Friday, July 27, 2012

Flipped Class Letter To Class

Here is the letter I'll hand to my calculus students the first day of class. It outlines that we're going to flip our class and talks about the benefits. The more I think about flipping, the more I like it.


I still haven't worked out how I want to do "explore learning" lessons. There are times I want them to try things and test them out and learn that way. It seems useful if they're with other students while they're doing that. But I guess my thoughts are that I'll simulate class and tell them what to attempt on the video lesson and keep prompting them to pause the video while they try things. Then I may or may not continue the video with possible things they did. Good: time saver for class time when they'll be practicing concepts. Bad: they may find the loop hole and not try things and fake it and just copy down what I do.

Another thing I could do is just give them the exploring instructions and then extra instructions on talking with another student about their results and instructions on jotting down their findings. Then we take class time to discuss results and such.

Maybe I'll try both or do both and see what's what as time goes on.

7 comments:

  1. This looks great! If you don't mind, we are collecting sample intro letters (and/or videos) on the spreadsheet here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoNSkh2FgPbXdGlsZ0ZORkRBbEdvWXM4cE1XeE1jdFE#gid=0

    Feel free to add yours!

    Looking forward to hearing how the Calc flip goes this year.

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  2. Thanks, Crystal, and thanks for your blog. It's great to have people who have already tried this being a calming factor and source of information. ... I've added my letter to your list and read other people's.

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  3. The question about "explore learning" lessons came up at Twitter Math Camp when Troy Stein was talking about flipping math class.

    He mentioned a chemistry teacher in California who has students do the explore part in class, and then their homework is to watch a video that ties the discovery together and cements their learnings/findings. So for those lessons, there might be a launch video the night before (or, gasp!, no homework the night before) and then they do the work in class and watch a follow-up video.

    It breaks the cycle but it guarantees the collaboration that you would have traditionally done during class time... seems to me that flipping should always mean more collaboration and supported work time, and never get in the way of that!

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  4. Found it: Ramsey Musallam, who tweets as @ramusallam, uses (and I think created) the Explore - Flip - Apply model: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1SHTXTAFC5ZZ4qXQU-Y4xFDrRAkqVMQ04jwL-u449QoQ/edit

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  5. Thanks for the ideas, Max. At first I thought, ugh, 1.5 hour class of exploring, but then I realized I didn't have to explore all class. The new topic could be explored at the end of class and the follow up in the video. Cool!

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  6. I love your letter to the students and the parents! Thank you for sharing. Would you mind if I tweak it and share it with my 5th grade class? This is my first year having a Flipped Classroom. #excitedbutnervous

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  7. AMitchell. By all means, please use as you wish.

    Shireen

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