Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of my flipped life.  I started my spring semester Psychology classes at the beginning of February.  This was probably the worst month to try to get students into any kind of regular routine.  We had two snow days and two 2-hour delays and a four day weekend.  Also, I missed a day visiting flipped mastery in action with Tom Driscoll and a half day assisting with special education annual reviews.  Oh, and I almost forgot, I was “kicked out” of my classroom at one point because a new SMART Board was being installed.  I’m really happy that I’ve got this great technology but it’s still not hooked up yet and thus I haven’t been able to make use of it.  As you can tell, continuity was difficult to come by this month.
     My introductory chapter lasted a lot longer than usual because this time, it included an introduction to flipped mastery and the technology that we were going to be using this semester.  I created a “choose your own adventure” type assignment to introduce the students to the basics of Schoology (our LMS), Weebly (our blogging platform), and other resources they might find useful throughout the semester such as Cel.ly. 
     The students spent a lot of time customizing their Weebly sites (you can see them here) which I knew was going to happen.  It’s actually why I chose Weebly because it is easy to customize and has a ton of options for layouts.  I like pretty things!

     Some students also spent a lot of time trying adjusting to the fact that they had choice as to what to do in class every day.  Some would ask me “what do I do now?” and we would look at their Unit Objective sheet and talk about what they had completed and what might be the best thing to work on next based on the amount of time they had left in the class period.  It was pretty obvious that many of my students don’t have much of an idea about time management or prioritization.  I think that this concept alone will be a valuable one for them to learn throughout the semester.

     Other students breezed through the unit.  Those students were the happiest.  They expressed that they really loved the format of the class and that they finally felt that their time in class was well spent as opposed to being wasted with waiting on other people to finish writing when taking notes or dealing with classroom disruptions.  They are the students that feel comfortable with technology and are able to self-monitor their progress.
     I have been constantly asking the students for feedback throughout the month.  Prior to going to see Mr. Driscoll’s classes, I asked the students what they wanted me to ask his students.  The big fear that my students expressed was that flipped mastery would take away their opportunity to have class discussions or to ask for help when they needed it.  Their biggest fear was that our class would become impersonal. 
     I was sure to talk to Mr. Driscoll and his students about how they were able to keep student/teacher connections.  Mr. Driscoll’s format includes a ten minute discussion time at the start of each class period.  He might give the students a quote, political cartoon, or have them watch a video clip.  The students then reflect on their Daily Learning Journal handout (see below) and then engage in a class discussion.  I like this idea a lot and have been implementing it in my classes as well.

     Also, instead of having the students watch a documentary on the brain independently, we watched it together as a class.  That helped the students who were feeling disconnected too.  I created a “parking lot” on one of my free whiteboards where students could write questions and comments anonymously on post-it notes.  The students are just starting to post things here and I imagine it will be used more as the class progresses.
     I was feeling pretty good about everything until the last day of the month.  One of my students came up to me at the end of the class period to tell me that he was dropping the course.  He is an all-around nice kid, smart, hardworking, thoughtful, the whole nine yards.  I was devastated!  No one has ever dropped my class before; not like this.  He literally said “it’s not you, it’s me”!  He said that the format of the class was just too impersonal and that he thought that there was going to be more discussion.  I told him that we are really just getting started and that there is tons of discussion to come!  I told him that we will be having all kinds of activities that we wouldn’t have had time for using a traditional teaching model.  I asked him to hang with it for another week and see if I could change his mind.  He said that he needs to drop now, before the end of the 5-Week progress reports. 
     I truly thought for a minute that I should completely throw out this whole experiment and go back to my regular way of teaching.  Then I remembered that I have a wide PLN who has experience I can use to get me though my crisis of flipping faith.  I posted on Schoology that I needed them to talk me off of the ledge and they did just that!   I also made a point to talk to my students who I have for both Psychology and US History.  Those students know me well and have no compunction about being brutally honest.  They reassured me that the class is going well and that they truly enjoy it.  When I said I was thinking about doing a unit of US History as a flipped mastery experiment, they were excited.  They said what many teachers have said when talking about implementing a flipped classroom---it’s all in how you sell it to the students.
     I’m thankful that I have a great PLN, wonderful students, and this blog to reflect on my teaching practices.  I think that reflection might be THE most important component to improving as a teacher.  Thank you for being a part of my reflection process and for making me the best teacher possible for my students!

The snow has not been friendly to me recently.  It has be wreaking havoc on my teaching plans as well as my blog posts!  I’ve been waiting to write this particular post until I had a bit of time with my students to experience the flipped mastery.  I also wanted to be able to talk about my experience with Digital Learning Day.  Mine was delayed due to one in a series of blizzards we’ve had this month.  Now, finally, everything has fallen into place!






     As I mentioned in my previous two posts, I began experimenting with flipped learning almost a year ago.  I have researched, conducted trials, solicited student feedback, researched again, and went back to the drawing board.  
     As I started this school year, I still believed that the flipped mastery model would not work for me and my students.  I teach inclusion classes and I didn’t think that the students could manage working their way through unit objectives on their own, I didn’t think that my students would have enough support to be successful, and I didn’t think that my students would be able to learn everything that they need to enable them to pass the Regents exam in June.
     But assigning video notes for homework wasn’t working because too many of my students weren’t watching them. They weren’t doing the regular homework either.  The students did feel like the videos were beneficial and they loved that they could watch them at their own pace during the times that I had them watch them in class.  I loved how much time I was able to free up to do other activities and to work on skill building.
     I came to the conclusion that if I wanted have my cake and eat it too, I would need to give up my reservations and try flipped mastery.  Because I was still a little nervous about the prospect of trying something so radically different, I decided to only use a flipped mastery model for my Psychology classes.  Psychology is a semester course, an elective, and does not have a Regents exam.  I figured that I couldn’t screw things up too badly!

These are the things that I use to produce flipped videos and to enable my students to view them.

• Logitech Labtec Desktop Microphone 600 (when I purchased this it was $15) This was my original mic and it served me well.
  
• Yeti USB Microphone (currently $98) I got this for Christmas from my husband.  It’s a real upgrade in sound from my original microphone but not truly necessary to be able to produce screencasts.  It sure is nice though!
  
• PowerPoint
  
• Screencast-o-matic Free or $15 for a year.  Uploads to youtube or screencast-o-matic or even better save to your computer
  
• YouTube- my channel 
  
• Weebly-  My website to post links to videos
  
• Schoology - Starting in October our school district now uses this as our LMS and I now post videos here.  I download my screencasts as MP4s from Screencast-o-matic and then upload to Schoology. Then I don’t have to worry about them being blocked at school!
  

What's on my list to get next:

• Camtasia
  
• A video camera to attempt green screen recordings!

     Flipped mastery has begun for the second semester of my Psychology classes.  We have just begun our second unit.  I have to say that I am quite pleased and that my students are happy also.  Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:

• I learned the students names a lot quicker than I normally do
  
• Some students like choice and independence while others are completely confused by it (this has been improving daily)
  
• Some students shine that in other classes just put their heads down 
  
• In my foray into student blogging, I have learned that I need to teach writing and plagiarism (these were not topics that were big in this type of class previously) 
  
• There is a learning curve for both my students and me with this very different method of learning.  The way that I sell it to the students is that we will be working as a partnership.  So far the feedback from the students is that they are feeling empowered.  
  

     After visiting Tom Driscoll’s classes (@Mr_Driscoll) and talking to his students, I feel like I have made the right decision to pursue this new method of teaching.  His students were regular students, just like mine, and they were independent, knowledgeable, engaged, and learning!  I gained quite a few tips to smooth out some of the bumps that I have encountered so far and will be putting them into place immediately.  He also gave me a lot to think about for the future, particularly the addition of a gamification element to the course.  My co-teacher was so excited after learning about how successful Tom Driscoll has been in flipping his classes that he wants to get started with flipped mastery prior to the end of this school year rather than waiting for the fall as we had talked about previously!  I have to say that I’m extremely excited as well!!!
     I will be cohosting a Twitter chat for Psychology teachers with Melissa Schaefer (@MT_schaef) on March 12th at 9pm EST if you’d like to join in discussing our experiences with Flipped Learning.  Additionally, I will be presenting at the New York State Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Albany (March 27-29) about screencasting and curating videos for a flipped class.  I will also be posting updates here as the semester progresses to give you the play-by-play of what is working and what I have needed to modify.  

As I mentioned at the start of my last post, I am a planner and a list maker.  I like the research process and seeing all of the possibilities.  My husband and I are notorious for our vacation planning down to which restaurants we’re going to try out while we’re in a new place.  The problem is that sometimes you can become crippled with the planning process.  Sometimes, you just have to jump in and try something and make changes as you go.  I’ve worked hard to make my path towards completely flipping all of my classes equal parts research, application, and reflection.  If you’re in the research portion of your journey, here are some of the resources I have found useful along the way.

Books:

• Flip Your Classroom: Reach every student in every class every day-  I think this is my 3rd time mentioning this book!
  
• Flipping 2.0 - Very, very highly recommend.  Extremely practical advice and real world applications.
  
• *I plan on getting this as soon as it’s available in June 2014- Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement
  

Twitter Chats:

• #flipclass (Mondays at 8pm EST)
• #sschat (Mondays at 7pm EST)
• #psychat (Wednesdays at 9pm EST)
  

EdCampNYC

• If you haven’t been to an EdCamp, do yourself a favor and check one out!  I’ve been to EdCampNYC twice and it has changed my educational life!
  

Websites/Apps:

• Flipped Learning Network and Ning 
  
• EducatorsTechnology.com
  
• Edudemic  
  
• Zite- With this app you can make your own categories and Zite will bring you information from around the web and then cater it to your needs/likes.  I use this app almost daily to keep up with what’s new in education.
  

Blogs:

• Flipped History- This is the blog that is guiding me most in the mastery portion of my flipped adventure. 
  
• Flipping My Spanish Classroom  
  
• Flipping with Kirch 
  
• US History Educator Blog- The focus of this blog isn't flipping but it is sometimes discussed as well as educational technology.
• Not Another History Teacher- An awesome educational technology blog with a focus on social studies.
  
• I recently just stumbled upon the following: A Flipped Approach and Student Centered History 
  

LMS Groups

• Schoology Flipped Classrooms
  
• Edmodo Flipping Your Classroom 
  

YouTube:

• Hip Hughes History  
  
• Katie Gimbar’s Flipped Classroom FAQ   
  

Hopefully some of these resources will be useful to you also as you make your own journey towards a flipped classroom.  Stay tuned for my final installment of my flipping story---how I decided to move to a flipped mastery model for my Psychology classes!

I’m a goal setter and a list maker.  Last spring, I set the goal to transition my classes to a flipped learning model.  This week I was finally able to implement a full, flipped mastery model to my two psychology classes.  How it will work, how much my students will learn and enjoy it, and what changes will need to be made all remain to be seen.  For now, I can tell you the process which led me to where I am today.

The Beginning:

It started with Twitter and Twitter Chats.  The two I engaged in the most last year were #sschat and #psychat.  People mentioned flipped learning and I was intrigued and decided to read up on it.  My research started online and then moved to the book Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.  Initially, I found the book very useful but I decided that Flipped Mastery would not be something that I could do with my students.  I didn’t see how I could get through the curriculum or how they would be able to achieve mastery.  I also felt like it would mean me giving up on the instructional side of my teaching which is something that I love and feel that I am good at.

After a bunch of reading and research I dipped my toe in to flipping in April of 2013.  I figured that I couldn’t mess up too much at that point in the school year (we end in June) and I did some in class flips for my US History and Psychology classes.  I made sure to get a lot of feedback from my students along the way.  It helped me to fine tune my videos (shorter!) and to give me more goals to set in the future (put me in the videos, maybe even green screen).

Since it was the end of the school year, I didn’t get the opportunity to assign too many flipped homework assignments.  I did, however, make 13 Regents review videos for my US History students.  When I asked them just before the exam what were the most effective review methods for them, my review methods were highly rated.

Making Adjustments:

As the new school year started this fall, I had the goal of flipping one lesson each week for both US History and Psychology classes. 

This did not work out as planned for US History.  The students weren’t watching the videos and thus were not learning the material.  Instead of giving up entirely, I made videos as test reviews and for each vocabulary list I assigned to better explain the material and to help the students to review for our vocabulary quizzes.  The students have been making good use of these resources but I still want to get back to my initial goal of flipping more of the class instruction. 

In my psychology classes, my goal has been working out pretty well! I didn’t flip every single week but I did create flipped lessons regularly.  To increase students’ likelihood of watching the videos I did several things.

1. Put the videos on flash drives and DVDs for the students with limited internet access.
   
2. Posted the videos on both YouTube (with the links on my website) and Schoology (which is not blocked at school).
3. Gave the students ample opportunity to watch the videos; not just one or two nights.  I assigned the videos on Monday and made them due on Friday.
   
4. On the Friday when the videos were due, I held class in the computer lab.  I assigned fun activities for the class like taking personality tests or completing memory exercises.  The students loved them!  The students who hadn’t watched the flipped video for the week, however, had to watch the video prior to being able to do the fun activity.  
   

Using these methods, all students watched the videos whether at home or during class time.  Class time was freed up to do more engaging activities, have more discussions, and delve deeper into the material.  I was quite pleased and so were my students.

In my next post, I’ll discuss what technology I have used to flip my classes and some of the specific places where I have learned about how to flip effectively.  In a third post I’ll let you know the steps I’ve taken to move from a weekly flipped lesson to a fully flipped mastery model for my psychology classes.  Stay tuned!

     I am a good teacher; or at least I think I am using the typical teaching metrics.  I have good pass rates on the Regents exams, my psychology elective is fully subscribed, and I have a good rapport with my students.  But here’s the question: am I doing the best I can for my students?  Am I teaching them to think critically, use reason and logic or am I just teaching them to pass a standardized test? While attending the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute  I decided that I need to up my game.
     At the LOC Summer Teacher Institute, we learned a variety of methods to encourage students to think critically.  After each demonstration I thought “Why am I not doing this with my students?”  I learned that although I am teaching them enough to pass tests and to have a general knowledge of the subjects I teach, they are not learning as much as they could (or should).  Basically, it’s all about putting the students’ learning and critical thinking process first above my teaching.  
     You would think that this would be easy for me to swallow and to put in to place but it’s proved to be difficult.  I think that a large part of the problem is me. It’s that whole “sage on the stage” thing.  It’s what I grew up with and was taught to do in college and what I have done for the past 13 years.  I have a difficult time giving up how I have always seen my role in the classroom.
     I am diligently working to remedy this situation.  I have begun gradually flipping my classes in the hopes of filling class time with more meaningful activities.  That really hasn’t been enough of a change and so the first week in February (the start of the new semester) I will be moving to a completely flipped Psychology class using the mastery model.  I am extremely excited and anxious as well.  I hope that my students will be willing to accept a really big change from what they have experienced for the past 11-12 years of schooling.  I hope that I will be able to retire my sage role and become the “guide on the side” that I know my students need.

     I have spent the school year so far reading like a fiend---all kinds of books, blogs, and articles about putting students at the center of learning. I have done a number of mini experiments with my classes which have moved both me and them out of our comfort zone.  I have used sites like ZooBurst to have students create children’s books on abolitionists and apps like Viddy for students to illustrate answers to review questions for Psychology.  I have had students organize themselves based on the documents they were assigned to analyze and had students search out their own supplemental information on the topics we discuss in class.  At every turn I have asked for student feedback and have used that to modify future trials.  Luckily, my students are very willing to provide constructive criticism!
     I will be attending three conferences in the next two months which will also help me in reaching my goal to provide my students with the best learning environment possible.  I will be using my Psychology classes as my model to move to a flipped mastery model for my US History classes for the 2014-2015 school year.  I truly believe that the move to flipped mastery will foster inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking on the part of my students.  I also believe that it will help to put my students on an equal footing in terms of access to technology, extra help, and the biggest item---it will eliminate homework.  
     So, here’s to my year as a teacher.  The teacher my students need me to be.

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!