Flipping the classroom - the outcome

So today was the flipped lesson and I was really quite excited about it and it was nice to feel so excited. The first thing that impressed me was that every single student had done their homework! I have read lots of different posts where people had questioned what to do when students turn up having not completed the tasks and I had a contingency plan all good to go but didn't need to use it. The initial response from students was mixed - some liked the voice thread, others didn't (more on that later). however all had completed the WSQ task and some had bought superb questions! Because I had made the decision to do things differently and the students were aware and on board, I tried to use as many tools as possible to assist me. I had decided to use twiducate to structure virtual discussion so spent quite a lot of time at the start getting students logged in and set up and it was time well spent. It sounds obvious but by keeping the students with me and explaining why I was trying out different things, it seemed to make more sense to them. I started out with clear differentiated objectives, differentiating at the content level but found I spent a lot more time than usual on how we were learning and why we were learning this way. I then outlined the three different tasks that linked to the levelled objectives and asked students to identify which task they wanted to begin with. I would say 90% made a good choice. One student (I think) tried with a task that was too hard and ended up quite confused but for most they identified their learning needs really well. I was able to sit and work in a small group of 3 with students with less confidence without holding anyone else back. Meanwhile the rest if the group worked through tasks collaborating and supporting one another. I wondered if students would take the easy way out, picking easy tasks or not moving forward when done but actually the opposite was true. My own personal disappointment was that twiducate was not used as well as it could be but I think I didn't really outline how I wanted it used so it became a bit of a help button (which actually was okay today but something I would like to develop further). At the end of the activity I used socrative exit ticket - this was superb and I would definitely use it again. At the end of the class I asked my students to reflect on how they had learned. The majority liked the voice thread but 3 didn't and they really hated it. I don't think this was due to effort either because they are really hard working students, perhaps more of a confidence issue. What was interesting is that some students who work well but sometimes seem less engaged were the most engaged and positive about the lesson. Some criticisms were made but these were really helpful - things like I had put too much in to the video (one student spent 3-4 hours on the research), the third task did not make as much sense as the other tasks, twiducate was not something they engaged with and some missed having me go through material step by step. So, would I do it again? Absolutely yes. I think the key point here though is that this is one learning tool as with many others, some loved it, some didn't mind it and some hated it so it cannot become a default setting. It is not a magic wand. But it is something I will use again because at one point I found myself in discussion with the Deputy Head who popped in and we were questioning whether it worked. At that moment I had an entirely engaged, personalised, differentiated classroom where all students were making progress. Yes edits and amendments need to be made but how can I not use this technique again?