Flipped Classroom in the Elementary Setting

“Flipped Classroom” can be heard all across my campus on a daily basis. What is the flipped classroom? Is it possible to have a flipped classroom in an elementary setting? Where do I even begin? All questions that flooded my mind when I first heard about this new, innovative way to teach.

A flipped classroom:

-inverts traditional teaching methods by delivering instruction online at home and doing homework in the classroom

Why?

-spend more time on application and less on delivery

-more student-led exploration

Typical scenario in a math class:

The teacher uses class time to introduce a new topic, let’s say “how to find the area of a rectangle.” A few minutes are spent on practice and then we send a worksheet home for the students to complete. What happens next? The students spend time looking up how to solve the problems on the page they are struggling with or they ask an adult for help. Kids come back to school with a “check plus” for their homework and the teacher assumes, “Great! They understood that concept!” When in reality, a worksheet that should have taken 15 minutes to complete, has now taken 40 minutes after some intense googling and parental assistance.

Flipped Classroom Scenario:

For homework: Student watches a short video on how to find the area of a rectangle at home. (Video can either come from Khan Academy or a teacher made video. When I make videos for my students to watch, I use the apps “Show Me” or “Explain Everything.”) I record the video in the same manner that I would have taught the lesson in class. The great thing about using an app like “Show Me” is that is does not record you in the sense of a camera. Rather, it records your voice AND it allows you to either add pictures or draw on the screen. If you are like me, you don’t love seeing yourself on video! After the students watch the short video (key word= short. My videos are usually less than 5 minutes to keep their attention.):

Option 1: complete a few sample problems to bring to school the next day

Option 2: Have each student write a sample problem to bring to school the next day for a classmate to solve.

Option 3: Leave it open-ended. At the end of your video say, “Now it is your job to prove to me that you know how to find the area of a rectangle. You can make a video, write a problem on paper, create a Pic Collage… You choose!”

My first time to attempt the “flipped classroom” idea I definitely had some reservations. I will be honest and say that it takes more front-end time to teach in this manner but it was worth it! Plus, you can save the videos for the following years. When I did assign homework to watch a video, my kids came back the next day with the biggest smiles on their faces.

Student quotes:

“We felt like you were there with us!”

“I paid way better attention to last nights homework than normal because it was fun!”
“I loved being able to use my iPad for homework and I liked that I could create my own homework assignment.”

An Alternative to Homework

The situation: I want my students to read a section of their social studies textbook for homework.

Instead of: making students answer questions that prove that they have read the information

Try this: Ask students to list 2 important details they learned from the reading assignment AND post 2 questions they still have after reading the assignment.

For example, I had my 4^th grade students read Sections 3 - 8 in their social studies textbook for homework and wanted to have some sort of assessment to prove that they read the material. Instead of giving them a worksheet to complete either while they were reading or the next day in class, I posted the following on our class portal discussion board (you could use a blog if you do not have a portal) and had the students respond:

After reading Chapter 13 (Sections 3 - 8) on TCI, write 2 sentences describing what you learned from this reading AND 2 questions to ask another student.

Example (You may not use my example.)

1. After reading chapter 13, I learned that mercenaries are soldiers hired to fight for a foreign army.

2. I was surprised to learn that colonists refused to give the British soldiers food and supplies.

Questions:

1. Did loyalists fight for the British during the revolution?

2. After the war, were loyalists treated fairly?

Follow up assignment the next day in class: Review what the students posted and have them respond to at least one other person’s posts.

PicCollage App

What a fun, easy app to use with all age groups!  PicCollage allows users to choose a background and layout, add pictures, photos, stickers, frames and text. You can easily save the PicCollage to your photos, airdrop the photo, email, or even text the photo.

Ideas of how to use PicCollage in teaching world:

1. History/Social Studies: Before you teach a lesson, find a picture of a well-known historian and have students add  a speech bubble of what that person would have said while in that photo.  (Example: George Washington crossing the Delaware.) After you teach the lesson, have students go back to their picture and adjust their quote to meet facts that were taught.

2. All About Me: In the first few weeks of school have the students each create a PicCollage with their favorite things.

3. Spelling: Choose a word and add in a picture that represents that word, the definition of that word, the part of speech and a sentence with the word in the sentence.

4. Math Pre-lesson: (I used this with my class today and it was fantastic!) Old school teaching: Normally, I would introduce my lesson for the day with a 10-minute direct instruction lesson and then have the students explore problems on their own.

21^st Century Teaching: Today, I flipped the idea and actually had students explore the topic by creating a PicCollage. After they shared their photos with the class, I would clear up anything that was inaccurate.

What I did in class today: I told them they had 10 minutes to create a PicCollage that included the word perimeter, its definition, how to find the perimeter of a shape and an example. I loved seeing how each student’s PicCollage was very different and many were waiting for me to tell them exactly what to do, but I never did. I said they could use their imagination and own brain to decide the layout and information that was necessary. After the 10 minutes were up, I allowed a few students to share their PicCollage with the rest of the class via Apple TV. Many realized they had a few mistakes and fixed their PicCollages.
Step 2: Each student made a keynote titled “Math Unit 8” and on the second slide they added the Perimeter PicCollage. My plan is to have them create a PicCollage throughout the unit for each new vocabulary term and then add the photo to the Keynote. (To add the PicCollage to Keynote, you have them save the PicCollage to Photos and then add the picture to the Keynote slide.) This is an ongoing study guide that can be used at home. Their homework tonight is perimeter practice so this Pic Collage will be very helpful if they need extra assistance.

5. Reading Character Analysis: (See example below.) Old school teaching: Have students write a paragraph describing the characters in the novel you are reading.

21^st Century Teaching Idea: Have students create a PicCollage divided into sections. Each section they add a picture of that character and a sentence or two describing the character.