To begin with, I would like to thank my brother-in-law/mentor/fellowbiologynerd @ronremink for the Intentional nonlearners (INL) term. I have been thinking about this alot lately as I plan for next year in my #flipclass and my blended AP class.
As #flipclass becomes more and more a part of the lexicon of education, many people are looking for flaws in the idea. One that has become a very prevalent question is: "what if they do not watch the videos at home like they are supposed to? What do you do about it?" On the surface, this is an important question. However, if you think more deeply about it, you should begin to see the fallacy of this type of question. For years in my classroom (and I suspect many others), if a student did not do his/her homework (questions from the book, answer questions at the end of a lab, etc.), I gave them a Zero. This meant essentially that they did not have to do it, especially if they could manage to listen in class, take notes and pass the tests. So our solution for INL is to help them not learn. This is actually even more true today with the onset of standards based grading, assessments counting for 80% of the grade, etc. We need to find more ways to motivate ALL students.
I argue that flipping the classroom puts the onus for learning MORE on the students and LESS on the teacher. It is much much harder to be an INL and pass a class. It is not up to the teacher to make sure they do their homework. If the class is set up correctly, when the students fails to do the homework assignment, they will not pass any test over the material. If the student chooses not to try, then they will fail. Before, it was up to the teacher to work their butt off in the 55-90 minute period to make sure the student was exposed to the material and then if the students decided to not do their homework, well, that was really ok, they could still pass the class without it. Now, as the year has gone on, I have learned more and more that if a student doesn't do the work, they will have a MUCH harder time passing/getting any grade they like. They will have to eventually watch the discussion in order to be able to pass any formal assessment. This way, they CAN choose not to do the assignment, however, they will find out they will eventually HAVE to do it if they want a certain grade. This can occur without any number being entered into the gradebook at all. My students know that they can retake tests. But because the tests are directly based on the learning targets, many of which are covered by video, they must watch the video to pass the standard.
Last week, we had the assignment to watch notes on cellular respiration. I did not record any grade to doing this (they did not know this). Then we did a concept map of the terms in the video in class. The students who had never watched the notes had NO idea of what to do. As I walked around the class talking to students about their maps, it quickly became evident to the students who had viewed the discussion and written notes and who had not. Some logged on and began watching the notes in class and making a concept map from that. I HAD DONE IT! I had gotten them to do it anyway. You may argue that this is a waste of class time but I think the opposite. The students who had done it were being forced to extend their thinking in a new way while not wasting time.
INL suck up most of our class and PD time. While we need to work with those students and try to motivate them, we also need to find ways to motivate the accelerated, stupendous learner who "gets the idea" and needs to be able to extend themselves to maximize learning.
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