Welcome to part two of A Day in My Flipped Classroom! Today, I’ll be sharing how a typical day looks in Petty Wap‘s classroom.
THE VIDEOS…
In a typical unit, which normally lasts anywhere from two weeks to a month and a half depending on the content, my students have between 3 and 7 instructional videos that they actively view. The videos are 3-7 minutes in length, and most of them are about 5 minutes long. When I began flipping my classroom two years ago, I made my videos WAY TOO LONG. One video was 13 minutes! I found myself rewording and rephrasing my content and basically reteaching in the video. This is NOT THE POINT of the video! Now, I have more practice with creating videos and know what my students need from the videos … I’ve found that I can effectively communicate a 50-minute lecture in about 5 minutes. The time freed by concise videos alone is amazing! There are MANY video creation/screencasting options available, from free to quite pricey. My tool of choice for creating my instructional videos in Screencastify. It’s a fabulous Chrome extension that allows me to save my videos to Google Drive or YouTube. My students also use Screencastify to create projects for class. The “lite” version of Screencastify only allows for 10 minutes of video and no editing tools. However, anything longer than 10 minutes is probably going to lose MY interest, much less that of my students! And, if I need editing software (I do one take videos, so editing doesn’t happen often – if ever!) I can use the YouTube video editor. Check out more about Screencastify and other fabulous extensions here.
WHEN THE BELL RINGS…
As my students enter the classroom on “video day,” I start by directing them to Google Classroom where they’ll find their assignment. I use the fabulous EDpuzzle to embed formative assessment into my videos and then assign those videos to my students. EDpuzzle allows me to not only monitor student understanding of concepts discussed in the video, it also allows me to see how much time students spend on the video as a whole as well as on video segments AND lets me quickly view which students have completed their video assignment, and which still need to finish it. It’s SPECTACULAR and is one of the tools that have helped to make my flipped classroom successful! EDpuzzle integrates with Google Classroom which means I can import my Classroom rosters in EDpuzzle and can also quickly assign EDpuzzle videos as an assignment in Classroom! Fantastic!! Check out my posts about EDpuzzle here and my EDpuzzle tutorials on my YouTube channel here. As I take attendance, my students are locating their EDpuzzle assignment and note-taking document for that unit on Classroom, getting out their earbuds or grabbing some “Petty Beats” – these are headphones that students can borrow if they forget their earbuds at home … we have fun in my classroom!!
As I take attendance, my students are locating their EDpuzzle assignment and note-taking document for that unit on Classroom, getting out their earbuds or grabbing some “Petty Beats” – these are headphones that students can borrow if they forget their earbuds at home … we have fun in my classroom!!
As students complete their videos, I’m walking around with my iPad or MacBook monitoring their progress and providing feedback on their responses to the embedded formative assessment. One of the many aspects of my modified flip that I LOVE is that I’m there in the room if my students have questions about the content. It’s wonderful!
As students finish up with their video assignment, they access a Padlet wall that I create for their class section for that specific unit. We use this wall as an exit ticket of sorts where students respond as directed by me. I may have them list one thing they learned and one question they have about the content, or rate themselves on their understanding of the content (green-I can teach my peers; yellow-I’m getting there; red-I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON!), or maybe list something I need to review … if they feel confident, sometimes I have them respond with “it’s all good in the hood.”
When all students are finished with their video, we play some sort of game to review and solidify the content … Kahoot, Quizizz, BrainRush, or Quizlet Live … something to keep them thinking about the content and have fun at the same time 🙂
NON-VIDEO DAYS…
Every day in my flipped classroom is NOT a video day. Some days, students are tackling unit vocabulary through Quizlet – Government vocabulary is TOUGH and foreign to my students. Other days, students are working together to create their own government, their ideal cabinet, a skit to portray the protections provided by a Constitutional Amendment, etc. We recently worked through a Structured Academic Controversy about the Electoral College … the response to that was fabulous! Read about my SAC here. Next semester, we will begin our branches of government unit and will work through one of my FAVORITE activities … creating bills simulation! Students will draft bills as the House of Representatives or the Senate that will apply at our school and will then present their bills to the President (our principal) to sign or veto. This activity is tons of fun! I’m also jumping headfirst into the world of Digital BreakoutEDU, and my students will attempt to “Free Congress” on our first day back.
It’s safe to say that flipping my classroom has encouraged me to be a more creative, inventive, and flexible teacher. I love my flipped classroom … how does your flipped classroom look? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading this super-long post 🙂
*EDpuzzle is a sponsor of Teaching with Technology*
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