Flipping my understanding of Flipped Learning

I can remember sitting in conference session listening to Jeff Utecht talk about Flipped Learning and just having my mind blown!  What he was saying was so inspiring, so new, so fresh, such a great idea ... I had to try it right away!

Here is my first blog post (waaaaayyyyyyy back from 2011) about Flipped Learning:

I came home from that EARCOS conference and on Monday I was trying Flipped Learning in my classroom.  Only, I had a very limited understanding of it.  I didn't dive in past the amazing introduction our teachers gave us.  Embarrassingly, my superficial understanding had me putting lectures online for students.

Lectures.

Me.   Making video's of lectures.  WHY?    Why would I do that?  I NEVER gave lectures!  I hate giving lectures, and to top it all off, I'm TERRIBLE at giving lectures.  I hope you can tell from my usage of all caps, that giving lectures has never, should never, and will never be a part of my toolbox of teaching strategies.  I hate them.  I hate listening to them and I hate giving them.  Some people are so charismatic - and could lecture all day with people sitting on the edge of their seats.  I am NOT one of those people.   So it's easy to see how I got the Flipped Learning thing all wrong from the beginning.

But thankfully people, I'm here now.  I'm learning.  I'm not in the dark for much longer.  I'm here with an incredible cohort of colleagues to learn from at EdTechTeamOnline.

I have already been so inspired in this course, mostly by Ramsey Musallam's Ted Talk on how to spark learning:

In this video he says many inspiring things.  But my favorite is this:

I know this resonates with me because it's exactly how I used to think about flipped learning.  I wondered what all the fuss was about ... a lecture is still a lecture!  Still something I hated!   

I can see the beginning of my enlightening.  I look forward to learning more about how I can use flipped learning in my classroom.  Stay tuned for more mind-blowing learning ahead!  I have so much more to learn!

icons from www.thenounproject.com - disguise by helen tseng

What will student agency look like in your classroom one year from today?

Developing student agency in my classroom will be a journey.  Right now, students have some choices in my classroom -- for designing experiments in science, and for developing rubrics for formative (ungraded) learning tasks.  But all of this is very limited, and after this course in PBL I can understand how much further I can go.  In my final project reflection I wrote about how I view PBL as the intersection of several curricular initiatives at my school.  As we implement the MYP and re-write our units I see that it will become easier to use inquiry in my classroom, and to expect students to develop questions that they are seeking answers for, and working together to solve complex and collaborative problems.

I see the re-writing of my units using a PBL approach will allow students to take charge of what they are learning, how they learn it, and to develop their own long and short term goals while they will work towards achieving them by persevering and having a growth mindset.

My classroom needs to become a place where risk-taking and failure are not only accepted, but encouraged.  Where students work independently and hold themselves accountable for their learning.  My goal is that in one year, I am closer to all of these things.

PBL me ASAP!

It's a play on words from an old old old commercial for Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer --- Their tag line used to be "PBR me ASAP" - as in, get me another beer, pronto!  It's pretty fitting for posting my final project for this course on Project Based Learning, because I would like to get PBL'd ASAP!

I have been thinking about Project Based Learning for quite some time now.  Thankfully, my teaching partner has a similar and equal interest in the idea of making more of our units into project based learning units.  At our school we have many different curricular structures blending together.  For example - We use the Common Core Math Standards, the Singapore Math pedagogy, and we are just implementing the MYP criteria (IB Middle Years Programme).  The trick is finding the sweet spot where all of our initiatives overlap and the magic happens.  I think we're ready to look at the possibility that PBL fits that sweet spot perfectly!

The unit I worked through for this course was a 6th grade unit on energy conversions -- potential and kinetic energy, conservation of energy, and the concept of energy performing work.  For the past couple years we have had students build roller coasters that are powered only by potential energy.  It's a super fun project, the kids are totally engaged, and we've always worked some really good science into the project, whether through design, data collection or using the design process.  My final project expands the learning that students are engaged in, by broadening their opportunities for building a model of energy transfer, and also by giving the project a sort of authentic context.  Lets just consider this the first revision of the project, because I need to sit down with my teaching partner and hammer out some of the rough patches.  I think once we teach it like this, we will be able to improve the driving question and entry event.

The fabulous Andrew Miller shares quite a bit about writing driving questions for PBL units HERE.   After posting the "DQ" I wrote to +EdTechTeam I was able to get some feedback and improve the question even more.  It's definitely unit-ready, but I can see it evolving as I continue teaching this unit.  Writing DQ's are a great way to create the framework for your unit - they set the tone and point you, the author, in the right direction for developing the unit.

Brainstorming for the entry event is another fun and creative way to get yourself, your team, and your students pumped up for the project!  I love being creative and dramatic when introducing new ideas to students, so I got lost in reading about entry events for many different PBL units.  I imagined a scene for my entry event, but when it comes time to introduce this project to students, I would love to create a video that shows a dystopian world in desperate need of my students help!!  My teaching partner is always a creative force when coming up with this kind of stuff!

View my project on the web HERE.



As I mentioned before, I consider this a draft of my first PBL unit.  My partner and I will work together to tweak and improve the details of this unit.  I welcome any advice or input. Please send me a message @laurenteather or +lauren teather!

icons from www.thenounproject.com - ribbon by alex tai - can by jake dunham

Think BIG!

There are probably hundreds of blogposts just like this one.  Educators love to blog about how important it is for kids today to think big.  The purpose of this post is really to share the brilliant video below about "Moonshot Thinking".  I know it's been posted thousands of times before . . . in a variety of mind-blowing insightful blog posts.  Even if you've seen it before, watch it again.  Right now.  You won't regret it. 

See?  Worth every second, isn't it?   The the big question is how do we change the culture of classrooms that students can think THAT big?

I teach in an international school in Seoul, South Korea.  Most of my students are Korean-American, and the emphasis on education and school is a part of the Korean culture that permeates our international school community.  There are many positives to this (huge respect for education and teachers) but one of the downsides is the fact our students are not comfortable taking risks.  The pressure for kids to "perform" and bring home top grades is significant, even for my young 6th graders.

An important part of Moonshot Thinking is not being afraid to fail.  I think you almost have to SEEK failure.  You can't expect kids to create and innovate 10x without expecting failure.  And I would guess a LOT of failure.  The good kind of failure, where learning happens so students can iterate, make changes and move forward.   How do we get students to value this?  We can bring it back to . . .

We have to change our students thinking so that they value effort, creativity, risk-taking, and innovation over the "correct answer" and "good grades".  This is monumental change in most classroom communities.  And it's no easy task. How do you encourage students to take risks in your classroom?  What does Moonshot Thinking look like in your classroom?

all icons by www.nounproject.com - girl thinker by tuktuk design - brain idea by catalin boroi

Gotta have tools in the tool belt!

Call me a fool ... go ahead.  As I worked through this course on Project Based Learning, one of the lessons asked us to add "research tools" to the PBL unit planner we have been working on.  And I dimly thought to myself, "Research Tools? . . .  What are those?".  When I took a moment and thought about how I ask my students to do their research, I just think about google.  Sure, I may start them out with a few sound resources to get them going, but once they start generating their own questions, I just unleash them on "The Google".  Simple.  They're in 6th grade (I'm laughing pretentiously at my naive 1-day-ago self). So you can imagine my surprise when I browsed through the EdTech Team Online Google+ Community to see what kinds of research tools others had been posting.

There, before my own eyes, was a wondrous list of tools.  Some I had used before, and some that were new to me.  But the embarrassing and interesting thing is there was not a single one of them which I had ever considered a "research tool".  Why not?  I have no idea.  I just always thought of these as magnificent tools for specific jobs.

Symbaloo

Imagine Easy Scholar

Blendspace

Wolfram Alpha

Instagrok

Padlet

Choosito

Thanks to my awesome colleagues in the cohort for posting such awesome resources.  Do you have those moments, where you just feel your mind opening, and suddenly perspectives you've always had are now changing?  And you feel really dumb? That was me.  Why have I never thought about these resources like that before?  Why have I never thought about teaching my students to use them as tools - available to them for a variety of tasks that may come their way, as they see fit?

I was able to compose myself and pull together a few of my own favorite tools that I would put in my newly discovered category of awesome things:

PearlTrees

Gooru

Read&Write

My best and most important learning from this was to reconsider my own concept of "The Tool belt". A couple years ago I made this AWESOME tool belt for my classroom.  See it here?

 

And I would add all of the math concepts we were learning throughout the year - I would add them to those little belt loops, and describe to the students how they need to know how to use all of the tools in their tool belt, so that when they called to a job (in this case, a new and unfamiliar math problem), they would know just how to use their tools to get the job done.  Pretty awesome, huh? I love my tool belt.  Except now ---- move over tool belt of 2015, here comes the new and improve tool belt of 2016!   How about those tools in the belt are a little more versatile? Able to be used for bigger (and more relevant) problems . . . TRANSdisciplinary problems.  Research tools?  YES!   Collaboration tools?  YES!  Communication tools?  YES!  Wow --- I can improve on this tool belt so much with my new thinking!  And I will!  On Monday morning.  I love learning new things!

What else should students have in their tool belts?

tool belt made with icons from www.nounproject.com - screwdriver by useiconic.com - pliers by nikki rodriguez - hammer by edward boatman - belt by andres ruales - nerd by oliviu stoian

Reflecting brought my project back to life!

As part of this course on Project Based Learning, we were asked to research one of many different types of project based learning . . .

Waaaaayyyyy back in 2013, I attended the Google Teacher Academy (GTA).  Filled to the gills with inspiration, I created an ambitious action plan to implement a program at my school for Genius Time.  Since I only teach 1/2 of the 6th grade students, I wasn't as able to have influence over the other grade levels in my middle school and to be honest ... I felt a little dejected about my limited reach and having to reshape my action plan.  And by reshape, I mean pare down.  There were so many talented, influential, powerful, kind, generous and brilliant educators in my cohort at GTA who were really contributing to the big wide world, and making the world a better place to learn in.  I felt so small and insignificant.

I started looking through some of the resources for the Genius Time topic for this course, and that prompted me to reflect significantly on my journey with Genius Time.  I even looked up my old old old old old old old website that I used to document my journey through my action plan.  This is a huge risk, but HERE is that ancient website. YUCK!

If you took the time to look at that hunk of junk - please take the time to see my new and improved website.  There, you can read my reflection on how my journey, though slow, has not been insignificant.  In fact, I think I have made a significant impact, not only on the program at my school, but also on the students!

https://sites.google.com/site/journeytogeniustime/

https://sites.google.com/site/journeytogeniustime/

Is it PBL?

http://www.newtechnetwork.org/sites/default/files/resources/01projectvpblgrey_0.pdf 

I think I have an edu-crush on @paulscurtis for creating this amazing visual.  And this is the "newly" revised version!  I love it!   I love visual graphics!  Love them --- and this one so clearly shows the difference between "a project" and "project based learning".   

The part that appeals to me most about this graphic is the on-going reflection that happens multiple times and throughout the project.  I think that helps students synthesize what they are learning and how they are doing.  Without that pause ... I have found that students often finish the project and don't really care what they learned or how they did it.  If the only time I ask students to reflect on their work is at the end, I often get responses like "I liked this project" "Working with my partner was challenging" etc.   I get really shallow reflections, and rarely focused on learning.

Taking the time to pause during a project allows a student to finish the project with at least an idea of how they accomplished it, and they can embed those benchmarks into the their final reflection.

This is such a good visual to share with educators who perhaps *think* they are doing PBL simply because they do a project at the end of the unit. The visual is not meant to discredit that type of traditional unit progression, but does such a great job of just showing how that progression is so very different from Project Based Learning.

Share the genius of Paul Curtis HERE.

#matharoundtheworld

About 3 years ago my school took on a major initiative for mathematics which was adopting the Singapore Math Method.  I teach at an international school in Seoul, South Korea, and in many ways, it makes a lot of sense that we would consider more of an Asian approach to mathematics education.  Prior to Singapore Math, we were using a pretty outdated and traditional American approach - very shallow, overloaded with content, and little focus on skills.

I am fascinated with the Singapore approach.  Every year we have Dr. BanHar Yeap, an expert in the Singapore approach and an all around amazing person. I have learned so much about teaching mathematics from him, and he has totally opened my mind to the idea that people around the world learn math differently.

One of the lessons that Dr. Yeap has always emphasized with us is the idea that students should learn multiple ways of solving problems.  They should build connections between their different methods to cultivate a deeper understanding of patterns and number sense.  This kind of awareness is the basis for my final project for Unit 1 - Global Collaboration and Community.

I partnered with a middle school math teacher in New York, Eli Byers, and we worked together to create our final project, based on the idea that our math students should be learning about the many different ways that middle school students learn math around the world.

View my project on the web HERE.

http://goo.gl/H5H3oY

I am really happy with how the finished product sounds.  Eli and I know that there are many details we'll have to work out when we start implementing the project, but the fact that our students will be collaborating across the miles (and possibly with others) is exciting!

If you look at our project and think it's something you'd like to get involved with, please send me a message @laurenteather or +lauren teather!  We would love to have you join with our students in learning about #matharoundtheworld!

When PLC's collide .....

If you don't know the Seinfeld theory of "Worlds Colliding", please take the 30 seconds to watch the video above and educate yourselves.

Most people, myself included, have every intention of keeping our worlds separate.  It's much easier to manage everything that way.  And on the rare occassion that our worlds DO collide ....

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mind-blown

But after reading THIS awesome article from Edutopia,  I had MY mind blown!  The article suggests "5 ways to Connect your PLN and PLC for Greater Learning and Legacy" .... PLC being defined as the community of professionals that physically surround you (colleagues in your building or on your team) and PLN being educators that you connect with through PD, social networks, etc.  One of the suggestions is to "Link the online and face-to-face worlds".  In other words .... intentionally collide the worlds!!!   

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pw31d

Why have I never thought of this before?  If I used, say ... google+ to connect with my PLC (my colleagues that I meet with once a month to discuss our common goals, etc) then wouldn't we all be more likely to use google+ to network in the wider community?  I also feel that connecting in an online environment makes our communication more accessible for more frequent use.  We can share digital resources, video's, blogs, etc, in a way that we are already used to doing with other people ... that we may or may not have even met before!! Wow ... this could totally change the way I interact with people in my PLC - in the face-to-face world.  To get started on my goal - I have created a community on g+ for my 6th grade team:

Who do you learn from professionally? Who do you share with?

I learn so much from my colleagues.  I enjoy the way we challenge each other to get better, support each other in taking risks, trying new things, and engaging each other in professional and productive discussions.  I also love learning from blogs and ideas that I learn about from facebook, twitter, and pinterest.  Unfortunately, I suffer from the affliction of thinking that all of my ideas are obvious, and so I'm reluctant and nervous about sharing my own ideas, which are usually not my own ideas, but things I have taken from others and built upon.  I'm hoping that through this course, I will gain confidence to share my ideas more.

The EdTech Honeycomb

https://www.edtechteam.com/futureready/

 Boom!  There it is. All a school needs to build a professional development framework for teachers.  I love it!  It hits all the important aspects of school community growth in one beautiful graphic.

Leadership is hard!!  Have you seen "The Lone Nut + First Follower = a Movement" Video?

I have felt like that Lone Nut many times in my teaching career.  And I have also been the first follower.  I know first hand how important all of the parts of that equation are ... we need courageous leaders who will take risks, and go out on a limb, often acting alone for some time before anyone else joins in.  I takes courage to stand in the face of adversity, when doing what's most popular is not always what's best for kids, and certainly not what's easiest.  I definitely think developing courageous leaders in my school in the form of encouraging teachers to be risk takers, and for others to support them, by following, is the most important focus for my school.  I would love to see my school adopt more of a culture of innovation by supporting risk takers and making it OK to fail.  Failing forward is an important part of the growth process.  It's something we try to develop in our students, why not in our community of leaders at a school?

Introduction