I’d like to flip my either my World History I or II classrooms in quarter four. History is one of those courses where the same skills are simply applied across different content areas, so my choice of unit isn’t that important, although I suspect these two units (Medieval Europe and the Cold War, respectively) are somewhat better suited than others since there will be more video content available than that for a topic like Tang China.
Here’s a list of things I’ll need to consider:
- Where will I find video sources? How will intellectual property considerations affect my choice of materials?
- How will I hold students accountable for watching and understanding the videos?
- How will I check for that understanding in class?
- How will balance the removal of reading time from homework and keep exposing students to a variety of interesting and challenging text?
- Which of my assessments and activities will need to be removed/replaced?
- How can I create larger, more in-depth, and/or more authentic activities and assessments from that class time I’ve freed up?
- How will I hold students accountable for using the class time effectively?
- How can I maximize technology integration in my in-class assessments when we’re not on a 1:1 program?
- Do I NEED to maximize technology integration for maximum learning?
- How will I scaffold and teach the habits and skills that students will need to get the most from this new approach?
Here’s a very preliminary list of what I think this would entail:
- ~30 minute of nightly video
- Collaborative notes or viewing guide on Google Docs
- iClicker quizzes the next day
- Students’ choice of several tech assignments, with class time given to work on them in the labs:
- Infographic
- Digital story
- etc
- Class Activities:
- Speaking
- Role playing salon/speed dating
- Graded discussion
- Debates
- Writing
- Essay outlines
- Short answers
- Exit slips
- Reading
- Source analysis
- Current events parallels
- Short stories
- Review
- Crosswords
- Ball toss reviews
Great outline. Just wondering if it has to be video? What about teaching students to search during class time and them the homework be going home and searching for and learning the information they need to know for the next class period? I think that would break up the watching of videos that could be “boring” in the eyes of the students. Maybe work something like this into the mix? http://www.thethinkingstick.com/flipping-history/
Just an idea….look forward to seeing this work!
Here’s the thing… isn’t video intrinsic to the definition of a flipped classroom? Otherwise it’s not really different from asking kids to go home and read a chapter and come to class to discuss it, which teachers have been doing for a long time =) Reverse instruction wants us to remove direct instruction from class time and do application in class, so to follow the flipped model, I’d have to have them learn about searching at home, then give them a guided in-class task to apply that knowledge. Once they’re adept at searching, though, I could have them do the research at home as per your suggestion. I’m not sure I want to tackle this since Q3 starts at the end of January and I’d have to align that instruction with my common planning teacher; the return on my investment would be less than if I took that planning time and applied it towards getting my department to vertically align our research skills (which we should be starting on today after school, with any luck).
Either way, your point about breaking up the routine is well-taken. We do actually tackle a research project in Q4, so I may end up adapting some of your model then – similar to what you described, my students tackle an open-ended question and view it through the prism of current events.