Flipclass assignments

Flipping my classroom has been awesome.  I have gotten to know my students better amongst other myriad things about which I have already posted.

Lately, however, my students have been struggling getting work done.  We have a 9th grade biology class that cannot seem to get everything done.  After much deliberation and discussion with my co-teacher, we decided to change.

In the past, I just assigned "video notes" as homework with the only direction being that they take notes as if they were in class.  Last year being my first year dipping into the well of flipping, this was and has been the easiest way for me to go.  The biggest problem with that is that we could not figure out if students were actually learning anything while watching the notes.  Also, they could easily just copy down what I said without actually watching (although to me, this is a minor point).

The decision we made was to make tiered assignments based on the notes.  The first one I made was on energy passage through an ecosystem.  Rather than my discussing ad nauseum here how it is done, it is easier to see one linked here.  You see that they now have a choice.   They can choose a 3/5, 4/5 or 5/5 on this assignment.  Here is another much like it.

The key is that the required ones are ones they MUST know to pass any test over our objectives for the unit.  The ones for a higher grade require a little more critical thinking and some original research.  This is to hopefully motivate the upper level student to go above and beyond the "normal" assignment while giving the very busy or struggling student an "out" where they can still get it done but without the angst of having to "get it all done".  This also introduces a little bit of educational choice.  Students feel like they can choose how much to do.  As Daniel Pink shows in DRIVE, feeling as if you have some control over your life can be motivating. 

I realize that this is not a new concept but I have found it very easy to use and the students are now starting to get used to it after 3 assignments like it.  I will be surveying them regarding the class soon and am excited to hear how they feel about it.  One other key thing is that they have more than 1 night to get it done.  I usually give them 1 or 2 every week.

On the due date,  I use @crystalkirch WSQ idea and put one of the student's work (randomly) on the document camera. The class evaluates it and proposes changes in order to make it an "A" paper.  We then go over the changes and discuss them.  This is valuable on so many levels.  The student whose paper it is gets evaluated by peers rather than me (they do not know whose it is unless the student blurts it out), they get quick feedback and can make adjustments to their own work painlessly.

I do not grade them on correctness of their work but merely that they tried it and have some kind of answer that makes it obvious that they tried.  I do not worry about "cheating" because it is only worth a small portion of 20% of their grade and they will still have to take a summative over the material to prove that they do indeed understand and did not just copy their way to a grade. 

So far, this has been a very good trial.  Students can always work on this if they get done with our class work (lab etc.) and they know exactly what to do while watching the notes.  They do NOT like the fact that the answers are not obvious but they have to actually think to get them correct (or close to it).  I also like the fact that the work is non-googleable (is that a word?).  There are no pat answers that can be found with a simple search.  Too many assignments I used to give in the past were.

Please feel free to comment!