3 Ways To “Flip” Instruction

If you read last week’s post about Classroom Flipping and are curious to give it a try, here are several ways that you could record a lesson for students.

Preparing	Before recording a “flipped” lesson, plan carefully what you want to teach so that you can record the lesson in one take and avoid the need for editing afterwards. You may want to prepare visuals ahead of time so that the lesson can progress quickly and smoothly. So long as the lesson is clear, you do not need to be concerned about moving too quickly or leaving wait time because students can pause the lesson whenever they choose. For my class, I made jot notes of the lesson sequence, and used PowerPoint slides for visuals to annotate during the lesson.
Recording	SMART Recorder + SMART Board SMART Recorder is “screencast” software bundled with SMART Board Tools. Open SMART Notebook, then right click the toolbar, and drag the video camera icon to your toolbar. Click that buttion to open SMART Recorder. Press the red button to begin recording. The down arrow beside the record button will control whether SMART Recorder will record the whole screen, or just part of it along with your audio. When finished, press the square stop button. You can choose where to save your video file. If audio is not correctly recorded, double click the speaker icon in the system tray (lower right corner of the screen) to adjust audio properties. Make sure the microphone is checked as a recording source, and that the volume is not zero. The SMART Board and microphone in the Library conference room can be used for recording with this method.	CamStudio + Airliner This is the method I used. The free “screencast” software CamStudio captures microphone sound and any region of a computer screen to create a video. Steps: 1. Download from camstudio. org 2. Set options. I used: Compressor: Microsoft Video 1 Frame Rate: Auto Adjust Record to AVI (button bar) 3. Click Options > “Record Audio From Microphone” 4. Minimize CamStudio 5. Press F8 to Start or Pause recording 6. Press F9 to finish and save AVI file. I also used an Airliner tablet to be able to write on the screen while recording. If you would like to borrow an Airliner for home use or a laptop to try with CamStudio that could be arranged. The Airliner is very portable, but also takes some practice to work on hand-eye coordination. CamStudio is very flexible, but a little complicated, so next time I might use SMART Recorder instead. SMART Notebook and SMART Board tools are available for home install. Please speak with me for a license key.	Other Alternatives Online Recording The web-based Screencast-O-Matic (www.screencast-o-matic.com) tool is very easy to use. The free version has two minor limitations: recordings have a “Screencast-O-Matic” logo, and are limited to 15 minutes. Flipped lesson videos should be about 5-10 minutes, so the length restriction is not a problem. iPad Recording Explain Everything is an iPad screencast app (www. explaineverything. com). It works well, is very portable, and at $3 it is a very affordable way to screencast … so long as you already own the iPad. For more resources see: bit.ly/K5SJF4 Document Camera Recording Directing a a document camera (or web cam) at a piece of paper is a simple option. Start a recording program, then write on the page while you narrate the lesson. The ELMO and IPEVO document cameras, as well as most web cams, come with recording software. Use Existing Video TED Ed (ed.ted.com), Learn 360, Learner.org, and Discovery Streaming, have thousands of excellent and curricularly relevant videos.
Disseminating	One of the most frustrating things I have found when working with video is the wide variety of file formats which can cause compatibility issues when playing videos on different devices. My solution was YouTube. YouTube will accept videos in many formats, and will automatically convert them for viewing online. YouTube works on computers and mobile devices, and videos stream right away so that students do not have to download a large file before beginning to watch. With a tool likeVideo Download Helper or Online Convert ( http://www.online-convert.com), students can download videos for offline viewing too. To upload videos to YouTube you will need to sign in with (or create) a Google Account. Privacy permissions can be set when uploading videos. I set mine so that anyone can view videos if they know the link, but links are not public. I made these essentially private videos available to students by linking to them from the class Moodle. Here is an example:bit.ly/K5Yhzr

"Flipping" Instruction

Four years ago , two high school science teachers in Colorado decided to try swapping the place of lecture and practice for their class. Instead of leading a teacher-centred lesson in class and sending students home with related exercises to complete, they turned their lessons into videos for students to watch at home, and used class time for students to apply their knowledge by working through problems together.
While these two teachers, Bergman and Sams, are widely credited with starting a "Flipped Classroom" revolution, I expect they were not the first to try teaching this way. After all,  years ago when my high school English teachers said "read this, then come to class prepared to discuss it" they were essentially following a "flipped classroom" model. There is, however, something in the zeitgeist that Bergman and Sams' "flipping" language has been picked up by a swath of established media including the Globe and Mail , the Harvard Education Letter, the New York Times, and the Economist. Beyond print media, the 2011 TED Talk "Let's use video to reinvent education" by Khan Academy founder and high profile "flipping" advocate Sal Khan titled has been viewed nearly 1.5 million times. This is the degree of dissemination into the wider culture is more than most pedagogical approaches ever see, and it means that if "flipping" has not yet come up in a conversation with friends or a parent it might surface soon.

Flipping Pros and Cons

There is much support for the Flipped Classroom model, but also much criticism. Here is a short list from what I have observed and read, perhaps you can add an item or two?

Pros

Cons

· It assists differentiation: students can learn at different rates by pausing or replaying the lesson · Flipped lessons can be more dynamic than class lessons by including interactive and authentic learning elements. · It supports problem based learning and critical thinking by learning prerequisite knowledge out of class to apply in class · Students have peer and teacher support as they practice · Some students like videos, and will watch them when they would not do other homework. Improved student achievement

· It undermines differentiation: one lesson for all students, and the teacher can't check understanding during the lesson · It affirms lecture style rote-learning It undermines learning through investigation Students don't like videos of lectures · Lessons day and night? Students need a break! · Bill Gates funds Khan Academy, which draws a connection between the "flipping" and teacher performance discussions.

And the Students Say…

In November I tried out the flipped class model for one unit in grade 10 academic math. I chose an algebra unit because the most difficult aspect of the unit was learning how to apply the knowledge of a handful of factoring skills, which requires practice.
Student feedback was mixed. One student who struggled with the course liked the approach and wrote that it was "better than homework at home, easier to watch a lesson and practice at school." Another said: "I loved these, wish every lesson had this, helps studying, etc." Also in support, another wrote: "I could watch it over and over until I understood it." Others however did not like the model. One student said: "I didn't like this because I forgot the questions I had [at home]. Also, if I was tired I could just skim through the video without learning anything." An honest student admitted "Didn't bother to watch."
From looking at Moodle reports I know that most students in the class watched all nine of the videos lessons I made for the unit. 25% of students missed two or more videos, but overall the class completed this homework more regularly than written exercises in other units. The class had developed a fairly good pattern of working in groups, so I found that with heterogeneous groups there was a lot of good peer-tutoring in class. Through testing this class showed better understanding of this unit than other classes of the same course I taught last year, but this was also a stronger class over all. If you experiment with "flipping" please let me know what you find!