Introducing the School Year Curriculum: a student-centered approach

Although the teacher’s are on strike, many parents are trying to get their children into the school routine. After helping two young boys today, I realized that the way that I introduced the ideas they would cover in the school year was a really fun new twist on the ol’ KWL chart.

First I looked at the curriculum and created a visual document that had pictures to represent various aspects of grade 4 and 5 curriculum. In social studies 4, for example, I placed a picture of a map of Canada, an image of a man gold panning and so forth for math, science and language arts.

Once I had these documents I printed them. I handed out the document to each student and told them to look it over and come up with some ideas about what they thought the pictures represented.

Next I asked one brother to explain to his brother what he thought he would be learning this year. They were so excited. They both got a turn reading a page before the other person was able to chime in and suggest their own ideas about what the pictures meant.

What was really telling about the whole interaction is that I gave very little prompting and that they were helping each other reach really deep conclusions. For example, instead of saying “that’s a picture of a chart and money,” one boy said, “this is probably about currency and stats and maybe even about making profits in a business.” If I had given them a word document that said Mathematics: data analysis (which is what the picture represented in my adult mind), we would not have come up with such interesting connections!

Another great connection was the picture of Captain Cook. The boys said, “That’s Abraham Lincoln” and the other said, “No, cause he is American and you have a picture of Canada, so it is a Canadian guy…”

I learned two things: firstly, a picture tells a thousand words, while words are finite in their meaning. Secondly, when you place the conversation in children’s hands they come up with more than you could have planned for or anticipated.

The boys wrote down their ideas and then we discussed them and they added more detail. In the end they had a self-created syllabus that gave an overview of the school year, as well as accessing information that they already knew. What a confidence booster!

Feel free to check out the document I put together for these student, and to add your own ideas about introducing a unit in a student-centered way:

CURRICULUM document with visuals

PLO’s   with Curriculum targets

The Flip Classroom

The idea of “flipping a class” is to send students home to “learn” and use class-time for Q&A, hands-on work, projects and “homework.” The question is, how effective is this model of teaching?

Last year, I had the opportunity to experiment with  the “flip classroom model” in grade 7 and 8 IT classes. In short,  because I did not see the students often, I made several videos at home, using screen capture and video capture. I walked them through the steps of making a “Choose Your Own PowerPoint Adventure.” The goal was to have students watch each step of the process over the week and come prepared to class with the tools to get started. One of the major advantages of this type of lesson was that students who missed class were able to stay in the know; furthermore, when students did not watch the video at home I simply had them watch it in class without having to spend time catching them up. Instead, I was busy walking around the room checking on students progress and answering questions. Another unexpected and wonderful feature of this type of learning was that students who were ready for the next step simply watched the next video and got on with it.

Students moved at a steady pace. Those who didn’t do their homework (watching the videos at home) simply came in at lunch or recess, or took the 10 minutes to watch it in class. Those who were ready for the next step moved on ahead of others. Did this create inequitable learning. Quite the opposite- EACH student completed the assignment beyond my expectations. Those who had moved ahead simply went deeper into the process; they were also the ones walking around the room showing others what they had learned.

In sum: while the conventional model asks teachers to spend class time explaining new concepts and providing practice questions, the flip classroom asks students to do the initial learning at home and spend class-time with productive student-centered learning.

The next big question: would this model work in core subjects. More importantly- who the heck has time to put this sort of learning module together?

My argument For:

• students are ON THE GO these days. Whether they are in hockey, dance, swimming, soccer or voice lessons, the reality is that students are spending less and less time at home on homework, and more time in the car on their way to the next extra-curricular activity. Because so many students have iPhones and personal devices, the advantage of watching a quick video tutorial is obvious- no more “I didn’t have time to do my homework” excuses!
• Students are asked to bring their homework home, where they spend upwards of an hour per subject mulling through math questions and readings. Some of them do well; others give up in frustration. They call their parents, friends and even their teacher to ask for assistance. Perhaps they are told the correct information; but often they end up frustrated and worried that “that is not the right method of finding the answer”, and so forth. With a flip model, students do their “homework” IN the classroom.
• Students who miss school would be at a great advantage in having a video tutorial to keep them in the loop. Rather than coming back to school with a mountain of work, students remain on top of their lessons.
• Students who need review, missed a key point the teacher said and are too shy to ask them to repeat it, or simply do not engage in classroom learning are able to replay, pause, take notes, and slow or fast-forward their learning.
• Parents can view lessons and stay connected with what is happening in the classroom,
• There are tons of ready-made materials; you may not necessarily have to create all your flip lessons from scratch
• Students spend class-time working in small groups, working on projects, asking questions and going deeper into the learning
• Students seem to take more initiative and become active learners.
• Teachers are working with students, rather than standing at the front of the room talking at them
• True differentiation

THE CONS:

• The initial start up work
• Students may not have access to videos at home
• lumping students into categories during class-time: low, middle, advances learners
• getting parents and admin on baord

When do teachers have the time to put this all together? This really is the dilemma. I spent time making the videos at home, but I certainly had to learn the technology of capturing ahead of time. If you do not feel comfortable recording yourself on video, that is another problem. But think: if you make a mistake, you can pause and restart, unlike in the classroom. In a way, it takes the pressure off. I would love to see Pro-D time put aside for the production of these short videos. My guess is that lecture time will actually become more concise with the flip model. Furthermore, there are SO MANY videos and PowerPoints already out there that you can simply have students watch these. Some examples are:

• Khan academy
• Flocabulary
• Discovery Channel
• PBS
• National Geographic
• TeacherTube

I start with a search on Vimeo or YouTube, TeacherTube. You will immediately see what is out there, what is good and what you could do better yourself. Once you have your resources, post them on the classroom website or Moodle. The advantage of classroom blogs is that students are able to post questions and become co-authors of the website. Have students scope out movies and resources to post.

If you are interested in reading/viewing more about flip classrooms, check out the following videos:

• Why I flipped my classroom
• What is “flipping”
• Flipping the classroom