Cycle One: How does the flipped learning model affect student engagement and academic performance using existing instructional videos?
This cycle included three main actions:
coming prepared doing more than required 3. Deciding on technology tools to use to deliver a flipped lesson on a topic, in this case, Bacteria. The lesson was structured to include:
Step 2: Researching Step 3: Creating a "Wanted" poster
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4. During the activity, students were excited to have the freedom to select their own bacteria and disease to report on. Excited voices permeated the room, with shrieks heard, as images of those afflicted with the disease rendered. All students grouped themselves into 2-4.
5. Student academic achievement was measured in two instances: the first in the accompanying quiz to the video homework, referred to as “Homework Scores” and secondly at the end of the group project, in this case, “Poster Scores.” Please see above discussion on participation as it relates to academic achievement related to the video homework. It is interesting to note that group 6, with the lowest percentage of correct answers ranking last, was ranked third on homework scores. Poor class participation rate does not equal poor academic achievement. Perhaps these students where the most motivated to learn in the class, thereby showing higher scores. 6. Scores increasing in classes later in the day, as a reflection of successful adaptation to technical issues. Trusting students to find better solutions.Technical difficulties affects lesson introduction and consequently, student achievement. The groups are in order of the time of day the class spends with Mrs. Sanchez. Group 1 would be Period 1, and so on with Group 6 being the class coming latest in the day. The increase in group scores as the day progresses makes me look back into our jagged start into introducing this activity in the earlier periods. In Period 1, we struggled with sharing the poster template from the class blog. The template, housed in Google Drive, would come up blank on the iPads. Students were supposed to make a copy of the template and start editing it as their own. Discovering that the Google Drive App on iPads did not allow this functionality, we looked to E-backpack as a solution. Demonstrating the multiple steps it took to transfer the file onto an editable form in their Google Drive from e-Backpack only took so more time. Students in the earlier periods did not get as much time in class to work together and ask questions. By period four, students were creating their own posters using Pages or other applications. This, I believe, was the breakthrough: We needed to trust the students’ capabilities - no template was necessary.
7. No difficulties were reported related to using Google Forms to answer questions. Video Homework Google Form and Questions:
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Reflection:
Cycle 1 was more of a “test drive” of the technology pieces used in flipping the lesson. As discussed above, there were multiple technical hiccoughs, if you will. The combination used in this cycle was of Google Form, BrainPop Video, Google Document and Flubaroo for scoring results. Lesson learned were:
As a parent partner, I could feel our working relationship mature. It was getting clearer from both our points of view what my role was, and that was being the expert at learning, not technology. This was easier because we had a highly skilled technology integration specialist on campus full-time. This does not absolve me in any way,but it does help to identify strengths.
Definitely feeling vulnerable when technology wasn’t working as expected and not knowing what to do was uncomfortable, to say the least. Even more uncomfortable was when I knew a better path but I did not take the opportunity to offer my idea and exert leadership. It seems I am afraid of sticking out, and going against the grain. Lots of growth needed in this aspect.
Cycle 1 was more of a “test drive” of the technology pieces used in flipping the lesson. As discussed above, there were multiple technical hiccoughs, if you will. The combination used in this cycle was of Google Form, BrainPop Video, Google Document and Flubaroo for scoring results. Lesson learned were:
- When designing lessons, it must be tested on the users device.
- Finding simple technical solutions trumps complex ones all the time.
- Templates need not be provided. Trust students can exert some effort and create their own.
- Be flexible. Sometimes, the video homework will need to be shown in class.
- Flubaroo does grade multiple correct answers, or open-ended ones. Design questions accordingly, or grade by hand.
As a parent partner, I could feel our working relationship mature. It was getting clearer from both our points of view what my role was, and that was being the expert at learning, not technology. This was easier because we had a highly skilled technology integration specialist on campus full-time. This does not absolve me in any way,but it does help to identify strengths.
Definitely feeling vulnerable when technology wasn’t working as expected and not knowing what to do was uncomfortable, to say the least. Even more uncomfortable was when I knew a better path but I did not take the opportunity to offer my idea and exert leadership. It seems I am afraid of sticking out, and going against the grain. Lots of growth needed in this aspect.
Sample posters created by students: