you would have noticed some chaos, organized mind you, but chaotic none the less. With this chapter (Systems of Linear Equations), I made copies of notes and work for about half the chapter. Some of my students work faster than others and I figured I would try a chapter with different paces, I mean, what could go wrong?
Well, I had one kid not only watch ALL of the videos the first night but also DO ALL OF THE WORK. So...
In class earlier this week, most of my students were practicing the first section. As the week went on students became more and more different in their work and pacing. This gave me a chance to help those that were struggling and gave the others something to keep them thinking and working. It was great to be able to actually sit down and take some time to help a few of my students one on one.
I realized yesterday that I was going to have to talk about some expectations when it came to finishing early. It is expected that my students come with something to do if they finish work early and that they be respectful of those who might be moving a little slower. So, we'll see how it goes. Everything I've been doing has been somewhat trial and error, so why not this?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
A Day in the Life
A typical day in my classroom used to be quite boring. To be honest I've always had a love hate relationship with teaching math. I absolutely love the topic, but the constant "when am I ever going to need this?" question and the monotony of lectures have always frustrated me. Before flipping, we would go over last night's homework (which were normally a few problems exactly like the examples I had done the day before), answer any lingering questions and then fill the remaining minutes with boring notes. I was bored, so I know my 13 year old students were too!
Now, a day in the life of my class goes something like this:
When students arrive they get out the video notes they completed last night. Some days I check these, some days I don't. We take a quiz that usually has 3 to 5 questions on it. Some of the questions are similar to the problems from the video, some questions are about understanding what was learned. Students are allowed to use their notes to help them and then we grade the quizzes together. I want these first few minutes to be a time where it's ok to make mistakes; sometimes mistakes can be more helpful to understanding than doing things the right way. I purposely don't give my students grades on these quizzes, this is a way to for students to assess their own understanding and application of the material.
After the quiz, students use the rest of the hour practicing and applying our new information. Depending on the topic, I give my students requirements that tend to include options. Today in class students could choose from 4 different worksheets. They were required to complete at least two of them. I love giving students options, I feel that it helps them take charge of their own learning.
Other days, class is more structured and we do an activity or worksheet together. Earlier this week we did an activity where collected data from cylindrical objects. Students recorded the circumferences and radii, plotted the data, found a line of best fit and created a linear equation to model the rate of change (with something close to pi being the slope). Using this information, they had to make predictions of objects given one parameter. The groups with the closest data won candy because nothing encourages learning like sugar : ). Activities that can be added in addition to the required curriculum, makes math real to my students. My students discovered pi, just like past mathematicians!
Now, a day in the life of my class goes something like this:
When students arrive they get out the video notes they completed last night. Some days I check these, some days I don't. We take a quiz that usually has 3 to 5 questions on it. Some of the questions are similar to the problems from the video, some questions are about understanding what was learned. Students are allowed to use their notes to help them and then we grade the quizzes together. I want these first few minutes to be a time where it's ok to make mistakes; sometimes mistakes can be more helpful to understanding than doing things the right way. I purposely don't give my students grades on these quizzes, this is a way to for students to assess their own understanding and application of the material.
After the quiz, students use the rest of the hour practicing and applying our new information. Depending on the topic, I give my students requirements that tend to include options. Today in class students could choose from 4 different worksheets. They were required to complete at least two of them. I love giving students options, I feel that it helps them take charge of their own learning.
Other days, class is more structured and we do an activity or worksheet together. Earlier this week we did an activity where collected data from cylindrical objects. Students recorded the circumferences and radii, plotted the data, found a line of best fit and created a linear equation to model the rate of change (with something close to pi being the slope). Using this information, they had to make predictions of objects given one parameter. The groups with the closest data won candy because nothing encourages learning like sugar : ). Activities that can be added in addition to the required curriculum, makes math real to my students. My students discovered pi, just like past mathematicians!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Lectures for Homework
The biggest difference my students will notice durning this flip is our notetaking. Usually I spend almost the entire class period lecturing and taking notes with my students in our nicely organized notebooks. If there is any time left in class, students can use this time to complete practice problems that are almost identical to the ones I just modeled.
In our flipped class, I wanted my students to take notes from the videos that didn't last 50 minutes (our class period time). In order to get quality notes and not spend an hour watching videos every night, I decided to make outlined notes for my students to fill in. This allows the students graphs, tables and general look of the notes to be consistent between students. When I model notes in class, students tend to follow my lead, but watching a video with no guide can lead to very different ideas of structure and importance.
To make these notes I took screen shots of the video lesson so that my students have absolutely no confusion as to what I think is worth writing down. Every section has vocab at the top that I told my students to look up BEFORE watching the video. This will insure that when Dr. Burger starts talking about something important, they are at least familiar with the word.
My students have commented more than once that this homework is way easier. All they need to do is watch and write- no figuring out or getting stuck on a process. They like that they can rewind and rewatch and also use their book. They have said that the one annoyance is that they can't ask any questions, but they have done a great job of writing their question down on their notes to ask me the next day.
In our flipped class, I wanted my students to take notes from the videos that didn't last 50 minutes (our class period time). In order to get quality notes and not spend an hour watching videos every night, I decided to make outlined notes for my students to fill in. This allows the students graphs, tables and general look of the notes to be consistent between students. When I model notes in class, students tend to follow my lead, but watching a video with no guide can lead to very different ideas of structure and importance.
To make these notes I took screen shots of the video lesson so that my students have absolutely no confusion as to what I think is worth writing down. Every section has vocab at the top that I told my students to look up BEFORE watching the video. This will insure that when Dr. Burger starts talking about something important, they are at least familiar with the word.
My students have commented more than once that this homework is way easier. All they need to do is watch and write- no figuring out or getting stuck on a process. They like that they can rewind and rewatch and also use their book. They have said that the one annoyance is that they can't ask any questions, but they have done a great job of writing their question down on their notes to ask me the next day.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Preparing My Students
Since flipping was new to both me and my students, I decided I needed to prepare them for taking notes via video rather than just assigning them a lecture at home and hoping for the best. So for the last lecture of chapter 4, we watched a video lesson as a class. I had made note outlines for the students to follow along with and so they didn't need to spend their time drawing graphs, making tables AND taking notes. I frequently paused the videos, showed my students where important information would be located and the kinds of things I expected them to write down.
Class went really well, the students seemed to like cheesey Dr. Burger and found it easy to understand his explanations. Being a couple days into my flip now, I really think this introduction was beneficial to both me and my students. It helped them realize my expectations and it gave them a level of familiarity with a brand new system.
Class went really well, the students seemed to like cheesey Dr. Burger and found it easy to understand his explanations. Being a couple days into my flip now, I really think this introduction was beneficial to both me and my students. It helped them realize my expectations and it gave them a level of familiarity with a brand new system.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Parent Letter
Since I decided to do my flip a month and a half into the school year, I figured I wanted to let my parents know what was going on. I sent them home a letter explaining how homework would look, how class time would be spent and what they could do to help their child. At the end of the letter I had parents and students sign letting me know that they understood the changes that would be taking place in my class.
I got a lot of positive feedback! Some of my student's older siblings had been in my friend's flipped class in high school, so the parents were familiar with and enjoyed this approach. I had another couple of parents tell me this was a "neat idea", something they were "really excited for" and a great way to encourage students "to really understand the topics". I was so excited and grateful to have parents that are supportive, encouraging and willing to let me flip the normal classroom around.
One of my biggest fears in implementing this method of teaching was meeting resistance from parents, students or the norms of education. So far I have found none of this. I think coming to the situation prepared, knowledgable and confident went a long way in assuring people I knew what I was doing. I had one parent that wanted more of an explanation than my letter gave, but I feel that after our phone conversation, they were satisfied with my reasons for flipping.
Here is the letter I complied. I found some resources online explaining the flipped classroom and borrowed ideas from other parent letters I found as well. Feel free to use or modify to fit your classroom!
Parent Letter
I got a lot of positive feedback! Some of my student's older siblings had been in my friend's flipped class in high school, so the parents were familiar with and enjoyed this approach. I had another couple of parents tell me this was a "neat idea", something they were "really excited for" and a great way to encourage students "to really understand the topics". I was so excited and grateful to have parents that are supportive, encouraging and willing to let me flip the normal classroom around.
One of my biggest fears in implementing this method of teaching was meeting resistance from parents, students or the norms of education. So far I have found none of this. I think coming to the situation prepared, knowledgable and confident went a long way in assuring people I knew what I was doing. I had one parent that wanted more of an explanation than my letter gave, but I feel that after our phone conversation, they were satisfied with my reasons for flipping.
Here is the letter I complied. I found some resources online explaining the flipped classroom and borrowed ideas from other parent letters I found as well. Feel free to use or modify to fit your classroom!
Parent Letter
Sunday, October 14, 2012
About Me and My Classroom
Hello! My name is Frantz and I am currently in my 5th year of teaching. I have taught high school math and science until this year when I got moved to middle school. I currently teach 8th grade Honors Math (Algebra 1), Pre-Algebra and 8th grade Science at a pretty awesome school district in the middle of Michigan.
I have heard so much about Flipped Classrooms and had two teacher friends of mine give it a try, both in high school (Geometry and Chemistry). They both had nothing but good things to say about the switch so I have decided to give it a try!
I am starting with my 8th grade Honors Math class and committing to at least one chapter of flipped-ness. We use Holt Algebra 1 for our textbook and I am so impressed with all the resources available (that are not only amazing, but very differentiated!).
We are on Chapter 5- Linear functions. I have a lot of resources, knowledge and ideas for activities on this topic and I am excited to have this be the first chapter I try this with. My students are actually using the videos that the book supplies- Dr. Burger is pretty cheesy, but does a great job of explaining the topics and the videos are very well done. There is options for CC, a picture of Dr. Burger and him actually writing stuff down, a nice tutorial section, objectives and key words down at the bottom.
Like you might imagine, my students are very motivated and pretty intelligent. The school district I teach in is progressive and my students' parents tend to be very educated and supportive of teachers and their classrooms. My students are passionately curious and most are very excited about this opportunity. There are a few smarty-pants that are bummed that they will actually have homework, since they tend to complete the book work sometime in school, but still intrigued by the idea of having fun in math. I am so excited to get this started and see what awesomeness comes from this new idea!
I have heard so much about Flipped Classrooms and had two teacher friends of mine give it a try, both in high school (Geometry and Chemistry). They both had nothing but good things to say about the switch so I have decided to give it a try!
I am starting with my 8th grade Honors Math class and committing to at least one chapter of flipped-ness. We use Holt Algebra 1 for our textbook and I am so impressed with all the resources available (that are not only amazing, but very differentiated!).
We are on Chapter 5- Linear functions. I have a lot of resources, knowledge and ideas for activities on this topic and I am excited to have this be the first chapter I try this with. My students are actually using the videos that the book supplies- Dr. Burger is pretty cheesy, but does a great job of explaining the topics and the videos are very well done. There is options for CC, a picture of Dr. Burger and him actually writing stuff down, a nice tutorial section, objectives and key words down at the bottom.Like you might imagine, my students are very motivated and pretty intelligent. The school district I teach in is progressive and my students' parents tend to be very educated and supportive of teachers and their classrooms. My students are passionately curious and most are very excited about this opportunity. There are a few smarty-pants that are bummed that they will actually have homework, since they tend to complete the book work sometime in school, but still intrigued by the idea of having fun in math. I am so excited to get this started and see what awesomeness comes from this new idea!
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