By M. Steel, Teacher
of Mathematics
Flipping. Not water bottles or glue sticks but all of maths
class 9u4. What could possibly go wrong?
“The time when students really need me physically present is
when they get stuck and need my individual attention. They don’t need me there
in the room with them to yak at them and give them content; they can receive
content on their own.” (Aaron Sams, “Flip your classroom”)
Much has been written about flipped learning and I was keen
to give it a go; whatever the students were going to learn in class is done at
home, leaving ‘homework’ to be completed in class. The idea is that students
consume lesson materials at their own pace rather than being bound to a pace
set by the teacher, bringing back to the classroom specific questions about
anything they may have struggled with. Back in the classroom, the teacher is
present while students apply new knowledge, meaning there is no need to turn in
an incorrect homework or having to wait for help to complete it.
Here’s how it went…
I found a nice online video that explained to students how
to factorise a quadratic expression and put this together for them to take home:
The start of the next lesson had a bit of an unusual buzz
about it, most students waving their hands in the air to answer the first few
(easy/non-mathematical) questions from the sheet. One student then volunteered
(without her notes) to teach the class how to factorise the expression that was
given in the video. I took a back seat, everyone was listening and I was
impressed by what I saw. A nice start.
We quickly worked through the remainder of the questions from
the sheet and then I gave the students a choice of task based on how easy or
difficult they had found the examples so far:
Some students went straight for the ‘Hard’ questions but
many went for ‘Easy’. Walking around the room the questions from students did
seem very specific, proof that they really had tried to get their heads around
the topic for themselves. I could also see this in the notes that they made at
home.
This was a short exercise (less than half a lesson) and a
first attempt at flipped learning. Here’s a selection of student feedback. I’m
not hiding anything; the negative comment came from a student who had done
nothing at home. I take on board that having only one night to look at this was
a little harsh!
I have many thoughts and questions, especially around how to
manage ‘flipped’ classroom sessions effectively. Am I brave enough to try again
and scale things up a bit? Absolutely J
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