Reflections

Reflections on your experience during the Flipped Classroom Initiative- Great Oak

 * Reflection 1: Great Oak**

Flipping the classroom is an interesting concept that would be better served in a high school setting or as a follow-up to a classroom discussion. The problems that I encountered at the middle school level were numerous:

1. Out of 16 students that were given the assignment to watch the video for homework on teacher tube, only 4 were able to access the site. In order to accomplish the hands-on activity they needed to see the video and this caused me to have to postpone the activity an extra day and assign the video to be viewed during school hours in the computer lab. The excuses ranged from forgetting the paper with the url address for the website, not being able to find the website, page not found, no power, no flash player, and internet explorer could not display the page. The website address was also listed on Powerschool, which is accessable to every student.

2. I actually lost one class period because so many students did not see the video. I had to come up with an alternate lesson that wouldn't reveal the subject matter from the video.

3. There was no interaction with the students so they couldn't ask questions for clarification while watching the video.

4. There were no teachable moments with the class. The students at this grade level (7) love to bring up personal experiences about the material we cover which makes it more relevent to them, keeping them engaged.

5. The creation of the videos was very time consuming - it was difficult to coordinate common planning time to plan, create and upload the videos to the web.

6. There were technical problems with uploading the videos to teachertube and the quality when displaying them was poor once they were transferred. As the video progressed, there was a lag between the audio and the video - images were going by faster than the sound that went with the corresponding images.

I see this format working better with students that are more responsible and motivated as independent learners. The students enjoyed the video and there was alot of positive feedback after they actually saw it. I didn't see a big difference in the pre and post assessment scores from the class that saw the video and the class that didn't, actually the class that didn't see the video scored an average of 2% higher.

Flip the classroom has potential to be an excellent educational tool that will enable teachers to free up instructional time in the classroom leaving more time for hands-on learning activities. Although, this is an interesting concept, I feel that for this teaching strategy to work in the classroom teachers would need to be supported 100% for their efforts by administration and parents. It is difficult to have students complete a learning activity if the student was not able to access the video online. Some students do not have access to the internet and their parents do not have time to bring them to the library. If students cannot do this activity at home then, they must have time during school to complete the assignment. The students who do not have access to the internet must be signed up during the class day to do the assignment during Flex (study hall). Signing students up for the computer can be a problem because Yearbook Club takes several seats in the computer lab not leaving many seats for other students who need to work on homework.
 * Reflection 2: Great Oak**
 * //Note://** //Group A (Control group) will not be participating in this lessons activities or view the video on teacher tube. Group B (Experimental group)//

- //__Pretest__//: **Group A** had a class average of 9.1% (F range). **Group B** had a class average of 14.4% (F range). - //__Post Test__////:// **Group A** had a class average of 71.5 %( C-range). **Group B** had a class average of 78.6 (C+ range) - //__Homework__// assignment from video **Group A:** 100% of students did their homework assignment (worksheet) **Group B:** 1 student did not do his homework because when he went to the teacher tube site the video page was white and he could not view the assignment. Two other students kept losing internet service as they were trying to view the video. In total three students were not able to view the video. This class is usually at a 100% for homework completion.

After reviewing the data, I do not see much of an increase in test scores. Students who were in the experimental group experienced lower homework scores because they were unable to access the site. I had those students who could not do the homework try again during class time so that I could help. These students still were unable to access the site in school because the internet connection wasn’t strong enough.

Reflection- Bishop Woods

Pros: Cons:
 * Students were engaged and enthusiastic
 * Students were able to work at their own pace, pausing and rewinding when necessary
 * Students were mostly successful:
 * o 1/23 student mastery on pre-assessment
 * o 19/23 student mastery on post-assessment
 * o Students who did not master just need more time to practice
 * Freed-up class time allowed student collaboration and meaningful application of learning
 * Video planning ensures thoughtful, well-delivered instruction
 * Lesson is created for future years
 * Creating video was very time consuming
 * Ran into many technical difficulties during video creation and when uploading video
 * Internet access was not available to all students at home

Reflection-2


 * __Flipped Classroom Reflection__**

I was very excited to be asked to be a part of this flipped classroom pilot program. After our first meeting at Aces with Robin my colleagues and I were very excited to get going on this project. The only problem was that we did not start right away, and we wished that we had. Our original idea for this lesson was to teach probability; however that idea did not actually happen. Once we finally chose a lesson idea it was months later. I decided to create a video on teaching my students to identify and measure angles. The only problem I encountered was the actual measuring and manipulating of the protractor. I chose to create my lesson slides using Power Point. I narrated each slide in the Power Point program which was very easy to do. The only problem I encountered was trying to figure out how to create the video using Camtasia and transitioning my slides to the video file that was created using our flip camera.

I kept my video between 5-6 minutes in length. I was able to identify the important information needed for students to measure and identify the angles. Students were able to ask questions the next day and then they were able to apply the information that they learned in the classroom application process. My students appeared to enjoy the video and the idea of applying for the entire period instead of listening to my lesson in class.

As I created my lesson plan I noticed that The Common Core Standards have shifted and the New Haven Curriculum Standards have not. According to the Common Core, measuring angles and using a protractor should be taught in 4th grade. However, the New Haven sixth grade curriculum map has 6th graders learning to identify and measure angles.

If I were to do this entire project over I think I would attempt to video myself at the board using the filp camera. I think I spent too much time editing and creating my slides. I feel that I could have created a smoother video if I approached this a little differently.