FlipIT for the Staff

Where we started

I went back to my first ever blog post and it turns out that we have been using blogs in ICT for just over two years. 

The students come into lesson and have been programmed to head straight to our blogs!

As the students were a little bored of the PowerPoint presentations...

And we were fed up with our files on the desktop/read drive/new school pool/home PC/memory sticks/hard drives...

                         

This way, everything is in ONE place

You can embed your YouTube videos onto it, link a Google Drive file to it...

If you create a blog, the students will instantly recognise it from their ICT lesson

Of course you can blog or you can not blog - it's up to you.

And sometimes you DO need to give the students information. And you DO need teacher talk. And possibly the odd Powerpoint or Prezi. And that is fine.

But does it need to be done at the start of the lesson? By you? In person?

Last year I joined Katie and Javi's FlipIT SIG with Ben and I looked at setting students tasks to complete at home that were NOT homework. They were tasks I would sit them IN lesson. The idea was that they could then improve their technique/ideas/etc once they had learnt the basic/initial stage.

They had to look at my blog post for the task (which they were now used to doing) but rather than complete the homework on there, they had to prepare/research/complete something ready for the next lesson. 

The first 'flipped' lesson

There were two videos to analyse with regards to target audience:

These videos would normally be viewed in lesson and we would have a class discussion. Then students would type out their answers to their questions on their blogs.

This way, the students watched the videos in their own time, at their own pace and they then had to blog their answers/thoughts.

So who completed this? Half the class!! Their excuses? "I couldn't find your blog!" "I couldn't remember how to blog!" "My computer has a virus!" - I wasn't sure about any of these excuses and they COULD have been genuine but I gave the students alternatives - use of a computer room in the morning if needed, use the library, etc. The number of students improved by the next lesson, and the next until...

Below was a slightly different flipped lesson:

Now to see if the students actually completed the task! For this task I didn't need any evidence, so this was a bit risky... No paper... No blog post... How did I know if they had done what I asked?! Even the nicest kid could say they had completed the task without doing so. And I wouldn't have a clue!! 

That was when I used the coloured cards approach. I had used the coloured cards since my training days but I now started to use them not only to measure progress INSIDE the classroom but progress OUTSIDE of it too. Instantly, I could tell which students had spent the hour on the Decoded website learning how to code, which had given up halfway and which did not complete the task at all through the different red/amber/green tasks during the lesson.

Final thoughts

The flipped learning made a huge difference to this class and I am continuing to use it with all classes.

The flipped learning approach means that the students appreciate the need for learning outside of the classroom - especially when they can see their peers are rewarded for moving onto a 'green' task in lesson!

This strategy - although sometimes time consuming for us - will enable students to learn how to be more independent. It will also enable teachers to differentiate further within lessons rather than set homework which can sometimes simply add to a students' workload rather than develop their knowledge of a topic.

We ensure that students set up a blog as soon as they start Wildern so they should be familiar with the use of Blogger if you would like to try it in your lesson! See one if ICT to help!

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Final Thoughts