Flipping the classroom - the launch

So today my year 12s returned from their exams, some looking refreshed, others a little broken and stressed. I took them through the aims of the course, did the all the usual admin, then explained that whilst they had been away, I had found myself with a lot of time on my hands and had been reading up on some cool teaching and learning stuff that they were going to be my guinea pigs for. One student looked at me suspiciously and asked 'are we going to be learning off posters on walls?'. At that point, I realised I had the best situation in the world. I have this ace group of smart, committed students who I can work with to evaluate and unpick the different learning strategies that I want to try. Clearly learning off posters or 'roving reporter' one of the kagan structures, was not a method they liked or saw the purpose of. So I explained about the flipped classroom and dealt with the amusement gleaned from the fact that I had spent much time recording my voice on my own in my living room, dealt with the fact that the link didn't work first time but realised that with this group I could try this new learning in a low risk setting, one student even stayed behind to help me publish the voice thread. Although they were sceptical, mainly based on how much work I was asking them to do, I think it helped that I asked them to be evaluative of the method, to give honest feedback, to make a note of how long it took to complete the WSQ. All of this feedback I can use to tweak, and develop the learning activity. So D Day is Monday lesson 1 and 2. I am going to see if I can find a colleague to come and observe to provide third party feedback and the students are going to have a voice. Feel quite excited, not just abut flipping the learning but abut the new tech that I am going to try and incorporate into the lesson and ultimately about using student feedback to shape the direction my lessons move in over the next few weeks. I like summer term. I like the freedom of being able to play with my teaching without the overarching pressure of immediate exams. Fingers crossed!

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