Science+-+McDowell,+Brian

=Brian McDowell - Earth Science=

Final stuff Here are my videos that students will need to watch in the first week of school. I'll have them complete an "entrance ticket" into class with a simple question or two. The student friendly links are below:

"Intro to Earth science" and " Be a scientist" are found via My Big Campus here: [|http://www.mybigcampus.com/bundles/intro-to-earth-science---205522]

"Graphing relationships" is found via Ensemble here: []

I'm still not super enthused about either of these sharing methods but I'm sure Scott and I will chose one and become comfortable with it. I'm truly excited to start making videos to build our library.

Brian

7/16/2013 Here are my responses 1. Flipped instruction allows for students to take control of their learning by moving some instruction outside of the classroom and having more classroom time to ask questions and receive assistance than compared to the traditional educational model.

2. I see flipped learning as a means to allow students to own their own learning. I read an [|__article__] linked to by Patti and really like the direction the teacher took in giving her students ownership of how they learned. I think that showing students the power of flipped learning, metacognition, and how they will be lifelong-learners will allow for tremendous student buy in. I do worry about student access to videos (youtube) during the school day so maybe I’ll have to create bigger playlists through My Big Campus so that they can pick and chose videos as needed. Also, I like the author’s idea of having students submit the “best of the best” videos for her to post and share with the rest of the class.

5. I think I/we (Scott Michel and I) will start by flipping the basic, factual information. For instance, during the introduction to mineral identification, I spend about 45 minutes lecturing about the properties of minerals and how the identify and classify them. Under the flipped model, I’d like to have the kids learn about this process on their own, outside of the classroom, and then ask me for guidance (if necessary) during class/lab time.

7 & 8 I will be collecting data to try to discern if students are doing better in flipped setting by looking at objective data, such as the percentage of labs turned in, the quality of lab reports, and students’ overall class averages. I will also collect data subjectively by asking for student input about their learning through a survey of their “happiness” in class by using a Google form. I would think that students will be achieving higher levels and are more satisfied but the data will tell me that for sure. On a side note, when I talked with my previous year’s students that I was going to start flipping parts of the classroom, they were not enthused. Students shared that they felt a flipped classroom was boring and meant more work for students.

I'm going to talk and collaborate with Scott Michel about questions 3, 4, and 6.

6/10/2013 Here are my thoughts about assignment two questions:

This week’s work has made me more resolute in my feelings about how a flipped classroom model can/will benefit my classroom. Allowing for learning to occur at home will free up a lot of class time for questions, individual instruction, and more meaningful laboratory experiences.

Khan’s explanation of where our educational system came from is pretty eye-opening. I think that explaining this to kids will enrage them enough to participate in a flipped classroom...although some kids are very, very stubborn.

Oh, man...I’m having trouble only picking three reasons to flip my classroom, but I will try. I think the first, most important reason is that flipping will, hopefully, help my struggling students who really want to do better. I’m going to cheat and also include the students’ ability to rewind and pause my instruction because I think this all goes together for student learning.

My second choice for how flipping will help my students is to help busy students. Each year I have several students who share with my their schedule outside the school day. I’ve had students who have regular soccer practice in Syracuse, cheerleading in Corning, and hockey in Buffalo. For these kids, the ability to learn while being chauffeured around should be magical for them. Again, they will be able to pause their learning when needed.

My final reason for flipping isn’t in the book exactly. I am really excited to free up some more class time for meaningful lab work. This is always a fun and rewarding part of Earth science class but it seems like there’s never enough time to do all of the labs that I’d like to do and/or enough time to spend for students to really digest the concepts involved in the lab.

Linking all of these reasons to flip together, I think that there is more than enough reason to flip my classroom. As I type this, my students’ Regents exam is three days away and I would love them to have the ability to review lessons from earlier in the year. Hopefully, next year’s students will have that advantageous opportunity.

Still, my biggest challenge will be student buy in. Speaking to that, I'm worried about access to technology. Most of my students have Internet access at home but not all. Secondly, I'm worried about the students actually participating in the activities. I'm hoping that, by making my videos interesting and engaging, I will be able to hook them.

Last year, I made some videos for earth science review and showed one to my classes yesterday. The kids remarked that they liked the video and would like to see more like that. It's too late for this year's bunch but I think that building my "video vault" in the next few years will really help my students.

I guess I got a little off track there...does anyone have ideas on providing student access to the Internet? Right now I'm thinking about asking my students to go to the school and public libraries, but it would be cool if there was a program to donate old, working ipods to students in need.