Back to the Flip!

It's been a while since my last flipped lesson - report writing, assessment time all played  apart but, also, I felt my class had reached a saturation point with them. Therefore, I decided  to take a break, do some more research and reconsider where to take the project.

I found that fewer and fewer of the children were watching the flip videos and I wondered why this was. I believe it was partly due to there being too many in too short a time but also because I wasn't using the lesson time as effectively as I could.

I read a book called Flip your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams and this really helped refocus my flipped teaching project - the flipped lesson itself has to be creative, stimulating or, at least, challenging. I think my videos became just another way to impart information than as a way to preserve time for an exciting learning experience in school.

Reading the book reignited my enthusiasm, but also made me more conscious of picking the lessons which I chose to flip more thoughtfully.

So, this week, I made a video all about the Water Cycle for our science lesson. All but 3 students watched it (it was exciting again!) and we spent our science lesson making dioramas about the cycle. The ones who missed the video had to go through the flipchart with me, while the others brainstormed everything they could remember from the video.

I would never have had the time for this in a traditional lesson. It was great - all on-task for the last 2 hours of the last day of the week, superb high-level conversation using scientific language, collaboration, creativity...we had a great time!

More Flipped Lessons in Year 2

Two of our Year 2 teachers have been trying out flipped lessons.

The first one was in maths about interpreting data and was done as a Prezi - you can watch it here

The second one was in literacy and featured the children having access to a PDF file, which it was felt would be easier for the children (and parents) to access.

Read about their experiences here:

'"After the first flipped lesson ran fairly successfully in one class and was unable to take place in another (children had not been able to access the Prezi for a variety of reasons), we decided to do something quicker to produce, easier to distribute and was more easily shared with children along with their parents at home.

The second flipped lesson happened today and was a revelation.

Most children had completed the home based task prior to the lesson, and after a very brief introduction, many of the children went off to work on a task as soon as lesson started. Ten minutes in, all the children were working on the task. We were then able to get them working on another task which would lead into the work planned for tomorrow, although this was not included in the planning for the next lesson. This will allow them to really focus on the next piece of writing and hopefully allow them to produce something of a much higher quality than usual.

The result of this is that we will be able to add in an extra writing session with children conferencing with their peers, teacher or teaching assistant on uplevelling the writing they have produced so far this week." 

The Flipped PE lesson...

Our infant PE specialist teacher recently had a go at doing a flipped lesson with her Year 2 class in volleyball - focusing on the rules about serving. She produced a wonderful video using Lego figures to show the children what they needed to know.

You can watch it here Volleyball for Year 2 

This is her evaluation of the lesson:

' I definitely felt that having 2B watch the video beforehand enhanced the learning in the lesson. The serving rotation in Volleyball is a complicated concept and 2B coming to the lesson with some kind of understanding was great! They all went away with a better idea of how it works and the evaluation at the end showed that a good number (more, I feel, than in previous years) understood it better, with a low amount feeling like they were still unsure. It also enabled much more practical time and less teacher talk. . I continually questioned them through the lesson as well which helped.

I don’t think I would need to do this all the time, but for something that is tricky and difficult to understand it was of definite benefit.' 

Class Make First Attempts at Flip Video

I have had the first flip video submitted by a child in my class!

She decided that she should do one about mean, mode and median averages. She is a very confident mathematician so this was a topic she felt happy with.

We had a few problems as she used Moviemaker and I couldn't play it at fist as she did not attach the pictures and music which went with it in the memory stick. However, she then took it away and converted it into an Mpeg 4 and it worked brilliantly.

I think the video is great but it was also amazing how she had exactly the same thoughts as me - takes  along time to do the first one (took her 4 hours); steep learning curve about ICT but also that it is great fun! I really hope that it inspires other children to make one.

See the video below:

In other news, our Year 5 team of teachers have been making a video all about the story of Lord Lucan which is the basis for our Literacy topic on persuasive writing. Because of the confidence and knowledge I now have with video, I am making it using chromakey green screen techniques. Still working on it but I think it's going to be fantastic and the children will love it! It was certainly fun to make.

Homework, Security Concerns and More

One of the side-effects of flipping the class has been to make all of us much more IT-literate. Suddenly, my class are having to read our blog, follow links to the video storage site and post comments back about the videos.

This has led to us thinking about internet safety and what they can and cannot post. I am definitely staying away from YouTube at the moment - there's nothing wrong with it but I like having a secure place where just my class can visit and where I know only work which I have placed there can be found.

My class have also been using the sharing function of Google Docs to show what they have done at home after watching these videos. I don't set work based on the videos as flipped teaching isn't about that but I have found that a lot of the children are keen to follow up the videos with some work of their own.

I really like the sharing nature of Google Docs and the class love the way they can collaborate with others in the class so easily. 

I was having lots of problems with Ezvid as we couldn't upload the videos to YouTube (this is the only export function of Ezvid) so we have now switched to Activepresenter. I really like this even though it is a bit more complex to use. It has a great function of being able to make slideshow captures and add annotations so you can make a video showing how to use a certain piece of software. It's really impressive.

Tomorrow is my first literacy flipped lesson so I am looking forward to seeing how that goes. I began thinking about how I am going to get the class involve din making videos themselves: at the moment I am thinking of putting them into groups of 4 and giving them one topic which we are covering in the near future.

I want the 4 children to consist of one subject specialist (for researching the topic), an ICT specialist (making the video), a writing specialist (script) and a creative specialist (artwork, titles etc). They then collaborate at home for their homework to make a video to show the class in that lesson.

Sounds exciting...

Twitter: Top Ten Hashtags for Flipped Classrooms and Flipped Teaching

Twitter is a great resource for learning about flipped teaching. Everyday, people tweet hundreds of tips, resources, personal stories, pose questions, and float ideas about flipped teaching. Julie Schell picks out the top ten hashtags on Twitter. Have a look and do share anything of interest: Top Ten Hashtags for Flipped Teaching

Latest Flip Video and Video Editing Software Thoughts

Hi,
My latest flip video can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1A0zemeyLg

This one features me trying to teach the topic to my cat which was an idea suggested by some members of my class. I like the personal nature of these videos as I think they make them more engaging for the class. I have had a chat with colleagues about building up a library of videos to share across the year group/school. I think there is great merit in this, but I do think that the younger children really enjoy seeing and hearing their own teacher. A parent also echoed this in some feedback which I received. Not sure about the webcam but we will see...

I am also trialling a video editing suite from Corel which you can see here VideoStudio Pro 6 I had a go at making the same video in that program which had the advantage that I could save it as an MP4 file and upload directly to my class blog rather than YouTube or www.mediacore.com

However, I am finding it really tricky to use, as it is so powerful and I have absolutely no experience of video-editing whatsoever. But it looks like it can make much more professional and engaging movies so I will stick with it and see if I can get any better at using it.

The lesson based on the flip video is on Monday and I am actually being observed by my line manager in that lesson as part of my annual appraisal so it better go well!

Hi. I am a UK teacher presently teaching in Bahrain in a British-style school.
The purpose of this blog is to record a narrative about my experiences with the flipped classroom. It is a project which I have just undertaken and one which interests me a great deal. I hope, on this blog, to share what I and my critical friends do and what the results are.
It would be great to hear from other interested education professionals. More to come shortly (once I've completed all my marking).