In the summer of 2017 my wife Stephanie and I began to brainstorm a method for flipping our Physics classes. We were inspired by Jonathan Palmer's approach to flipping Physics. You can can an idea of his approach with the video below.
If you watched the above you can understand why Stephanie and I decided to start with posting videos created by others who clearly have more time and technology to make them then we do. We didn't want to just flip the classroom and send videos home and have problems done in class. Although in truth we did implement both those to things. We also wanted to utilize a learning management system and a host of online resources to make the elusive differential learning possible, Quite an ambitious goal for sure, but with both of us working on it we felt it was possible.
When designing the features of our flipped model I was concerned with how to handle tests and specifically test security. I then came to realization that I need to let go of the structure of the typical classroom and think in terms of differential instruction and a learning management system. I then came up with the Quest concept. I pitched the idea to my wife that a Quest is a differentiated learning experience featuring different pathways for the students to provide evidence of their learning. We liked this idea a replacement for tests. Stephanie found a great resource that we used heavily to shape our Quest paths at RedesignU. RedesignU has tremendous resources for learning activities skills development, formative tasks, teaching resources, performance tasks and mastery learning. I highly recommend this site as treasure trove for brainstorming learning, assessment, and activity models that you can customize with your content. Another feature we added to the Quests was the option to complete any of the paths digitally or on physical materials. This freedom of expression mediums was well received by the students.
Here are two links to view the Quest Paths and the Quest Rubrics we developed for Flipped Physics. We will continue to update these documents as the Quest model continues to evolve.
We modeled the Flipped Physics model to follow the 21st Century iteration of Bloom's Taxonomy:
1. In Schoology we posted videos and reading passages from Flipping Physics, Physics Classroom and Khan Academy for the students to watch at home. We assigned questions for them to complete at the remember and understand levels.
2. Face to face lessons in class were taught at the apply and analyze levels.
3. In class laboratory experiments were designed to feature the analyze and evaluate levels.
4. In class engineering experiments and performance challenges required the skills to analyze, evaluate and create.
5. Take home quizzes featured problems problems to solve at the apply and analyze levels.
6. At home Quest creation with in class progress checks and mentoring required apply, analyze, evaluate and create skills.
At the end of the year I conducted a student survey in Physics regarding the flipped model of learning. Overall the students had many positive comments. They liked the variety of the at home resources and that they could choose which resource to learn from. Quizzes at home were liked as they could choose how much time to spend on it, and that they were allowed to use notes and the internet as resources for their problem solutions. (Note take home quizes work much better when design such that Google can not be used to solve any of it) The students also gave high marks to the Quest method of unit assessments. They appreciated the freedom to choose how they proved their learning.
There were some negatives revealed in the survey. The students did not like how new material would start as they were still working on the Quest for the previous unit. This coming year I am planning to conduct an engineering challenge in-between each unit to alleviate the problem of starting a new unit before the Quest is completed for the previous unit. They also did not like that I graded their responses to remember and understand questions assigned with the video/reading assignments to be done at home. At this time I am considering some sort of reflective paragraph assignment to replacement for the video assignment questions.
From our perspectives as teacher/facilitators Stephanie and I came to the same conclusions in two different schools districts. Our students became much better problem solvers in Physics due to the problem sets being done in class. I believe this is due to the support structure provided to the students by their peers and instructor at the point in time when the need arises. We also both covered about 1.25 as much content as we previous covered in the tradition model of teaching. Two reasons for this is students were able to start at the mid levels of Bloom's Taxonomy in class due to the exposure they learning they gained from the videos at home. Also no class time was used for in class for assessments. Student stress was also much less with the problems being done in class, rather than at home in isolation. Lastly, we both experienced former physics students complaining to us in jest that it wasn't fair that they didn't get the flipped model of Physics.
In conclusion I became a big believer in providing autonomy to students in class. The freedom the students enjoyed coupled with high expectations led to greater pride and ownership in their learning. I hope this blog post proved helpful to you as a teacher or an administrator. Please ask questions below for more detail or share your experiences flipping a class.
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