I have taught basically every social studies class that my high school offers in the past 12 years.  The only constant has been teaching US History.  If you actually knew me you would know that I’m not one to brag so what I’m about to say isn’t because I’m overly full of myself: I have a history of great Regents pass rates---even though I teach inclusion classes.  I actually even have decent levels of mastery, which according to New York State is when students score an 85 or above.  My inclusion partner and I work hard as well as our students to achieve these results.  I generally know who is going to fail and who is going to pass and I feel good about how we all come together to achieve successful results.
     This year, for the spring semester, I was assigned to teach AIS for the first time.  AIS (Academic Intervention Services) is a State mandated course that each school must offer for students who have either received poor scores or are predicted to receive poor scores on their State exams.  I went into the class thinking “this will be difficult but I have the tools to help these students and together we will get them through this test!”  Now, 15 weeks later, I’m pretty depressed.
     I did a bunch of research to see how other school districts approached AIS courses.  Many of them just required the students to use a computer program such as NovaNET to work at their own pace to review the course material.  My district uses this program primarily for credit recovery although it has been used for some AIS courses.  My colleagues who taught AIS prior to me weren’t crazy about the program so I didn’t even explore using it.  I, somewhat haughtily thought, I can do better than any program!  I will reach these students where no one else has!
     The first issue that I encountered is that there was a mix of students who needed to pass the Global and the US regents exams.  Basically, since I planned to work directly with the students I had to teach two lessons at the same time.  Desk work for the US kids while I instructed the Global students on outlining an essay on imperialism and the like.  I proceeded like this for two weeks or so and then gave the students a practice test on the material and types of questions that we had covered together.  Their test scores did not change from their base levels.
     I thought that I should mix things up and play review games with the students.  Then I had them work just on skills relating to multiple choice questions (the biggest reason why the students fail the exam).  Afterwards, I took them to the computer lab and we went on Regents Prep.com and even used Castle Learning.  We worked together as a class, one on one, subject specific, you name it.  I gave them more and more practice tests.  What were the results?  Some students had gained a point or two, several had lost ground, most stayed the same.
     I was demoralized.  I had never experienced anything like this before.  My US History students, for the most part do as I ask, put in the extra effort, and do what they need to do to pass the test.  These students complained every day.  I had to fight them constantly about talking, taking out their cell phones, or completing the work that I assigned.  When I had started planning for the course and other people who had taught it before said that I shouldn’t invest too much time in preparation because there was no hope for these students, I scoffed at them in my head.  They didn’t care as much as I did or work as hard as I would work.
     I have exactly 13 class periods left with these students.  Despite my depression, I haven’t given up all hope.  I do think that the system is working against me and my students.  Students shouldn’t be enrolled in a class like this after they have already failed.  Some of my students aren’t trying because they don’t see the point in it.  Some of my students have bigger things to worry about then passing a social studies test; it’s just not on their radar.  Some of them haven’t been asked to do the work necessary to be successful before and as a result are fighting back by being not exerting any effort.
     I keep thinking, if only I’d had these students for the entire school year, maybe then they’d have a chance.  Maybe I need to accept that I can only be accountable for myself and not the system.  Maybe they’ll just wait until the exam to surprise me and make all of this worry worthwhile.

Who uses their students as guinea pigs?  I do!
     I’ve spent several months reading up about flipped learning (Flipped Learning Network, Flip Your Classroom book, and elsewhere on the web), participated in some #flippedclass chats, and discussed how flipping would work with my inclusion co-teacher and students.  At some point I needed to just jump in and try it out.

In-Class Flip: US History
     I’m very lucky that my co-teacher and our students are up for trying new things.  Even with that being the case, I decided to start out slowly and do an “in-class flip”.  Wes (my co-teacher) and I recorded a screencast of a much abbreviated World War II PowerPoint for our US History classes.  You can find it here.  Please note that we teach an eleventh grade inclusion class and so we focus on the major points that the students need to know for the Regents exam.  We used Screencast-o-matic to record our presentation which was just under fifteen minutes long.  We also used a $15 microphone I picked up from Amazon.  I figured, why spend a lot on something that may or may not work for our classes!
     We had the students watch and take notes during class time using laptops from our laptop cart.  I’d have to say that was the most frustrating part of the process because some of the laptops worked, some of them worked but were very slow to load, and some of them didn’t work at all.  Several students used their personal iPads or phones to listen to the presentation and they were very successful. It was a bit of a weird experience though because some students forgot to bring headphones and had to listen quietly from their computers.  Wes and I were both very self-conscious about how we sounded but luckily the kids loved it!
     Overall, the experiment went well.  We had the students fill out a survey afterwards and had a “debrief” session to get their constructive criticism.  Their biggest beef was that they couldn’t see us!  Who’d have thought that they would want to see us so badly!  They had great suggestions including shorten the length of the videos to ten minutes rather than fifteen and possibly even have students come by and be guests in the videos.  What great ideas!  They loved that Wes and I were conversational and continued our in class practice of making corny jokes.

In-Class Flip: Psychology
     I decided the next week to try the same thing with my Psychology classes.  I used the computer lab this time and did not have any technological issues with the video playing.  I tried to make the video fit into the ten minute time frame, didn’t (it was over 13 minutes), and ended up rushing.  The students’ biggest criticism afterwards reflected that they thought that I went way too fast.  For my part, I missed having someone else to record with.  It was a bit odd talking to myself and I wasn’t sure that the students would like it at all.  They still said that I was funny and that they enjoyed listening to me, so possibly it is my own personal thing to work through.  Here is the link to the video.

Flipping: The Real Deal
     After the positive feedback from the students, Wes and I decided we were ready to assign videos for homework to our US History students.  We recorded three videos that were between nine and eleven minutes in length.  The assignment for the students was to watch and take notes.  Overall the students reacted positively although there were quite a few students who did not watch the videos by the due date (we gave them almost a week).  I should have had them fill out another survey to get more specific feedback---I guess I still can.
     On my part, I’m so used to being the stereotypical “sage on the stage” that I had problems relinquishing being in the front of the class.  I worried that the students still didn’t “get” the information from the videos and basically reviewed it afterwards.  That is something that I need to work on, regardless of my flipping future.  My students need more exposure to critical thinking and I need to be willing to provide them that opportunity.  Honestly, this is one reason I love teaching because if I don’t get it right the first time, I can always try to be better in the future. 

My Flipping Future
     As the school year comes to a close, I don’t think that I will have the opportunity to do another flipped lesson for US History.  I have already bombarded the students with review assignments and I just don’t want to add any more to that.  Wes and I are, however, recording some of our review sessions for students to use outside of class to study from.  This is great for our students who don’t always get things the first time around and for the majority of our students who don’t have any clue as to how to study.  I’ve already uploaded some of my review of the Constitution onto YouTube and the students were very happy to hear that they will have that as an added resource.
     I may have time to flip my Psychology classes a few more times prior to the end of the school year.  Electives are such a different beast than Regents courses.  I love the freedom from being bound to a test! I always have so much that I want to teach on Abnormal Psych that I never have time for and flipping will be the perfect remedy for that problem.
     Speaking of Psychology, I got accepted to ninth annual American Psychological Association (APA)/Clark University Workshop for High School Teachers on July 22-24, 2013 at Clark University in Worcester, MA!  And I was thinking about not applying!!!!  I’m really excited about this opportunity and the positive impact it will have on my Psychology classes in the future!
     So, stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated on my flipping process.  It’s certainly something that I am still very eager to do and do successfully.  That’s why there’s summer, right?  Do work on all of the things that there just isn’t time for during the school year!