Notes on Flipping Your English Class

William Parr

EDRD 651

July 27, 2014

Notes on Flipping Your English Class

Page	Text	Comments
1	“It was more problematic that I wasn’t seeing the learning results.  I wasn’t seeing my students achieve those “Aha!” moments we teachers so tirelessly work to get.”	I would definitely get discouraged too after enduring a few years or even months of this.
2	“Flipped Learning is a process that consistently improves you and allows you to do things in your class you never had time for before.  It’s like a spouse who constantly demands you be a better person.  Flipped Learning constantly demands you be a better teacher.”	I think most teachers strive to improve constantly, however, I do appreciate his passion for Flipped Learning evident in this quote and throughout the text.  Being able to focus less on generating lecture notes and more on meeting student needs is never a bad thing.
4	“With the Flipped Classroom, I can give struggling students ample attention and assessment to meet their needs.  I have the flexibility to give alternate assessments on an individualized level.  I have the extra time needed to talk with these students and help them where they are struggling.  If they are behind grade level I can easily modify assignments or teach/reteach missing content.”	Being able to provide individualized instruction in a large classroom is probably the main reason why I would like to flip my classroom.  With students coming from so many different education backgrounds it definitely would benefit students with straight A’s and those at risk.
7	“Finally, many Flipped Classroom proponents will tell you, “It is not about the video.”  Well, what does that mean exactly?  The majority of new flippers focus much of their attention on creating videos.”	I could see myself getting hung up on making fun, flashy videos with Metta or other tools, so I like that Cockrum reminds readers that in the end you are not really trying to impress with your videos.  The goal is to inform students and hopefully engage them as well.
9	“The ultimate goal of Flipped Learning is to provide a student-centered learning environment.  This gives teachers the ability to practice project-based learning, mastery, inquiry, peer instruction, constructivism, and more.  The flip makes these pieces possible, but they are not necessarily required to flip.”	Again I like the student-centered learning emphasis with Flipped Classrooms.  The best part of the model as I see it is that it gives teachers more time to work with all students rather than leaving those who are struggling already to catch up by themselves.
11	“Students must be able to access the material quickly and efficiently for a Flipped Classroom to succeed.”	Access could be an issue in some areas.  I wonder about how you can run a Flipped Classroom well when students do not have stable and fast internet access at home.
15	“I have a ‘three-then-me’ policy for my students.  They are encouraged to have three other students critique their work before they show it to me.  They can receive input from students or adults outside the class, but are encouraged to use their classmates with Google Docs Revision History, I can easily check who collaborated on a document.”	This ‘three-then-me’ policy suits me better than the policy implemented by the author of From Notepad to iPad.  Encouraging, but not necessarily enforcing peer review develops student editing skills and eases teacher workload, without seeming unwilling or unavailable for advice.
17	“Another benefit is that my feedback is more targeted and richer.  I’m not reading stacks of papers in one or two sittings trying to give students feedback.”	Being able to keep a record of feedback given to students allows teachers to better track student progress.  Using a database like Google Drive to track such comments would be one way to track feedback.
22	“Truth be told, even though I don’t believe this is the most effective method of flipping an English classroom, I recommend most teachers start here.”	Sort of unsure what to think of the author suggesting starting with a flipped model that he does not believe in.
55	“For some teachers, language skills (grammar and vocabulary) are the first content they flip, and for others, language skills are the second… What I really love about using a flip to teach grammar and vocabulary is that I can have fun, engaging, and lively activities in class and don’t need to spend a lot of time on grammar rules.”	Flipping grammar lessons would be great.  Many students have varying familiarity with grammar rules because many teachers either do not want to teach it or assume that students’ previous teachers already covered the subject.
91	“Many language arts teachers struggle to work speaking and listening skills into their curriculum.  This is an area in which flipping has really helped me to enhance my class by providing the time and environment to develop speaking and listening skills.”	I can see how flipping enables teachers to focus more on oral language skills, which often get neglected in English class.  While I do not consider these areas to be my forte, I do feel that I will want to bring an emphasis on these important skills.
91	“The parts of a successful speech should initially be taught separately—because they require different skills—and then be brought together for at least one full presentation.  However, my students do several presentations throughout the year, both formally and informally, to practice these different skills consistently.”	Separately a speech into different parts makes the learning process more manageable for students who may have issues with public speaking.  Scaffolding students into their speech ensures they will be prepared to give it their best.
113	“Just as an actor will tell you, you need to overact in order to appear normal… When you create the video, you need ramp up your energy to uncomfortable levels and when played back it will appear closer to normal.”	I would not have intuitively known to do this when making a video, but it makes sense.  You can’t expect students to watch and learn from educational videos if they are completely boring.
115	“A good rule of thumb is one minute per grade level as a maximum time… Now, I can’t always keep my videos to the maximum amount of time for my classes (which would be seven or eight minutes), but because the majority of my videos fall in the four to seven minute range, my students know I do respect their time and try to keep the videos short.”	Communicating that as a teacher I value my students’ time will be important to me as a future new teacher.  I anticipate trying to keep most videos around 5-7 minutes long even for higher grades as a way to make sure I condense the information covered as well as possible.

Notes on From Notepad to iPad

Notes on From Notepad to iPad

Page	Quote	Notes
3	“Unfortunately, as much as the teachers and administrators in my school knew the importance of technology, we had to make do with what we had.”	I definitely could see some districts dealing with a lack of current technology or little access.  Utilizing students’ personal devices would be a decent alternative, though not every student will have the same level of tech access.
5	“As an English and public speaking teacher, part of my job is to teach students communication skills… However, I fail to regularly teach this important skill mainly due to the fact that it is not assessed on standardized tests.”	It’s a shame that communication skills are given less importance in schools, especially considering that they are necessary in nearly every job and career path.  The move towards collaboration addresses this somewhat, but mostly indirectly.
10	“If my lesson focuses too much on technology, and I am not able to formatively assess whether or not students learned the lesson’s target with regard to the Common Core, I need to adjust my lesson to do so.”	This reasserts the notion that using technology for the sake of technology adds little to a lesson and can even be a detriment.  Staying flexible and using the “monitor and adjust” mantra will be important when designing lessons that use new technologies.
14	“I also made the mistake that teachers often make in their first year of teaching.  I dwelled on the two students who broke the rules.  I did not celebrate the fact that 128 other students followed my directions.”	I liked this anecdote on keeping perspective on discipline issues.  Blowing your top at an entire class for the misdoings of two students does little to build rapport with those same students or their 128 peers.
26	“Then, a colleague introduced Schoology to me.  Schoology is a learning management system that allows for true collaboration within the classroom.  Think of it as Facebook for the classroom.”	Sounds pretty similar to Edmodo and Ning.  I wonder how Schoology matches up to those sites.  From what I can gather from the website, the class page seems more isolated than Edmodo, which has communities available for instructors and students outside of the class group.
34	“All in all, Schoology allows students to take tests on the iPad that can then be submitted to the teacher and submitted to the teacher and automatically graded depending on the types of questions.”	The ease of assigning tests through 3rd party website is tempting, but I worry about the temptation for student collusion.  I would steer clear of multiple choice or one answer questions unless the grade was weighted as participation or homework.
40	“More importantly, Storybird is a safe place to publish writing.  The Storybird staff constantly monitors comments by users.  Negative comments can’t be published; in fact, users can’t even publish books with words such as “shut up.”	This level of censorship seems a bit over the top for me as a perspective high school teacher, however, I can see the merits for younger grades.  It takes a great deal of thick skin to weather some of the comments posted by less considerate Internet denizens.
53	“Whenever I bring up the subject of poetry during public speaking engagements, I usually express my disdain for teaching it.”	I can relate to this as I have mixed feelings about poetry.  I could not care less about Chaucer, but I love Bukowski.  As a writer of self-labeled “bad poetry,” I feel that poetry is something that needs easing into before being bashed over the head with Shakespeare or Canterbury Tales.
62	“To make this paperless (poll anticipation guides), I use Poll Everywhere.  With it, I can create up to 10 free polls with an account.	Using SurveyMonkey may be a better option.  Their accounts are free and I am not aware of limits.  Graphic representations might limited however.
72	“I asked students on the first day of class, for them to log in to Animoto and create a 30-second “About Me” music video that would encapsulate who they are as a person.”	I like the idea of using this activity as an icebreaker.  It allows students to become acquainted with their class tech device, provided there is one available, and gives students a chance to express themselves more creatively than most icebreakers.
81	“To help, students can show their understanding of figurative language through whiteboard apps.  Explain Everything, ShowMe, and ScreenChomp are all whiteboard apps available in the App Store.”	Having students create resources on specific types of figurative language then compiling these resources together on a site like Schoology seems like a good way to interweave different technologies into the core class website.
84	“The app (iPoe/iPoe 2) is, without a doubt one of the most interactive apps that I know of when it comes to reading.  If you turn up the volume, you can hear creep music as you read.  Some pages are dimly lit and you must use light to read certain sections of the page.  There are different figures on some pages that you can manipulate as well… …This has revolutionaized the way in which I teach tone and mood.”	This app sounds amazing and exactly what I envisioned the future of reading to become with the advent of reading devices.  I love reading Poe, but his poems and short stories already go over well with many students so I can only imagine the immersion potential similar apps could have with works like The Scarlet Letter or Shakespeare’s plays.
86	“Students pinpoint specific language from the short stories to determine Poe’s attitude and how he sets the mood in each piece.  All in all, the app truly helps in the instruction of these difficult literacy techniques.”	Analyzing the app creator’s craft alongside Poe’s craft of the poems could also lead to a project where a class works to create their own interactive poem or short story, with students adding in their own images, sound effects, and music.
91	“If you want specific student data, socrative.com and the app is a fantastic tool to use in the classroom.  I have used Socrative when I needed to obtain all sorts of data.  In essence, Socrative is an app and a website that allows teachers to quiz students or obtain feedback after a particular lesson.”	I doubt use this app or other polling apps for anything more than a short quiz for participation, as I am not a huge fan of multiple choice questions, but I do like the idea of getting student feedback after a lesson.  This gives students active participation in their own education and allows them to direct the course of the class.
106	“To give an example, while reading The Crucible, I wanted to quickly review theme with my students.  We had discussed it quite a few times throughout the course of the school year; thus, I simply wanted to review the definition and have students post a theme onto a Padlet page.”	This use of Padlet is perfect for teaching theme as it assesses whether students understand the concept of theme and also nails home the point that most literary works have multiple themes.  The opportunity for collaborative learning and later discussion of these themes is really cool.
114	“…I go to answergarden.ch, create an AnswerGarden, and from there, type in a topic or question.  I then give students access to the room like any other chat room, through the use of a QR code.  From there, students answer the question.  As I refresh the page, new answers appear. The more students that type in the same response, the larger the text appears on my screen.”	I like the visual representation of student responses with this web site.  It certainly is more presentable and easier to immediately read responses than a graph or chart, while achieving similar results.  Gauging students’ problem areas anonymously alleviates the pressure of publically announcing you do not get something.
132	“With the iPad’s FaceTime and Skype apps, the potential to broaden the audience in Speech class definitely makes the future of public speaking truly exciting.”	Utilizing Skype or other VOIP programs to have students give speeches to or debate with other English classes would be a way to tap into the different audiences that these technologies make available.