Friday, August 31, 2012

What if students did all the work?

This year I have set up my classroom to reflect a little of the Flipped Classroom model. It makes sense to me to have students do their work when they are at school and can ask me questions. So here's what a math class looks like to my students:

This is how they start class:



Once at their seats, they input the answers from the previous day's work into their clicker (which I monitor so I can work with students who are struggling), do an online math fundamentals activity, and then preview the day's lesson on My Big Campus. They take notes in their Interactive Notebooks over videos and PowerPoint files within MBC and then I give a small lesson. Then they practice! Here is what things look like on MBC:


 

I think I'm on to something here, but I'm only getting started. It takes work to locate or create video tutorials for each lesson, create a presentation, make an assignment, and then combine it on My Big Campus in a bundle.

I once read a book titled "Never Work Harder Than Your Students" but I feel as though I still am. I'm really good at sixth grade math now, so why am I still working so hard at it? It's time to delegate!

Why couldn't students investigate online content to help teach others a concept? Why couldn't they start to identify the subtle difference between multiplying 0.4 x 0.6 and multiplying 0.4 x .006? Why can't they create their own tutorial videos? Presentations? Assignments? Assessments? MBC could be used as their own digital portfolio demonstrating all that they know.

Will I be brave (or crazy) enough to even attempt this? What about my little guys who don't want to write a complete sentence? How will I be able to get them to create step-by-step instructions on how to add mixed numbers with unlike denominators, when they don't even know how yet?

This could be crazy. This could be the greatest teaching of my career. This could fail miserably.

Let's do it. I'm not afraid of failing.

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