Still Head Over Heels (Part 2)

In this post, I want to describe some of the mechanics of how I run a flipped classroom. My class consists of four parts: the notes, the classwork, the quiz, and the test.

• The Notes

As I mentioned in my last post, I have students take their notes from a slideshow that I have created and posted on slideshare.net. Because we are a national AVID demonstration school, I require them to take their notes in Cornell notes fashion. One of the big tenets of C-notes is the idea of going back over your notes after 24 hours to highlight important text, add questions and a summary. In order to enforce this, I only give them a 50 for taking notes over my slideshow (the right-hand side of the page). The next class, I check to see if they have highlighted text, added questions, and written a summary. Questions and highlighting earns them an additional 25 points, and the summary adds the final 25 points. I have done this the last two years, and I really like the way the idea of the flipped class works with C-notes.

• The Classwork

At the beginning of each chapter (what our district, for some mysterious reason, calls “bundles”), I give them a packet containing every worksheet for that chapter. This has two major benefits: Since I try to post notes for the whole chapter when we start, students can work ahead if they want to; also, if a student is absent, he automatically knows what he missed, and he already has the work. The worksheets vary between Kuta worksheets, worksheets I’ve found or created over the years, and exploration/extention problems. For each worksheet, I post solutions to the odd-numbered problems, and since this is practice, I grade the worksheets on completion. This is the real strength of the flipped classroom, because they have most of the 80-minute class period to work problems. I have them seated in groups, so that they can ask for help from their fellow students or me. I check the work from the previous worksheet when I go around checking notes.

• The Quiz

When my district switched from Moodle to Canvas, I started setting up all of my quizzes there.


This is the really magic part of my class. Because I also do SBG, I allow students to retake quizzes to improve their grades. Canvas allows me to set up “question banks” for each quiz, so each time a student takes a quiz, it will be different. I calculated once that one quiz had more than 1,000,000 different possible versions. There are two ways that this works. The first is the multiple choices for each topic:


These can be either multiple-choice or free-response. The next type of question is my favorite: the formula question. I can set up a range of values, along with a formula for the answer, and let Canvas select the numbers:

As long as I can get a numeric answer, these work out great! There’s other cool stuff about Canvas — if you’re interested, let me know.

• The Test

The test is the summative assessment over the bundle. It’s made up of a common assessment part that all of the Geometry teachers at my school give (we use GradeCam to handle creating the scantrons and managing the data), and a Canvas part that is generally questions pulled from the quizzes.

This is the format that I have used the last couple of years, and I really like how it has shaken out. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Still Head Over Heels (Part 1)

I’m approaching the end of my third year of doing a flipped classroom in Geometry, and I’m still in love with the format. I was reading a post the other day (I’ve been trying to catch up on my Reader feed, so I can’t remember who said it) that was concerned that students’ watching 10-minute videos wouldn’t get the same teaching as a regular lecture or other type of in-class teaching. In a lot of ways, I would definitely agree with that, because I tell my students I don’t expect them to learn everything about a particular topic just from taking notes. I spend about 5-10 minutes at the beginning of class going over more examples before I turn them loose on their classwork for that topic.

For me, the flipped classroom model allows me to eliminate the most tedious part of teaching: taking notes. For example, below is a fairly typical PowerPoint that I would give over angle relationships in a circle:

Instead of my standing at the front of the class going through this PowerPoint while some students make very quick notes and others make meticulous drawings and copy everything exactly, I assign them the task of paging through this slideshow and taking as much (or as little) time as they need. Some students will “get” this topic just from the notes, because it’s fairly straightforward; others will need some more explanation in class, and that’s okay.

The students would then work on something like a Kuta worksheet (I got tired of waiting for my school to buy it, so I bought a single-user license myself). When they were ready, they would take a quiz over the topic on Canvas, our district’s LMS (learning management system). The only deviations I make from this routine are when I want the whole class to work on something such as a stations activity, a Geogebra exploration, or a Desmos activity (for example, we did a Polygraph: Polygons that went really well).

My Pre-AP kids generally like this format. Their parents also like that they don’t have to worry about trying to help their kids with their homework, because the homework consists of taking notes over a slideshow.

I ran into a student who was in my first year of flipped classes recently, and he told me that it was the best approach to a math class that he’d ever had, and he didn’t know why all of his teachers didn’t adopt the same format.

Astronomy Class Structure

I think I’ve got it! After lots of internal debate, I think I’ve settled on how I want to run my new astronomy class this year.

To Flip or Not to Flip–That is the Question

I fell in love with the flipped class model last year for my geometry class, so I’m definitely continuing it for geometry. That’s no big deal–even when I’m not trying some projecty-thing, I can make up new problems for them to solve all day long. Astronomy, though, doesn’t quite work that way. I think I’ve found some interesting problems/activities/”labs” to go along with the textbook, so we’ll see.

Because all of the freshmen teachers are getting them, I will have the luxury of a Chromebook cart in my room, so I plan to make lots of use out of it for astronomy. First off, I wish I could remember who recommended Blendspace, but this has proven to be incredibly helpful. It lets me pull together different resources to supplement the reading they are supposed to be doing. Check out my first lesson!

I will also be using Edmodo to manage everything (Blendspace is also an Edmodo app), and since I figured out that I can use LaTex on the quizzes, I will probably use it in geometry as well. Pearson, the publisher of our textbook, has some good online assignments that the students will be expected to complete.

The Plan

• Students will be expected to read about two sections of the textbook for each class and write a one-paragraph summary of each section.
• They will have Blendspace lessons on each section as additional resources.
• I will not be checking homework. The class day after the end of a chapter is the due date for all homework from that chapter.
• During class, we will be doing some sort of exploration/project/activity.
• The day homework is due, I will give an Edmodo quiz over the whole chapter, broken down into the standards. Students can retake any standard they do not get a 4 on. Since I am giving so few quizzes, I will be willing to go back and change a previous six week’s grade should it be necessary.
• Grades will be weighted as follows:
• 20% Homework
• 20% Classwork
• 30% Quizzes
• 30% Six Weeks Test/Major Project

I have felt so paralyzed this summer because I wasn’t sure what/how I wanted to teach this class. I don’t know whether this will work or not, but at least I’m not paralyzed anymore.

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