| My Virtual Classroom |
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I have been teaching math and science at Berlin for several years now and every year I heard many of the same types of questions. "I couldn't finish the homework because I didn't understand", "I did the entire assignment wrong and I have to redo the assignment", "I didn't have time to finish to the assignment","I spent two hours doing this assignment and I still don't understand", and most importantly "When will I ever use this?". What I've tried to do is structure my class is such a way so students are able to understand and use the math we learn about by using what is known as a flipped classroom. This technique is a relatively new way of teaching and I'm often asked several common questions about it. I wanted to take a few moments and answer these questions and suggest several ways you can encourage your child to participate so they can better learn from this structure.
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What is a Flipped Classroom?
Two chemistry teachers in Colorado, Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams, are credited with developing the flipped classroom. What happens in a flipped classroom is students view a video of the lecture at home and take notes on it. Student then come to class and discuss what they saw in the video and ask questions to each other about material that they did not understand. The students then complete a practice assignment in class. This way if they are stuck on a problem they can get help immediately from either myself or other students. After students complete their assignments, groups work on a large project that is designed to use all the concepts that they are learning about in the current chapter. This way students can apply what their learning to an activity and in turn can help students understand the importance of the material
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How do students watch the lectures at home?
One of the biggest challenges with the flipped classroom is how to get the lectures to every student. Technology can help but it isn't always able to reach everyone. The method that I have used to reach the most students is be creating a YouTube channel in which I upload my lectures to. Students can log onto or subscribe to My Virtual Classroom (www.youtube.com/myvirtualclassroom) and find the lectures available. This is one way students are able to access the lectures, but for those that do not have high speed Internet at home there are other options. Students that have computer access at home but can not access the Internet can request a download version of the lectures which is placed onto a jump drive or burned to a CD. For the students that do not have computer access a DVD can be burned so that the video lectures can be viewed from any DVD player. Additionally all students have access to computers at school during 6th hour where they can view the video lecture online either in the library or the computer lab. Video lectures can never be longer than 15 minutes, but most average out to be less than 10 minutes long.
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How do you know that the students watch the videos?
There are a couple of ways that I use to check and see if students are watching the video lectures. The two main ways I use is a group note summary and a daily quiz. The group note summary is learning activity where each member of a group writes down the key ideas from the notes they took from the video and then the group discusses and decides what the key ideas are. The group, and myself, then evaluates everyone's involvement by using a productive group rubric. Secondly video quizzes are given after a video was supposed to be viewed. The answers to the quiz are word for word answers from the video. Students that take notes on the video can use their notes on these quizzes. Any student that views the video lectures and takes good note should receive a perfect score on the video quizzes.
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What sorts of projects do you do?
The projects that a designed depend on the chapter we a studying. Every project is designed to use every concept covered in the chapter so that student's can see how all the material is connected. Due to the fact that I also teach science, some of the projects I design are based on science concepts. I do understand that some students have difficulty with science as well as math but are excellent in other areas. I do try to incorporate other areas into projects as well. Some of the projects that have been done are as follows: The Rolling Bridge, Conceptual Artwork, Winning the Lottery, Following in Eratosthenes Footsteps, Clockworks, and The Human Cannonball.
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What are the benefits of a Flipped Classroom?
The first thing students tell me is that they enjoy doing their math. The fact that every chapter is designed to compete a big project helps keep the students interested in the math. Besides the projects, students are able to learn and comprehend the material better. Students often work in small groups on their assignments and ask each other questions. This helps the class two ways, the student explaining is able to say what they know to another student which helps them remember what they learned. To the student getting help, having another student explain it is often easier for them to understand. As always I would circulate thought the class checking to make sure that the explanations are correct and if an entire group is stuck, I am there to help. The last big benefit is that students say they have less homework. With the Flipped Classroom, the average video lecture is 10 minutes long. Normal homework assignments are generally designed to take anywhere from 20-30 minutes but for some that normal assignment could take hours. It does not matter if you are good at math or not, your typical video lecture will be done in about 10 minutes.
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What can we do to help?
Your help as parents and guardians is always appreciated. What I ask is to allow students access to the videos every night. Try and encourage your student to take notes on the videos. If they have questions, have them write them down to ask others, or myself, in class the next day. When students are viewing the videos try and encourage them to have as little distractions as possible. Encourage your child to turn off their music and phones, only have one video playing at a time, and don't switch the computer windows so they don't miss something. Some parents have sat down a watched the video lectures with their child and have come up with questions to ask to help their kids understand better. I try to email weekly newsletters to let you know what video lectures are being assigned, what the projects are and what the classes progress is on them, and when upcoming tests and quizzes are. If you would like to make sure your email is on my mailing list please send this sheet with the email address you would like to receive the updates at. If there ever arises a major problem please feel free to contact me.
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