nikki able

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 ...

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 o...

I have read lots of really interesting twitter posts, blogs and articles about two concepts lately - SOLO taxonomy and the flipped classroom.  One of the things that I am painfully aware of is that although I know what great teaching is, I am not always a good example of it especially with my A level philosophy classes.  Sometimes my best intentions get lost in the content-heavy, examination panic and I find myself doing an awful lot of spoon-feeding which I know is bad teaching. So... enough is enough and it is time for a change.  My year 12s return from study leave on Monday and I want to do things a little differently.  I was trying to decide whether to go SOLO or flip out and I found myself getting lost amongst all the amazing ideas about hexagon learning and SOLO stations and flipped lessons and so on.  So I have decided to worry less about the name for what I am doing and just have a go at doing something different.  It may not be exactly flipped le...