"Flipping" Pilot

Since my last post, I elicited feedback from my students regarding the idea of "Flipping Homework". The classroom being democratic, students discussed the idea in theory in collaborative groups, created Pro and Con lists and reported back on their findings.

Although excited at the idea/concept all but 2 students of 38 voted not to FLIP aspects of homework. I must admit I was totally amazed.

On reflection, I realized :

1. Students were in Grade 6, and still like the idea that the classroom teacher guided instruction.

2. The idea that independence was necessary, and even though the majority of students would cope with the independence, the thought was scary.

Not disheartened by this, I created a short imovie on our next social studies assignment and uploaded it to our class google site. Students did take the time to view the short assignment for homework, but also required time in class. As the imovie contained music, students wore headphones or ipod earplugs to listen (and review) the assignment. Personally I felt that this removed elements of collaboration; as some students needed additional time to listen and synthesis information.

The next step - continue to look for ways to meet differing needs of all learners. A great link to page continuing numerous resources was added to the MS Learning Profiles Google Site. Click here to access the site.


Resource:
Graphic 1. http://mset.rst2.edu/msn/g/gilardi_b/brains/final/teacher.html

"Flipping" Classwork and Homework

Tonight while grading humanities class essays, watching the Commonwealth Games from Delhi, India and reviewing Tweets, I stumbled across an interesting retweet by Alan November. An article written by the renowned author Daniel Pink , highlighted the  paradigm shift that has taken place in Karl Fisch's high school math classrooms. Many of you may remember Karl Fisch the pioneer of the "Shift Happens ~ Did You Know" video presentations.




The article published in the Telegraph.co.uk, outlined the changes that have taken place; that is , having students review class content / information via You Tube nightly for homework and then spending the next day working on concepts and problems in the classroom.
An interesting idea - Wonder what our students and faculty think about the idea?

Connect your heart, hands and mind.

      It has been some time since I logged into my Twitter account and viewed messages from colleagues around the globe. Again, another summer resolution partially fulfilled , that is, log in to Twitter at least once a week and view messages. Week one so far so good.
Twitter is the most amazing, collaborative, social learning environment, and one of the least invasive time consuming social network tools.
     Scouring through a 100 messages ( messages of maximum 140 characters) took 30 minutes of concentrated effort. A Twitter friend at an International School in Korea, retweeted the following You Tube Video - The Alchemy of Great Work by Box of Crayons, suggesting that it would be the ideal video to show at the beginning of the school year.

What is particularly inspiring about this video is the message ~  "Good Work" allows  one to connect heart, hand and mind and to achieve "Good Work" it takes Focus, Courage and Resilience.
Now that the dust has settled after the first week of school, looking ahead to the year, I would also like to add that "Good Work" provides Inspiration.