Flipping Idea

A couple of weeks ago, when I was starting my calculus class, it turned out that about 6 of the students hadn't watched the video. Out of 22 students, that's not good. I was so frustrated and grumpy and chided them and mumbled that now I'd have to babysit them and actually take their notes as a homework grade and yada yada yada. One of my finer moments.

Yes, I have started taking the notes for a grade (it's only been one class! success! :))

But then after I learned about screencast-o-matic and also movie maker in which I can splice together different screen shots or different videos, I had an idea yesterday, and I implemented it. We happened to have a club meeting on Saturday, and one of my calculus students was at the club. I had her make 2 short video clips, and I spliced them into my flipped lesson in addition to splicing in a goofy photo bomb picture of myself.

My thoughts are that maybe I can have stealth students quickly record a short applicable webcam video (periodically? always?) and then put them in randomly. Then the students will be CLAMORING to watch their flipped videos. Right? Right?????

This lesson happened to be about related rates problems involving cones. There's invariably an upside down cone filling or draining of liquid. One of my student's clips was, "why would you have a cone-shaped tank?". Her other one was, "how does this cone keep from falling down?". My goofy face was plugged in after I made some mistake in writing my notes (shocker!), and then I popped my face in there and then continued.

Ahhhhh, at least I keep myself amused.