Much like many subjects, Algebra 1
has a demanding curriculum. When planning lessons, we used every second of
class to teach the students the objectives, but we were always touching on the
surface and running out of time. A typical class period would consist of a
quick warm up, grading and discussing last night’s homework, taking notes over
a new concept (or expanding a previous concept) and then assigning homework. We
weren’t touching higher DOK levels and we always felt rushed. Not to mention, a missed class period had
students feeling behind, and class was routine and didn’t seem “fun”.
After discussing the idea with
students, taking a class vote, and holding a class meeting to alleviate
concerns, we decided to flip our Algebra courses. A flipped classroom is where the teacher
creates video notes and the student take notes at home. When looking at a
typical class period, note taking is the “easy” part. We are passing along
information, which can easily be recorded at home. This takes place of the traditional
worksheet or assignment that goes home. We do not find videos already made on
YouTube, but make the videos ourselves using programs such as iPevo, Doceri and
Screencastomatic. Students respond better when they can hear or see their
teacher. We contacted parents to let them know what we were doing, and got
positive feedback!
We provide a detailed calendar to
our students. The calendar contains 5 columns which provides information about
the date, mandatory work, in-class activities, stretch activities and homework
assignments. The students are aware at all times when assignments are due or
expected to be completed. Homework is not assigned on a nightly basis and the
term “homework” refers to video notes.
To remedy the issue of internet access at home, students can always ask
to have the videos air dropped to them before the end of the day. Otherwise,
they’re placed on Canvas a day or two ahead of time.
When students arrive to class, we
do a quick check to make sure that they took the notes. We then ask if there
are any questions and typically work over an example or two if needed. This is
a great formative assessment tool to make sure we are ready to begin our daily
activity. This is where the fun part takes place. We are now only 5 or 10
minutes into class and have the rest of the period to dive into higher levels
of DOK and/or participate in hands-on activities that wouldn’t regularly fit
into our schedule.
Algebra students were recently
tasked with booking vacations to Paris and New York City. They researched
through travel agencies, wrote a system of equations to represent each city,
solved using 3 methods and compiled a digital poster on www.postermywall.com.
We didn’t skip or extend any objective to allow class time for this project.
The use of a flipped classroom provided the time needed to successfully apply
math to a real life situation.
We could go on and on about the
success of our flipped classroom and the progress that we are seeing in the
Algebra course. However, we asked the students to complete the sentence, “I
love my flipped Algebra class because…” and the results were amazing! Students
are responding well, parents are thrilled to have help at home and we are
excited to be able to hit our math targets and have students digitally step
outside of our classrooms!