Week #2 in the Flipped Math Class

Week #2 came and went very much like week number one. The kids watched the videos each night, came to class and they worked on their practice exercises in class with assistance from myself or their fellow classmates. However, the flipped classroom idea is spreading like wild fire amongst other teachers.

I spent 3 hours on Sunday meeting with two other math teachers at another high school in Cold Lake. They really are interested in flipping their class and wanted to discuss how it all would work. I explained the entire process to them but cautioned them that they need to lay a little ground work with their students, parents and admin before beginning the process. I advised them to take the next week to lay this ground work and then start flipping their class near the end of September. They were pumped about the whole idea when I left them!!! The chemistry teacher at this same high school is also interested in possibly flipping his class. I will have to meet with him in the future.

On Friday, we had our first unit exam. For me, this was going to be a really good indication of how well my students had faired in the first unit of flipping the classroom. Overall, the exam went very well. The results on the exam did not surprise me in any way. With all of the walking around I did each class and all of the assistance I was providing students I had a pretty good idea of which students were grasping the content well and which ones were struggling. I was glad to see that my impressions were fairly accurate.

A couple of students did surprise me, in a good way. A couple of students that I thought were struggling actually performed quite well on the exam. These are the kinds of surprises I like!!!

I did not receive any negative feedback from the students regarding the exam or their grade.

I am operating my classroom in a way that the students will have the opportunity to reassess on certain outcomes on the unit exam. The students will analyze their exam using the exam blueprint I provide them and then determine which of the outcomes they would like to reassess on. They will have to complete some additional practice on these outcomes to "qualify" to write the reassessment. For some students, this helps take the sting out of the fact that they may not have done as well as they wanted on the first unit exam.

So, everything keeps rolling along in my "flipped" classroom. After having used this model for approximately 2 weeks I would say that I would not go back to the "old" way of doing things. The "flipped" classroom just has so many advantages over the way I used to do things.