One of the problems I have encountered with my classes this semester is that I have not factored in enough fun. We have had two tough units in a row (Spanish Civil War and Detective Novels) and although the kids have learned so much I feel like it is time to loosen up and have some fun.
So, there will not be a new reader for our final unit of the semester! Yay! I am going to go back to short stories and really focus on meaningful but fun activities and assessments for our final unit this year...TECHNOLOGY!
For this unit, I am going to ask the students to create projects that would help their peers and future students learn concepts that we have covered this year. If someone asks me, I may even let them do how to succeed in the flipped classroom! I am a big believer in giving some free reign on the methods of the delivery of this project, but it must incorporate technology. I spoke to one of my peer teachers and she said she recently assigned a technology project where she said Power Points were forbidden. She had the kids choose a way to present from http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ . There are some cool ideas for projects there. The kids will also learn some technology vocabulary and I feel confident there will be lots of speaking! I am looking at not only discussion questions about technology, but revisiting the prompts from the Google Voice assignments this semester.
I am thinking about giving the final before the Unit Assessment for this unit so that I have time to grade an effective assessment. I am planning on having the kids do a writing prompt which incorporates their knowledge from the semester. We will also have a listening and speaking prompt. Then, we can watch the Unit Assessments during the end of the semester and the kids can focus on studying for their other classes. Our school mandates finals in just about every class, so the kids are really stressed those last two weeks!
I am preparing for my conference in Chicago this summer, and I am excited that I am going to work with a colleague to do a professional development day on the flipped classroom in my school district. I have also been approached by another school to deliver a half-day presentation on the flip! I am so excited to share my passion (and get to do some free traveling!)
Showing posts with label Flip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flip. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Flipping requires students to think
Sounds obvious, right? The more units we do, the more I love the flip and the way it has enabled me to help more students, create better assignments and assessments, and my lessons are more organinzed and every unit includes lots of the 5Cs.
However, needing students to engage their brains seems to be the biggest challenge. I am not talking about the actual lessons....I am talking about the life skills necessary to work with the flip.
The kids, and I teach mostly Juniors, have no idea how to study....no idea how to organize their time....no idea how to organize assignments and make a plan of attack. I have spent as much time talking to my students about these skills as I have talked to them about Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to talk to the students about these skills. I am more surprised about the fact that so many of them don't know how to do these things already.
On Friday, I was at an inservice and the played this Tedtalk http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U . It talks about how we are really putting our students through a school 'factory' and that theya re losing their ability to think. This is no more apparent than with the flip, when we are taking students out of their comfort zone of being able to just sit in the class and get good grades. With the flip, I require so much more. The students have to think, they have to organize, they have to put themselves into the work in order to be successful.
For me, it is just one more reason that everyone should flip, or at least look at what they are doing in the classroom and wonder if we really are doing what is best for our students......
However, needing students to engage their brains seems to be the biggest challenge. I am not talking about the actual lessons....I am talking about the life skills necessary to work with the flip.
The kids, and I teach mostly Juniors, have no idea how to study....no idea how to organize their time....no idea how to organize assignments and make a plan of attack. I have spent as much time talking to my students about these skills as I have talked to them about Spanish.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to talk to the students about these skills. I am more surprised about the fact that so many of them don't know how to do these things already.
On Friday, I was at an inservice and the played this Tedtalk http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U . It talks about how we are really putting our students through a school 'factory' and that theya re losing their ability to think. This is no more apparent than with the flip, when we are taking students out of their comfort zone of being able to just sit in the class and get good grades. With the flip, I require so much more. The students have to think, they have to organize, they have to put themselves into the work in order to be successful.
For me, it is just one more reason that everyone should flip, or at least look at what they are doing in the classroom and wonder if we really are doing what is best for our students......
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Finally, finals!
So, after almost an entire semester (finals are next week), the majority of complaining about the flip has ceased. Students grades seem to be spot on, in comparison to past years and the students performance in Spanish II. There are a few exceptions, but they have extreme circumstances. For instance, I have a student that is usually an A student who has a C in class. But she missed some class and never came in to do a retake of a quiz.
I am looking forward to our last Unit Assessment, which is a conversation about the students futures. We have done quite a bit of practice, and I love hearing my students say "Hey I can say way more than I thought I could!". I feel like their listening and speaking have improved quite a bit over the semester....much more than their peers from previous years.
I will say that since there are so few quizzes (6 for the semester) and only 3 Unit Assessments, the kids can be in big trouble if something goes badly wrong. For example, I have 6 students that wrote their fairy tale (the Unit Assessment for the last unit) with a translator and they received a 0. They are all looking at Ds right now. After the Unit assessment next week, there grades should improve, but they can never truly recover from something like that happening.
Some students have asked for more quizzes, shorter vocabulary lists, and there are a few holdouts for a word bank. However, I really don't believe that 35-40 vocabulary words every two weeks is excessive. I keep hoping that they will choose to study over the entire 2 week period instead of always waiting for the last minute.
As I believe I have mentioned, every student can retake every Benchmark Assessment (or quiz). They are required to have "a ticket" which is more practice for grammar, or writing vocabulary words a certain amount of times. I have increased the "price" for the retake as we have continued through the semester, hoping to encourage them to do it right the first time, and for many of them, this has worked. Still, I am surprised by how many students never take advantage of the retake. When I talk to them about it, the answer I usually get is that they are too busy with sports or their other classes. Sad :(
The Final Exam for the semester is going to be an application of the material that they have learned this semester. This is making some of my students crazy, because they want a study guide, a list of exactly what will be on the test, etc. I have told them I am not giving a grammar or vocabulary assessment. They are going to do a writing sample, which will be a letter based on our fairy tale unit. The prompt incorporates fairy tale vocab, future tense and direct and indirect objects. The example I gave them to try was as follows:
The reading selection has presented a bit more of a challenge, and honestly I am still wavering between a government reading and a legend. I am probably going to use the government reading but ask simplified questions. I have decided that I am going to give them the reading first and then after 10 minutes give them the questions. I am SO tired of students not reading things, just finding the answers to the questions.
So, my plan is that the final will be fairly easy if they did their work all semester. I think it will be way better than my exam of old which had the reputation of being "scary" and a "monster". I'll keep you posted!
I am looking forward to our last Unit Assessment, which is a conversation about the students futures. We have done quite a bit of practice, and I love hearing my students say "Hey I can say way more than I thought I could!". I feel like their listening and speaking have improved quite a bit over the semester....much more than their peers from previous years.
I will say that since there are so few quizzes (6 for the semester) and only 3 Unit Assessments, the kids can be in big trouble if something goes badly wrong. For example, I have 6 students that wrote their fairy tale (the Unit Assessment for the last unit) with a translator and they received a 0. They are all looking at Ds right now. After the Unit assessment next week, there grades should improve, but they can never truly recover from something like that happening.
Some students have asked for more quizzes, shorter vocabulary lists, and there are a few holdouts for a word bank. However, I really don't believe that 35-40 vocabulary words every two weeks is excessive. I keep hoping that they will choose to study over the entire 2 week period instead of always waiting for the last minute.
As I believe I have mentioned, every student can retake every Benchmark Assessment (or quiz). They are required to have "a ticket" which is more practice for grammar, or writing vocabulary words a certain amount of times. I have increased the "price" for the retake as we have continued through the semester, hoping to encourage them to do it right the first time, and for many of them, this has worked. Still, I am surprised by how many students never take advantage of the retake. When I talk to them about it, the answer I usually get is that they are too busy with sports or their other classes. Sad :(
The Final Exam for the semester is going to be an application of the material that they have learned this semester. This is making some of my students crazy, because they want a study guide, a list of exactly what will be on the test, etc. I have told them I am not giving a grammar or vocabulary assessment. They are going to do a writing sample, which will be a letter based on our fairy tale unit. The prompt incorporates fairy tale vocab, future tense and direct and indirect objects. The example I gave them to try was as follows:
- Cinderella lost her shoe again and the prince found it. Write an email that says: 1. When you will return it, 2. When you will get married, 3. Where you will live after the wedding.
The reading selection has presented a bit more of a challenge, and honestly I am still wavering between a government reading and a legend. I am probably going to use the government reading but ask simplified questions. I have decided that I am going to give them the reading first and then after 10 minutes give them the questions. I am SO tired of students not reading things, just finding the answers to the questions.
So, my plan is that the final will be fairly easy if they did their work all semester. I think it will be way better than my exam of old which had the reputation of being "scary" and a "monster". I'll keep you posted!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Onward to Fairy Tales
So, changes made, grades decent, we were all ready to move on to the next unit - Fairy Tales.
The students seemed to be resigning themselves to the idea that the flip wasn't going away. We were settling into a groove. Students were watching videos, work was getting done. I did a cute warm up with vocabulary flash card pictionary that went well. Then, it came.......the Benchmark Assessment.
Who would have guessed....the grades were TONS better. The were mostly Bs and Cs. Hardly a 37 in sight! Thank goodness, I felt so much better. Some kids still needed to improve, but across the board it was so much better. I was actually happy to give the assessments back.
We continued on. The kids did fairy tales in Spanish skits. I found a great book with shortened skits and the majority of the kids dressed up, memorized their lines and everything!! (On a side note, one of the APs got hit with a flying pumpkin from the Cinderella skit, which was amusing!)
Benchmark Assessment 2 came, Sadly, the kids didn't do as well. This time, I was writing notes on the top of papers, telling kids who hadn't done well on any of them to come see me. Guess what, when they came to see me, some were honest about the fact that they hadn't studied. I have a few who have decided to come in for extra help. I have a few I think I have convinced that they should ask questions, not just say "I'm ok" if I ask if they need help.
I know have a briefcase full of fairy tales to grade. A quick perusal tells me that the translator wrote a few of them. I actually had a student come to me yesterday to check over a story that she had pretty much totally written via translator. Did she think I wouldn't notice? Sigh. She rewrote the story in her own words, thankfully. We shall see how the grades turn out.
I am already contemplating re-writes. Should I let them do it? I actually gave them a chance to turn in rough drafts and hardly anybody did it. Hmm.....fodder for another entry later.
The students seemed to be resigning themselves to the idea that the flip wasn't going away. We were settling into a groove. Students were watching videos, work was getting done. I did a cute warm up with vocabulary flash card pictionary that went well. Then, it came.......the Benchmark Assessment.
Who would have guessed....the grades were TONS better. The were mostly Bs and Cs. Hardly a 37 in sight! Thank goodness, I felt so much better. Some kids still needed to improve, but across the board it was so much better. I was actually happy to give the assessments back.
We continued on. The kids did fairy tales in Spanish skits. I found a great book with shortened skits and the majority of the kids dressed up, memorized their lines and everything!! (On a side note, one of the APs got hit with a flying pumpkin from the Cinderella skit, which was amusing!)
Benchmark Assessment 2 came, Sadly, the kids didn't do as well. This time, I was writing notes on the top of papers, telling kids who hadn't done well on any of them to come see me. Guess what, when they came to see me, some were honest about the fact that they hadn't studied. I have a few who have decided to come in for extra help. I have a few I think I have convinced that they should ask questions, not just say "I'm ok" if I ask if they need help.
I know have a briefcase full of fairy tales to grade. A quick perusal tells me that the translator wrote a few of them. I actually had a student come to me yesterday to check over a story that she had pretty much totally written via translator. Did she think I wouldn't notice? Sigh. She rewrote the story in her own words, thankfully. We shall see how the grades turn out.
I am already contemplating re-writes. Should I let them do it? I actually gave them a chance to turn in rough drafts and hardly anybody did it. Hmm.....fodder for another entry later.
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