So...what did your staff do on the first day of school professional development? In the past, our staff met, had a keynote speaker, gave out some awards, had some meetings and left for the day looking forward to 2 more of the same.
This is what we did today:
8 am:
1. We met as a whole school community (bus drivers, parapros, teachers, admin etc.) in the auditorium.
2. Our superintendent had a 10 minute presentation (hilarious) about what he learned in his first year on the job (he learned that if he is only half as good as the last one, he will be fine :) )
3. Each administrator (transportation through administration) introduced new staff and noted the ones who have worked there for a certain number of years (10, 20, 30)
4. We split into 16 "power teams" (I am on the pink power processors team and wear a pink shirt!) that are a mix of all staff. My team has 2 admin, 8 teachers, food service, bus drivers, parapros, admin. assistants. We met in a classroom to get our instructions for the day. We also collected 50 cents from each member of the power team.
5. Each power team had to go to 3 business partners in the community and thank them for what they do for our school every year. We rode school buses, went to the local companies and delivered a care package with a note signed by the staff thanking them for contributing to our school community. We then had to find a way to use our money to "pay it forward" by using the money to help out in the community somehow. We only had $10 but we were able to parlay that into a free oil change for a customer at the auto store, 3 free children's haircuts for a family and gave $5 a family at the grocery store to assist with the bill. We had to take pictures everywhere we went and generally had to spread good cheer in the community.
6. We returned to school, got back in the classroom and spent the next 30 minutes brainstorming how we would pay it forward all year as a team. Our team will clean up baseball fields in the spring, attend a sporting event and collect canned goods, donate any gift cards we receive to needy families, and every once in a while, buy a student lunch.
7. After we finished with that, we had lunch together.
8. We gathered back in the auditorium to celebrate what we had done that morning by looking at pictures from the morning and talking about what we were going to do.
For the afternoon, we were free to work in our classrooms and prepare for the upcoming year.
I am not sure I have ever felt more a part of the community than I did today. I live in the town and am a teacher there. I live 2 minutes from school and 5 minutes from every business we visited. We saw many former students and parents of students along the way.
What a great message to send from our administration about what is important to our school.
Our community knows that we are all about service. We are all about giving back to the community for what they do for us. That is powerful and more important than any speaker. When people see teachers, bus drivers, custodians etc. all together giving back, that speaks volumes by itself.
I live in the community and am less than 5 minutes drive time from every place we visited. All of those people now see me differently. I am not "just a teacher" but someone who genuinely cares and likes to be a part of the community.
I think if EVERY school did this, the negative messages sent about public education would vanish. If every school in Michigan sent their staff out into the community to thank them and ask what else they could do, people would WANT their kids to be a part of that kind of society.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
Failure?
This past year I (as I blogged below) took flipped class to the extreme and had a portion of my AP class as online only. We met approximately 66% of the days and they had to work on the other days. Result????
worst AP scores EVER!
I had as many 5's as normal but far fewer passing than ever and the lowest AP scores as a group that I have had.. After self-flagellation and inward thinking, here is what I have come up with.
Reasons for these results:
1. Unable to DRIVE the students to work harder by not seeing them every day.
2. CLass time was more meaningful when we met but not meaningful enough.
3. Online quizzes do not encourage deep study or motivation to study
4. Group was the laziest I have ever had, many seniors who basically did enough to get by with a passing grade.
5. I did not give them enough work to do which led to a feeling that they had done enough.
6. Not grading homework or allowing work to be turned in late with no penalty DOES NOT WORK for students who are not self-motivated.
7. I did not have my students WRITE their thoughts enough, rather used mc quizzing as the main means of formative assessment.
Too often in education we are afraid to try new things because of the possiblity of what happened to my class this year. I realize that these scores may have been this way even if we met every day (or they may have been worse :)
I DO think blending online and face to face instruction is still a valuable option and I am going to continue to pursue it. I will this year still allow my students to work at home some days but it will be far fewer days and it will be on days where all they would be doing in class is working anyway. We will not do online quizzing except in a formative manner. All graded quizzes will be done in class and WRITTEN!
In conclusion, blending instruction in this way MAY be better for elective classes like my anatomy class where there is no summative, competitive exam at the end; however, I must try it again with a few changes before any assumptions can be made. As a scientist, I know that one trial does not an experiment make so I will continue with another set of students with a few changes listed above. As an educator, I know that nothing is perfect but I have to continue to try to find the best way to educate my students in the 21st century.
worst AP scores EVER!
I had as many 5's as normal but far fewer passing than ever and the lowest AP scores as a group that I have had.. After self-flagellation and inward thinking, here is what I have come up with.
Reasons for these results:
1. Unable to DRIVE the students to work harder by not seeing them every day.
2. CLass time was more meaningful when we met but not meaningful enough.
3. Online quizzes do not encourage deep study or motivation to study
4. Group was the laziest I have ever had, many seniors who basically did enough to get by with a passing grade.
5. I did not give them enough work to do which led to a feeling that they had done enough.
6. Not grading homework or allowing work to be turned in late with no penalty DOES NOT WORK for students who are not self-motivated.
7. I did not have my students WRITE their thoughts enough, rather used mc quizzing as the main means of formative assessment.
Too often in education we are afraid to try new things because of the possiblity of what happened to my class this year. I realize that these scores may have been this way even if we met every day (or they may have been worse :)
I DO think blending online and face to face instruction is still a valuable option and I am going to continue to pursue it. I will this year still allow my students to work at home some days but it will be far fewer days and it will be on days where all they would be doing in class is working anyway. We will not do online quizzing except in a formative manner. All graded quizzes will be done in class and WRITTEN!
In conclusion, blending instruction in this way MAY be better for elective classes like my anatomy class where there is no summative, competitive exam at the end; however, I must try it again with a few changes before any assumptions can be made. As a scientist, I know that one trial does not an experiment make so I will continue with another set of students with a few changes listed above. As an educator, I know that nothing is perfect but I have to continue to try to find the best way to educate my students in the 21st century.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Make your own videos!
Much of the discussion and many of the questions about flipping the classroom revolve around the use of video to transmit information to students. There has been much discussion about Khan academy and the like as tools for this transmission of information. While KA and other sites are phenomenal and are often used by students as review/learning tools, this author believes that for any classroom teacher to get the most out of flipping their class, every teacher should make their own videos. Here are some reasons for that:
1. Making your own videos enables you to deliver the exact content you feel your students need. Many other postings are maybe too detailed for your class or emphasize points that are not that important to learning what is needed at the time.
2. Making your own videos is a great personal learning tool for the teacher. There is external pressure to say the right things because this becomes a public process. Therefore you ensure that you have the information correct before you publish it.
3. Making your own videos gives you ownership of your instruction. I have tried using other's material for teaching in the past: powerpoints, worksheets, etc. and I never have felt comfortable as a teacher doing it this way. A student WANTS to know their teacher and if the teacher is using someone else's voice to deliver material, the class becomes much less personal and more distant. This also becomes a way to connect with parents who hear and see what their children are doing in class and can hear you teach when they could not before.
4. Making your own videos allows your voice to be heard locally. I use local examples that would not apply to someone in Germany or even Kalamazoo. One of the failings of a textbook is that they have to use very general examples that could apply anywhere. I can use examples of the landfill just outside of town, the cheese factory, the river, Lake Michigan, etc.
5. Making your own videos is an easy way to sell the idea to parents because the perception that flipping is a lazy way out goes away when they realize that you have taken the time to put all of this together and you aren't just doing a quick internet search and using someone else's hard work.
Now, in our school, we have 3 teachers that teach 9th grade biology. I don't think it is necessary in that case for all of us to make videos on the same subjects. In fact, it is pretty cool when my students listen to a lecture made by another teacher in our school because they are getting variety of style, ideas, humor, etc. but in a LOCAL flavor. They are hearing someone they see in the hall and their friends have as a teacher. That is far different than hearing someone you will likely never meet or see.
Comments/Ideas for and against are welcome!
1. Making your own videos enables you to deliver the exact content you feel your students need. Many other postings are maybe too detailed for your class or emphasize points that are not that important to learning what is needed at the time.
2. Making your own videos is a great personal learning tool for the teacher. There is external pressure to say the right things because this becomes a public process. Therefore you ensure that you have the information correct before you publish it.
3. Making your own videos gives you ownership of your instruction. I have tried using other's material for teaching in the past: powerpoints, worksheets, etc. and I never have felt comfortable as a teacher doing it this way. A student WANTS to know their teacher and if the teacher is using someone else's voice to deliver material, the class becomes much less personal and more distant. This also becomes a way to connect with parents who hear and see what their children are doing in class and can hear you teach when they could not before.
4. Making your own videos allows your voice to be heard locally. I use local examples that would not apply to someone in Germany or even Kalamazoo. One of the failings of a textbook is that they have to use very general examples that could apply anywhere. I can use examples of the landfill just outside of town, the cheese factory, the river, Lake Michigan, etc.
5. Making your own videos is an easy way to sell the idea to parents because the perception that flipping is a lazy way out goes away when they realize that you have taken the time to put all of this together and you aren't just doing a quick internet search and using someone else's hard work.
Now, in our school, we have 3 teachers that teach 9th grade biology. I don't think it is necessary in that case for all of us to make videos on the same subjects. In fact, it is pretty cool when my students listen to a lecture made by another teacher in our school because they are getting variety of style, ideas, humor, etc. but in a LOCAL flavor. They are hearing someone they see in the hall and their friends have as a teacher. That is far different than hearing someone you will likely never meet or see.
Comments/Ideas for and against are welcome!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
One student's thoughts.
This is so insightful I just had to share it. This was posted on a forum by one of my students: The writing prompt was: What about today's teaching and learning do you dislike and what do you like? In other words, what would the perfect classroom environment for you be like? (#flipclass #inquiry #blending anyone??)
It is my opinion that the teaching methods in use today are less effective than they could be. The methods I have experienced in my educational career I believe to place too high an emphasis on rope memorization and mandatory homework. In my opinion, this is largely ineffective. The presentation of facts cannot stand alone. In order to truly understand the material, which of course makes the facts much easier to remember, it is required that one understands why the facts are what they are. Why does the Quadratic Formula work? Where did it come from? How was it discovered? Why did Rome spread itself thin? Why was it imperial, yet reestablished the governments of every nation it conquered? Why were the Jews so resistant to Roman rule? Why did Rome work to eliminate Christianity, yet was perfectly willing to accept the vast majority of religions? How has Rome gone from trying to eliminate Christianity to becoming the universal symbol of Christianity? Why are these facts true? What motivates these historical events? How were these facts discovered? These are questions vital to truly understanding the material. After 3 years of knowing the Quadratic Formula, I still cannot derive it, or explain why it works. I cannot prove the Quadratic Formula, yet I use it constantly. I do not understand the Quadratic Formula. I remember the Quadratic Formula. Nothing more.
My ideal teaching environment is impractical in a school such as Coopersville. However, I will detail it, as steps towards such an environment I believe would be beneficial. The ideal environment would consist of classes of about half the size of the current class. The class would be discussion based, with the teacher only guiding the students. The material, as far as is practical, would not be taught. It would be discovered. I mean, obviously you can't have students figure out the composition of a proton. That would require the construction of a particle accelerator and knowledge much more advanced than is appropriate to teach prior to teaching the composition of a proton. However, the ideal environment would involve as much discovery as is practical. For example, our science classes often teach the subject, then demonstrate it with the lab that led to its discovery. Invert that. Do the lab first. Give the students a question and resources, and have them design and run an experiment to answer it. Have them figure out why the results were what they were, and introduce every subject in this way for which it is practical to do so. In history classes, present a fact and let the students discuss possible implications of the fact. Allow them to exhaust their ideas, perhaps throw in a couple guiding remarks, and then teach the actual implications. If the actual implications differed, have the students determine why. Teach two facts and have the students explain how they are connected, or the motivations or circumstances that led from one to the next. Have them discuss it among themselves, figure it out themselves. In English classes, assign reading. Then have the class enter a discussion and tear the selection apart. Allow the students to discuss directly with one another, rather than being fed the answers by the teacher, and allow them to find the deeper meaning themselves. Allow them to own the understanding, having figured it out themselves. In mathematics classes, present the material in the form of problems. Have the students figure out the material through solving the problems, then bring them together to discuss their solutions or what stumped them in order to get farther into the subject. The teacher should only say what is necessary to make sure the subject is taught. That is the ideal environment, in my opinion. However, such an environment requires intelligence and drive from the students. Coopersville, being a public school, does not consist entirely of driven students. We have struggled with late work and missing assignments and people just not doing the work. A literal use of my environment would not work. However, I believe adopting some measures and modifying some of the more radical suggestions may allow my environment to prove beneficial. I also realize that Coopersville lacks the means to have such small class sizes. However, it seems to me that there is no reason why AP classes cannot conform very closely to my environment, and why others cannot adopt some measures. I believe it would benefit the school. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Tell me and I'll forget. Teach me and I'll learn. Involve me and I'll understand." Involve the students. Allow them to discover the material themselves, to take part in teaching each other. Only then will there be true understanding |
Monday, June 4, 2012
Intentional Nonlearners and blended instruction
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Blending Student Evals
Here is my students reaction to a couple of questions regarding our AP biology blended learning class this year. Their comments were unedited in any way
Q: What did you think of how the class was done this year with 50% online and 50% face to face instruction? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it?
a1. The structure of the class was very convenient. I obviously liked how I could do my work whenever. I prefer the traditional classroom setting to the online setting, but I don't dislike the online setting.
a2 I liked it, it gave me more time to do the assignments on my own time, the videos were really great but i felt like we didn't get that in depth but that is probably because of how much material we had to cover.
a3. I thought it was really good! I feel like I learned a lot more from the video lectures than I did when we came into class. I think it is because i took notes for the videos, but sometimes i didn't think there was a whole lot of benefit from coming to class. I think a lot of people struggled with knowing when things were due what the requirements were for some assignments. It was probably our own faults though.
a4.I think it was a good idea. I appreciated the ability to work through things on my own. I would have appreciated more control over my study, such as the ability to skip homework over stuff I understand already, and, to be honest, I thought the video notes could be shortened by half or three-quarters without losing any of the information. However, these are my own feelings, and I do not think it would be beneficial for an entire class to implement them
a5 The online was not my favorite because I think that during class, we would have done more with the time that we had than we did online. With online, the assignments were short and sometimes I did not have time outside of school to do the review that we were supposed to do. The reason I saved the review for home was so that I could remeber it better the next day when we had a quiz or whatnot.
a6. I liked that we were able to take our work home and work on it there because I work a lot better when I'm at home by myself then I do in a class room setting because I get distracted really easy and can't focus but at home I can do whatever it is that im suppossed to be doing because I focus and just listen to music and don't talk to anyone. And I liked doing all the labs in class.
Q: Your grade aside, evaluate your personal efforts in this class. Do you feel you worked as hard as you needed to? Do you think that the format of the class was a hindrance or help to you in this way.
a1. I do not think I worked as hard as I needed to. I think the format of the class caused me to postpone work more than I would have in the traditional classroom setting
a2. I feel like I could have worked harder to get a good grade but I did in fact learn a lot and that matters.
a3. The setup this year in my opinion allowed me to work harder because we only met once every two days. If I could not complete the homework on a specific night I had an extra day to catch up and watch the notes. However, the last few weeks I did slow down more and not pay as much attention because it seemed easier than the beginning of the year.
I do think that many of these comments and issues could be applied to flipped classroom also.!
Friday, May 4, 2012
Experimentation week
So this week we decided to experiment with the flipped classroom in our biology class a bit. The first part of the week was the "old way" I spent 30 minutes in class lecturing on the immune system (specific immunity, B and T cells etc.) and the students spent 20 minutes working on an activity related to it. And we spent the last 15 minutes watching a discovery channel video on flu. The next day was a repeat except we discussed vaccines, HIV and finished the movie with discussion. for 18 years I have mostly taught this way. For many of my colleagues I was a GREAT teacher those 2 days. I am a good lecturer with good and interesting stories, the students asked a few questions that were pertinent. I had a ticket out the door and they seemed to know what we did.
The problem was.....BOREDOM!!!!
The level of energy in the classroom was 2 on a scale from 1-10 and the 2 was because I am an energetic speaker. As stated previously, there was longggg minutes with nothing except students frantically writing down notes and copying graphs into their notes. They were super relieved to put away their notes and move on to something else. The results of the next day's formative assessment quiz were about where they are no matter how they are given the material. Some did great because they looked it over, some did poorly because they didn't. There was and is no measurable grading difference between flipping and not. The biggest difference is the ENERGY in the classroom and the amount of individual learning that was going on.
The last day we decided to try mastery learning. The assignment was to watch the notes on respiratory system. The only way to move on was to get 100% on the quiz. They took the quiz, if they did not receive a score of 100% they had to review the notes {some had to watch them yet :) } and when they felt prepared, redo it. If they once again did not, they had to speak with us about it and discuss what they did not know.
If they received a score of 100%, they went on to a lab on the effects of secondhand smoking on baby mouse lungs (inquiry because we have not yet talked about alveoli and how gases are exchanged with the blood). The energy and learning in the room was awesome. Questions about what actually happens to the oxygen we inhale, misconceptions revealed about what lungs actually do for you, etc, etc. All students were on task for the 70 minutes with something about respiration. They could not "check out" mentally. Our classes are mainstreamed biology 9th grade with some of the top 9th graders combined with up to 15 special education students (LD, EI, POHI). The hard part is that we had to repeat many of the same things to students because we were talking to them individually (or in groups of 2). The good part about THAT is that we believe students will remember better if you are talking directly to them as they try to figure out a problem rather than listening to a group lecture.
Next week, we are going to survey the students regarding our experiment. Results will be posted here!
Comments welcomed!
The problem was.....BOREDOM!!!!
The level of energy in the classroom was 2 on a scale from 1-10 and the 2 was because I am an energetic speaker. As stated previously, there was longggg minutes with nothing except students frantically writing down notes and copying graphs into their notes. They were super relieved to put away their notes and move on to something else. The results of the next day's formative assessment quiz were about where they are no matter how they are given the material. Some did great because they looked it over, some did poorly because they didn't. There was and is no measurable grading difference between flipping and not. The biggest difference is the ENERGY in the classroom and the amount of individual learning that was going on.
The last day we decided to try mastery learning. The assignment was to watch the notes on respiratory system. The only way to move on was to get 100% on the quiz. They took the quiz, if they did not receive a score of 100% they had to review the notes {some had to watch them yet :) } and when they felt prepared, redo it. If they once again did not, they had to speak with us about it and discuss what they did not know.
If they received a score of 100%, they went on to a lab on the effects of secondhand smoking on baby mouse lungs (inquiry because we have not yet talked about alveoli and how gases are exchanged with the blood). The energy and learning in the room was awesome. Questions about what actually happens to the oxygen we inhale, misconceptions revealed about what lungs actually do for you, etc, etc. All students were on task for the 70 minutes with something about respiration. They could not "check out" mentally. Our classes are mainstreamed biology 9th grade with some of the top 9th graders combined with up to 15 special education students (LD, EI, POHI). The hard part is that we had to repeat many of the same things to students because we were talking to them individually (or in groups of 2). The good part about THAT is that we believe students will remember better if you are talking directly to them as they try to figure out a problem rather than listening to a group lecture.
Next week, we are going to survey the students regarding our experiment. Results will be posted here!
Comments welcomed!
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