On my way to being SMART.

Yesterday, I finished watching (and taking notes for) the Flipped Classroom Certification tutorials on Sophia.org . I scored 58/60...dammit. I like getting perfect scores (as much as I don't want my students to focus on the grade....it's so hard not to when school was all about that in my day!).

Crystal Kirch created the tutorials and does an excellent job of breaking down the whole process. She really makes you think about the WHY? Why are you flipping this lesson? What is the point for the student? Are your lessons SMART?  I think this is harder for me to process right now because of the fact that we are in Quebec City for my husband's job and I am not actually teaching Spanish at the moment. I had my perfect Spanish classes, but I'm on a leave of absence until we move back. At this point, I'm not sure if I would flip all of my lessons. I think it would take time to ease into it in the first place...for me anyway. I think I would start by flipping a few lessons in one semester and see how it worked for the students and for me. It's not that I'm re-thinking on taking on a flip, it's just that Crystal's tutorials made me see the bigger picture.

This new teaching process doesn't mean less work for the teacher. In fact, I think it looks like more work...at least to get started with, until you're comfortable with the process. There is a lot of planning that should go into every lesson and every method of assessment. Of course, I'm not saying that a lot of effort doesn't go into the "normal" teaching routine because I know VERY well how much time and effort I put into my curriculum. I can't just use a textbook, it's not me. I can't just use the same teaching method over and over - if I'm getting bored, then I know my students are too, so I always try to step it up so that we are all engaged and learning at the same time. I think with this model, however, you face critics and those that do not see this as a practical teaching model, so it's almost like you have to put in that little more to show the value in giving students responsibility for their learning.

Crystal talked about the "Backwards Design" when creating lessons. I don't think it should have to be called 'backwards'...I think all teachers should start with the first step, which is 1) writing your lesson objectives. So, teachers create lessons without knowing their objectives first? Well, anyway I think it's good that she points that out as step one. In BC, we have our PLOs (Prescribed Learning Outcomes) for each subject and grade level. They cover core learning objectives but can be extremely vague at times. Crystal really touches on how objectives should be clear and direct and refers to model for creating these very important objectives as
SMART.

SPECIFIC - make sure students know EXACTLY what you hope for them to learn
MEASURABLE - how will you see if the students have met the objective? Plan assessment suitably.
ATTAINABLE - are you expecting too much too soon? Or not enough? Set objectives at attainable levels.
RESULTS-FOCUSED - what is the purpose for the students? Do they know?
TIME-FOCUSED - ensure there is enough time to reach objectives. Don't spend too much time on simple objectives and break down larger objectives into smaller 'pieces' so that students don't feel overwhelmed by limited time.

The next step in the "Backwards Design" is still not creating the lesson, it's 2)planning your assessment. There are many ways to assess and it doesn't always have to be tests and quizzes. The great thing about the Flip is that it really caters to differentiation in the classroom and differentiated assessment is also key to success for many students. Some students thrive on test writing - they have good memorization skills or they function well under pressure...others know the information, but stick a test in front of them and they go blank. *And as an aside...in the real world, in terms of languages, it's not like you enter a foreign country and they throw a test at you to see if you can understand them, right? That would be bizarre.* Sometimes assessment can come in terms of simple in-class activities or games. It doesn't always have to be formal assessment for you to see how students are progressing. Projects, group discussions, portfolios, and self and peer reviews are all great ways to assess learning. I also like Crystal's suggestion of giving an assessment "menu". Perhaps in each unit, students are given choices for methods of assessment and they get to choose from the "menu" which one works best for them. You could make it so that at some point they're all choosing each method you created at different times per unit or per week. I remember having an English-Lit university class where the prof gave us a choice on assessment. We had to choose at least 3 different methods from about 5 or 6 different choices for each novel (one was on-going project that got handed in multiple times and others were a hand in once kind of deal). I LOVED it and forgot how much I WANTED to do the readings and work for that course until seeing the word "menu" in Crystal's slide.

The last part of the "Backwards Design" is now about 3)creating the lesson using technology (even without technology this is a good formula to follow). I think the most important piece of advice from this tutorial was to BE YOURSELF in your videos. We often tell students not to be robotic in presentations, so lead by example. Voice inflection and jokes (if that's your nature) become so important to maintain that bond with the students. For the lecture side of things, if you choose to do all lessons by video, students aren't getting that face-time with you. I'm seeing a little bit more how my friend thought that this could "take the relationship out of teaching". Some flipped classes have students interacting more with each other than the teacher which is great for students to really build mastery. I  think for me, a huge part of why I became a teacher is because I enjoy that bonding time. I know I would still have class time as a whole so they could hear my cheesy jokes and learn how clumsy I am. I love that part. So with the videos, it's important for you to carry on that personality that they see in the classroom. You're still teaching them after all - it shouldn't be, oh yeah a video taught me Spanish. It should be, oh yeah I had Spanish with Sra. V...she's loca.

So I'm on my way to creating my first flipped lesson....just for practice. We'll see how it goes! Pin It Now!