First Week Post Mortum

Done with week one and it's been a long week.  Not necessarily due to the flipping, I think it is related to the fact that this is our first full week in three weeks.  PHEW!


Well, today was our What do you Know? and for the most part I was pleased.  However, my first period has a handful of students not working to potential.  In no uncertain terms I let them know what I thought about their lack of effort.  Some students got 30's on their WDYK? and others, who normally get 40's, passed with flying colors.  I reiterated that students will get out of this what they put into this endeavor.  Students cannot sit, do nothing and expect to pass in this type of classroom.

After our WDYK? students created a talking drawing (I'll post about that next week) and an end of the week mural.  Each student is tasked with thinking about one thing they learned this week and represent it on the mural with a word or drawing.  Each period had their own mural.

Next week we are continuing with the middle ages.  Students have a few more sets of notes to complete, students will listen to NPR podcast about an illuminated manuscript, a vocabulary activity that includes math(!), a video clip on the Mongols and others.

Happy Teaching!
C

Day Four

Not my real observer.  :-)

I am into day four of my flip.  Things are going well.  I was observed, for my yearly review, by my administrator.  It was first period, too.  My administrator seemed to be pleased.  I am looking forward to my mid-year conference and discuss their thoughts on our flipped class.

The stations are running well.  I would really like to have five more minutes into each station. For the most part, the students are staying on track.  However, I did have to have a heart-to-heart with first period.  I asked them what "Garbage in, garbage out" means.  Some of them giggled when I said it.  I reiterated my question.  There was silence for a few seconds.  I got a good response.  A student said, "If you put garbage work in, you'll get a bad result."  I reiterated that this is not the "old" classroom.  Students cannot sit on their laurels and expect to skate by during the flip.  I am looking forward to that handful of students putting their brains in gear and watching their minds bloom.

Today's stations were a continuation of their multi-media project.  Students are starting to put together their props and my room is now full of colored butcher paper.  The second group was finishing up their notes on feudalism notes and then create a resume for one of the people in feudal society.  The website I used was a PBS station out of Ohio.  Here is the link for the website.

The map used was similar to this one.  I had the students
outline the water.  It saved time to allow them to
label the countries and the migrations.  

The final website was an extension of notes discussion about the migratory groups of the middle ages in Europe: Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Magyars.  Students were given a blank map, colored pencils, a list of what needed to be labeled and an iPad with a map ap.  The end product was to be placed in their binder.  If students did not finish in class, I encouraged them to come to me during their study hall or ask another group member.

Tomorrow they will continue with their multi-media project and create a class mural after their What do you Know? quiz.

A student busy at work.

Happy Teaching!
C

Flipping Day One

Day One...finished!  

I have decided to break the class into three stations.  Each class was divided into three groups that will stay together for the entirety of the chapter.  

Agenda for today's activities. I'm also included items the students need
for their activities.

Today's stations included teacher/student discussion of filled out SOL column notes.  As the teacher I prompted students with questions.  In some cases, students had questions for me.  I encouraged the students to come with more questions next time.  

In addition to the column note discussion, I had the students review material by creating a Venn Diagram by organizing the cards into Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or both.  After the students had peer checked they wrote down the finished product.  Some classes needed my verification before the students copied their Venn Diagram.  

One of 1st Period's Venn-Diagram

The third group was a read about Charlemagne and questions.  The students turned in the questions for a formative grade.  

Here is a breakdown of today. 

What did not go well:

1.  Too many students did not have their notes finished.  

   How can that be fixed?  Well, students had to go to the library, watch the videos and then fill in their notes.  They were also responsible for making up the missed notes or activities.

2.  During a few classes it was hard to hear the students I was talking to.  The noise level was a bit too high.  

   How can that be fixed?  I suppose I could discuss this with students and encourage them to keep their noise level down.

What went well:

1. Most students said they enjoyed doing the column notes out of class.  A few mentioned that they would use the notes later to study.

2. Most students seemed to stay engaged throughout the entire rotations.  

Tomorrow is day two!  

Happy Teaching-

C 

Screencasts

We have had some "snow" days these last few days.  I decided to take advantage of this extra time to work on my flip (in addition to bleaching the grout in my bathrooms and cleaning my washing machine- but that's for another blog...maybe confessions of a type-A crazy clean person).

So, my dear husband showed me how my Mac already has a program to allow me to make a screencast of the column notes.  I spent Monday (our holiday) and yesterday recording and then uploading on my Schoology page.

Here is a sample of a screencast.  The screencasts are not as fuzzy on Schoology and this is an edited one.  I got distracted and forgot what I was talking about.  The average length of the screencasts is 6 minutes.

The first part of the column notes is one screencast where I fill in the blanks and discuss new vocabulary, new concept or relate back to previous information.  The second screencast is the second column answers.  I encourage my students to answer before watching.

The supervisor of blending learning is coming by to see me to help me figure out what exactly I'll be doing with our time in class.

Happy Teaching!

C

I'm FLIPPING

Flipping you ask?  I am flipping my class in my next unit.  This means I will be delivering notes through video presentations.  Students will be responsible for watching assigned lessons and or videos prior to coming to class.

Now that I have more time in class I will be assigning project based learning activities.  Now, I'm not really sure what those activities are yet.

What I do know:
1. My unit is on Middle Ages Europe
2. My unit will be approximately 3 and half weeks
3. My students will need access to both the internet and some sort of electronic presentation program
4. I want a variety of different student outputs: formative and summative
5. I want my students to share their output: either in class or online
6. I will use Schoology to facilitate the delivery

What I do NOT know:
1. How exactly I'm going to deliver my lessons
2. What exactly will my students produce
3. How much time should I allow for class work

I have talked to my county blended learning coordinator, my school ITRT and consulted a ton (okay, that's a hyperbole) of websites.  My favorite website is bie.org.  It is full of very useful and well organized information.

I will keep you up to date on my flipping!

Days like today

I had a day today that reinforces why I teach.  To give you a little perspective: I am teaching about the Byzantine Empire and the Byzantine culture (including art, architecture and religion).

The first question came from a student in 2nd period: "Mrs. Virginia World History Teacher?  Why do we know history is history?"  I responded by telling him that it was a great question and then I opened it up to the class.  His classmates responded with a few "okay" answers but a classmate hit it: "The more you see it in a primary document, the more it is true!".  YES #1!

The second question came out of that same class.  Another student asked that ubiquitous, "Why do we need to study history?"  I told him that a society is doomed to repeat past mistakes if they don't learn from the past.  I posed the following scenario to the class, "A family member's church (and this is a true story) burned all things that had nothing to do with living a worshipful Christian life.  Why would this bother me a historian?"  Some students gave okay answers, "Burning books is not a good idea." or "That is weird."  Then another students said, "That is what the Nazi's did!"  And I said that is exactly what I thought!  YES #2!

The third moment came in 3rd period and shed some light on what Mrs. Virginia World History Teacher was like in school.  I gave two examples of how I felt I righted a wrong.  I think the students, for the most part, enjoy hearing that I too am a human.  YES #3!

The fourth moment came in 4th period when we a student realized that the Hagia Sophia (Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople) looked like Jabba the Hut's Palace.  We compared the pictures and sure enough...the Hagia Sophia may have served as model for it- click here to see more.  YES #4!

The fifth moment came at the end of 6th period, after we had discussed the Great Schism.  He wanted to know how new religions come about.  He also wanted to know how people know that their religion is right.  I told him that those are great philosophical questions and some  people wrestle with those questions for their entire life.  I told him to keep up those big thoughts.  YES #5!


What about your YES! days?!

Happy Teaching-
C

Justianian I BioPoem

Our first week back was a success!  However, we only had two full days, two two-hour delays and one closure due to the super freezing cold.

So, like all good teachers I cut and pasted my lesson plans and squeezed things into smaller time slots.  I originally planned this reinforcement activity as a solo project.  However, the short period on Friday forced me to work this into the fifteen minutes I had after the clicker quiz.

Here were the instructions I used:

I divided the class into six groups.  The first group worked with the adjectives and relationship.  Then next four groups identified accomplishments we had discussed.  I encouraged them to have two accomplishments incase their first one was taken by another group.  The last group worked on two obstacles.  I filled in the first, next to last and last lines.  After a few minutes I wrote the group's line on butcher paper.  

Two things about this assignment.  I loved it when a student in each class said, "Mrs. Virginia World History Teacher! Is this like a biography but a poem?!"  And I said, "Why yes Virginia World History Student...it is!!!"  I also like this because you could use this for any person or even inanimate objects.  When I was Virginia Civics Teacher I assigned this to my students but they were to write about the Articles of Confederation.

Here are some student creations:

First and Second Period

Fourth Period

Sixth Period 

Okay, hope you are settling into your new year nicely and I look forward to blogging some more.  Thanks for reading!

Happy Teaching!
C