The Power of Synchronous Flipped Classrooms

Asynchronous
In education social media, it seems that teachers favor asynchronous learning over synchronous learning. citing reasons like:

• Students can go at their own pace.
• When students get stuck, they can slow down and understand that concept before they move on.
• Not all students learn at the same rate.

And all of these points are true, but my experience is that each of those points are heavily outweighed by challenges of asynchronous learning:

• Since students can go at their own pace, they put off their math homework because it isn't necessarily due tomorrow.
• When students get stuck, they lose the pace of the class and then they can't catch back up with the class.
• It is true that not all students learn at the same rate, but everyone is supposed to finish the curriculum by the end of the year. You will be constantly pushing the slower students.

Last year I tried to teach an asynchronous flipped Geometry class. The students were allowed to work at "their own pace" to watch videos and complete textbook problems. I knew that I needed more deadlines than just the end of the year, so every student was required to take the test on the same day. What I found is that the majority of my students didn't finish all the notes and practice before the end of the unit.

What I did find from the data is that there was a stronger correlation with students doing well on assessments and students doing the textbook problems and than students who watched the videos and took notes. So I decided to restructure my class so we focused on completing this practice during class and everyone would work at the same pace.


Synchronous Flipped Learning
What I found was the stronger students were more willing to help weaker students because they were doing the same problem at the same time. When I taught asynchronously, everyone was at a different place so they all wanted my help. I ran around like crazy answering questions and checking off work. The discussions between students are much richer and deeper because they aren't trying to finish their work, they are trying to understand concepts and do problems.

So the entire class follows a pacing calendar. The students are expected to come to class having taken the notes. We also take an open note daily quiz. If students come to class without notes, they don't do well on the daily quiz, but I still allow them to participate in the practice with us. Most synchronous flipped teachers don't allow students who don't have the notes to participate in the practice. They make them watch the video during the practice. I personally have chosen not to do this for two reasons. First I believe that the in-class practice is so much more powerful than doing problems out of a text book, especially for the weaker students who don't come to class prepared. Secondly, these students were in an asynchronous flipped mastery class the previous year, I am afraid that these students will simply get behind and never catch back up. Then I am back to the same problems I had last year, except I would have minimal time to work with these students individually because I am working with the rest of the class. Maybe the social motivation that other teachers state is more powerful in the younger grades. I just didn't think it would be enough of a motivation with my high school students.

I understand that this is not the ideal. In fact, the students who come to class having taken notes generally stated that they have "mastered" or are "getting the hang" of a new idea by the end of the class period. Five of the 13 students who come to class half the time or more without notes stated that they were not getting the hang of the new idea by the end of the class. But this is 5 out of my 85 students, and these are students who would probably struggle anyway.

Another reason that I prefer the synchronous flipped classroom is that parents and students seem to understand it better. Meaning that I have to do far less explaining about what the model is and how it is used.

My Situation
I understand that every teaching situation is different. Maybe my bias is a result of trying to use Flipped Mastery from my first year of flipping. Maybe if a did a traditional flip first and then moved to Flipped Mastery then I would have had the opposite experience. But from talking to other flipped teachers and students at my school, I don't think so. I still think there is more power  the synchronous flipped classroom than in the asynchronous flipped classroom.


Comments?
Are you a flipped class teacher who has had the opposite experience? Do you disagree with my assessment? Please comment below.

Flipped Geometry Survey Results

When I was a student teacher, my cooperating teacher taught me that I need to embrace my students and allow them to teach me how to be better. Because of that, every year of my teaching I have given my students at least one survey, if not more than one.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter in school year 2013-2014, I gave my Geometry students the following survey using Google Forms. I love Google Forms!! The survey is anonymous, but I told the students that I will be using these results to make decisions about next year so please be honest.

If you are curious here is the Survey:

Many of the results were not surprising, I will show them in the tables below.

I was curious how long it takes students to complete the notes. I commonly assign one or two videos as homework. So students can expect to have an average of 15 to 20 minutes per video. 

The amount of time students spent on one video seemed independent of their overall success in the class. Some students who struggle spend more time on the videos and some students spend more time, which help them do very well. The opposite is also true. Some strong students don't need to take a lot of time on notes and some weak students should spend more time.

From time to time I see students who are watching the video with earbuds in, but I notice that their earbuds are plugged into their music instead of the computer. So I was curious if this makes a difference.

This relationship wasn't very strong, but in general, students who get As and Bs in my class listen to the videos. It was more common among C, D, and F students that they listened to me less often.

Next I will move to one of the most important relationships to overall success in my class.

The relationship between watching videos before class and overall success was much stronger than I expected it to be. Every student who got an A or B in my class either Always watches the video or usually watches the video. Students who got Cs, Ds, or Fs came to class less frequently having watched the video and taken notes.

Students can ask themselves, do I want to act like an A or B student, or a C, D, or F student? Students who act like A or B students usually get As or Bs. And it starts with consistently coming to class prepared.

The next question is about our Daily Quiz. The quizzes I give are only 3 questions and students can use their notes. The questions are written so that if you watched the video and took good notes, all three questions should be easy, but if you haven't watched the video you may only get one correct.

I was very surprised to learn that 77% of my students felt that having a Daily Quiz is a motivation to take better notes. I realized that I spent longer assessing whether or not students watched the videos and took notes than the length of the notes. Meaning I was considering doing away with Daily Quizzes and just showing the video at the beginning of class. This survey taught me that students need more time than the length of the video to process it, and the daily quiz is a motivation to take better notes with more examples.

This is what I hoped would happen when I decided to give daily quizzes and I am very glad that this is what is happening.

We spend about 60 minutes each class period going over problems. I present a problem on the board and the students do the problem on individual white boards or on paper. After doing this for 60 most of the students feel that they have mastered the idea or are getting the hang of it.

There were two students who said "I usually feel just as confused as before we started." I looked very closely at the responses of these two students. These are also students who frequently didn't come to class having taken notes and these are students who "Only listen to Mr. Lewis if I don't understand." This is probably why they are confused.

Now if I separate the above data by whether or not they come to class having taken notes we see some powerful results:

The students who almost always have notes understand the material when they leave, while those who usually don't have notes may be getting the hang of it, but may be confused.

I was surprised that so many students were interested in optional problems. I don't know what I am going to do about this. The idea of it being optional makes me wonder if students would do it. Maybe make it extra credit or something. I need to think about this more.


Finally their third quarter grade separated by how frequently they come to class having taken notes.

If you almost always come to class having taken notes, you will probably get an A or a B. If you usually come to class having taken notes, then you will probably get a B or a C. If you usually don't come to class having taken notes, you will probably get a C or a D. I was shocked at how clear this data was.

One incredible thing about this relationship is whether of not you always come to class having taken notes is something that each student has control over. I think students feel that their grade is determined by how "good they are at math" and although this is true, they have control over how good they get at Geometry, by whether or not they always come to class having taken notes.


Statistics
The AP Statistics teacher in me needs to put a disclaimer. There is a "confounding variable" of each student's dedication to school and ability. Does taking notes make you get better grades? Or do students who get better grades always take notes because that is what they do as a student?

I don't want to imply any cause and effect relationships with this data because it was an observational study. But I think students will understand that if you come to class having watched the video and taken notes, you will be prepare for the practice, you will understand the practice, and then do better on assessments and therefore do better on the class overall.

This data was collected in my class, with my students, within my teaching model. These results can't be used in other Flipped math classes.


Comments or Questions?
If you have any comments about this data or the analysis, please comment below.

What I Learned my First Year of Flipping

I had said many times before that my first year of "Flipping" my class was the hardest year of my teaching career, but the second year of flipping was the best! I learned so much during that first year of Flipping about things that worked and things that didn't. I changed things every quarter to make improvements, but by the end of the year, I figured out I should flip my class.

Flipping is different for everyone

There is no one way of flipping a class, just like there is no one way of teaching a traditional class or a PBL class. Each teacher needs to find the way of flipping that works well for them and their students. This isn't helpful for first year teachers or teachers preparing for their first year of teaching. But I would encourage a teacher planning on flipping to stay as close to what they have found successful in the past. For example, one of my biggest failures during my first year of flipping was trying to implement a Flipped Mastery approach, because that seemed like was the direction that everyone who was flipping was heading. But a Flipped Mastery model does not work for me. I like giving students second chances and meeting my students where they are, and I found that about half of my students were constantly falling behind. I was afraid of them falling too far behind, so I required students to test on the same day. So more than half of my class hadn't watched all the videos or done the required textbook problems by the day of the test.

Be Flexible

As I mentioned before I changed things about my class every quarter. Here are the things that I tried:

• I collected data and talked to my students, using their data, to convince them that the students who did more of their notes and textbook problems, did better on assessments.
• I changed the grading policies to place more emphasis on textbook problems, because that showed the highest correlation with assessment grades.
• I changed how frequently I put grades in the grading system and how frequently I contacted parents about grades.
• I tried giving note packets for students to use to take notes
• I tried giving a few problems after the notes for students to try before doing the textbook problems.
• I tried making short videos to help students through the few problems after the notes.
• I tried created guided notes for students to use when they were taking notes

The point is that I was willing to adjust things during the entire first year. If things aren't working, change them. Also, don't be afraid of failure. Many of the things that I tried were a total failure (ex: videos explaining example problems and guided notes were both huge failures) and that is okay. I continued changing things and eventually found a system that worked for me.

Keep it Simple

The model that I am using during my second year of flipping is very simple and it works very well. I would recommend teachers that are considering flipping, keep it very simple. Specifically what I mean is:

• Make your own videos (there is a lot of power in doing this, if you are willing to do it. Use the materials that you used in class for the videos, but keep them short. Don't give a lot of examples.)
• Give the homework that you used to give at home, in class.
• Give the same tests and quizzes that you used before. (This is good to compare data between before and after.)

I know that this recommendation goes along with some of the "less than admirable" forms of flipping, but it is the simplest way of flipping. Your focus will be on making videos, so keep everything else the same. Then the second year you can adjust what you do in class to be something more meaningful than old homework problems.

Questions and Conclusion

If the first year of flipping is hard, then why do it? Because the second year is so worth it! Everything that frustrated me about how I taught before flipping has been corrected by my second year. It is a better way of teaching.

If students get a similar lecture at home and similar homework in class, then what is the point of flipping at all? This year my students walk into my classroom in the morning with a similar understanding as when my students left my classroom before I flipped. And I believe that I can move my students future forward while they are in the same room as me, than when they are at home. Plus, as a math teacher, I know that every student can complete my homework if they are only asked to watch a video and take notes. No student "gets stuck" anymore.

If you have any questions about my first year of flipping or what I learned, please contact me at Twitter at @mathlewis.

Four Characteristics of a Successful Student

I have been collecting a lot of data on which characteristics are related to higher test scores.  Some of them are surprising, but most of them are not.  (For those of you who are statistically or research minded, see my disclaimer at the bottom of this post)

1) Students who complete all notes before the day of the test do better on the test.

• Average test score(1) of students who completed all notes before the day of the test: 74%
• Average test score(1) of students who did not completed all notes before the day of the test: 63%

2) Students who complete all practice problems (assigned textbook problems) before the day of the test do better on the test.

• Average test score(1) of students who completed all practice problems before the day of the test: 77%
• Average test score(1) of students who did not completed all practice problems before the day of the test: 63%

3) Students who check and then correct their practice problems do better on the test:

• Average test score(2) of students who check and then correct practice problems: 76%
• Average test score(2) of students who check but don't correct practice problems: 65%
• Average test score(2) of students who don't check or correct practice problems: 66%

None of these have been suprising.  The next few may be interesting.

4) Successful students complete notes and practice problems for a section before moving onto the next section.

• Average test score(2) of students who complete notes and practice problems for a section before moving onto the next section: 75%
• Average test score(2) of students who complete all notes and then all practice problems: 66%
• Average test score(2) of students who follow some other sequence of work: 65%

The following don't show a significant difference in test scores:

• Amount of time that students spend outside of class on math
• Whether students did more practice problems, notes, or both during class.
• Whether students used my videos or used the textbook for notes.

Notes:
(1) Based on Chapters 2-9 of the 2012-2013 school years.  This data wast taken from my grade book.  The agerage test score for these tests is a 70%
(2) Based on Chapters 6 and 9 of the 2012-2013 school years.  These are the only chapters where this data was collected.  The average test score for these tests is a 71.5%

Statistical Disclaimer:
* These were all observational studies.  None of this research could show a cause and effect relationship.  Although I do encourage my students to do things that "successful students" do.

Uses of Data

This week my family took a trip to Kyoto.  My hotel delivered a daily paper, which was nice because I never read the newspaper.  I stumbled onto this article by David Streitfeld.

The article was about a few textbooks that have offered digital access, and then reported to the professor how much a student was using their textbook.  The findings are not surprising, the more time a student spends in the textbook, the better they do on tests and quizzes.  Often the results from data are not surprising.

The article also points out that a student can increase their "engagement index" by "leaving their book open and doing something else."  I agree that it would not be beneficial to make the "engagement index" part of a student's grade, because students will merely go through the motions.  However, I do believe that the data can be used as a discussion point with these students.

This is how I frequently use the data that I collect about my students.  I share my findings with my students and I talk to them about the characteristics of successful students.  I will discuss these findings in a later post.  I want to collect data over multiple units before I draw conclusions.