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12 Learning & Leading with Technology | June/July 2012 June/July 2012 | Learning & Leading with Tech

By Kathleen Fulton

Upside Down and Inside Out: Flip Your Classroom to Improve Student Lear

Educators are notorious or jumping on passing ads andchasing the newest innova-

tions, rom the open classrooms o the1970s to t he one-laptop-per-studentinitiatives o the past decade. It’s notsurprising that when the next newthing—the flipped classroom—hit thehallways o America’s schools, it wasmet with hesitation and skepticismrom teachers, parents, and educa-tional critics. Te “flipped” part o theflipped classroom means that studentswatch or listen to lessons at home anddo their “homework” in class. But isit just another ad or an instructionaldesign worth keeping?

Pioneered just a ew years ago byscience teachers Jonathan Bergmannand Aaron Sams at Woodland Park

High School in Colorado, USA, theflipped classroom now has a coner-ence, several websites, and a proes-sional learning network o more than3,000 teachers (see Resources, page17). Bergmann and Sams also have abook coming out in July called FlipYour Classroom: Reach Every Studentin Every Class Every Day ( see What’sNew, page 44, and read Bergmann’sPoint/Counterpoint response, page 6).

Some o the most enthusiastic ad- vocates are the math teachers at Min-

nesota’s Byron High School (BHS),which was the 2011 Intel winner orhigh school mathematics. Teir storysuggests that, at least or this dedi-cated group o educators, the flippedclassroom is an educational innova-tion with legs, i not wings!

A Peek into a Flipped ClassroomStudents rom roy Faulkner’s CalculusI class shuffle into his classroom. Alongwith the usual hum o conversation,you can hear the melodic sounds oiPads, laptops, and smartphones be-ing turned on as well as the clatter ourniture being shuffled around as stu-dents create inormal clusters. Faulknerwelcomes the students and talks aboutthe day’s task as he puts a couple okey problems on the electronic white-

board to check or understanding onlast night’s video lesson. He gives thestudents time to work on the problems,then discusses the solutions with hisstudents. Afer a lively exhange, thestudents get down to work at their ownpace and in their own style.

Some choose to work in groups,while others preer to sit alone on thefloor or even out in the hall, pluggingin their earbuds to block out every-thing and everyone around them. Teexpectation is that they all watched a

video o Faulkner teaching tthe night beore and are readonstrate their understandinday’s problems. Some reviewlesson as they work, while obreeze though the problemspace, then move on to the nassigned video.

Faulkner moves rom studstudent, watching, listeningwho needs help. I several ststuck on a problem, he mighthrough more examples on at the ront o the class. Andbe sure, there are daily spot ofen using clickers so the stand teacher get immediate reedback allows or group dand peer instruction on the that many students are strug

and helps Faulkner and his ctarget—and revise in real timstruction on concepts that sfind difficult.

Left: Two students

“homework” for the

Below: These photos and i

taken in Jonathan Bergman

classroom— illustrate the p

students have been doing s

teachers flipped the classr

P H OT O GR A P H

C O U R T E S Y OF J E N

H E GN A .

Copyright © 2012, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), [email protected], www.iste.org. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), [email protected], www.iste.org. Al

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14 Learning & Leading with Technology | June/July 2012

Students were candid about what

they liked:

I personally like that I can get through

the lessons quicker than when we

have ... class lecture. Then, when I do

the homework in class, I can have help

right away, which means I ask more

questions.

—11th grade precalculus student

I liked this approach a lot because

when we work on homework in the

classroom, [the teacher is] here to

help us. Otherwise, I would be lost

at home and wouldn’t be able to

finish my homework because I

would have no idea how to do it.


I liked how I could rewind and

pause the lectures in case I

didn’t understand something.

—12 th grade calculus student

I liked the fact that I could get the moredifficult problems in class and be able

to ask questions about them.


I like that we watched the concept

at home, but then mastered the

concept in class.

—10 th grade Algebra II student

Some students were equally candid

about what they didn’t like:

Sometimes the video notes can

become a little fast and hard to

keep up with, but asking questions

the next day helps [me] to understand.


students respond Why They Flipped

With the recession o 2009, theByron School District, located in asmall community near Rochester,Minnesota, USA, was driven by apressing set o challenges that ledto a serendipitous adoption o flip-ped teaching.

Superintendent Wendy Shannonexplained that when it came time toget new textbooks because the current

ones did not match new state mathstandards, her district just didn’thave the money.

“We had a big problem,” Shan-non recalls. “With the district thirdrom the bottom in state unding,two operating levy reerendum issuesthat ailed, and a bad economy, we’dalready had to cut $1.2 million romByron’s school budget. We literally hadno money or new textbooks.”

Shannon encouraged math educa-tors to think outside the box. Butthey actually proposed somethingthat went one step urther: thinkingbeyond the book! Tey suggested get-ting rid o textbooks altogether andcreating their own math curriculum.BHS Principal Michael Duffy gave themath teachers the green light. Teywere committed to a textbook-reecurriculum by the start o the 2010–11school year, and the clock was ticking!

Starting in January 2010, the mathteam met beore school every Mon-day. Tey used their proessionallearning community (PLC) time towrestle with the new math standards,review student test data indicatingareas o special challenge, and previewresources gathered rom the web.Tey applied to a local oundation, theByron Fund or Excellence in Educa-

tion, and landed a $5,000 grant thatprovided small stipends to teacherswho worked over the summer o 2010and paid or Kuta, a sofware tool orcreating worksheets and tests.

Jen Hegna, the school’s director oinormation and learning technology,helped the teachers create a Moodle

site or each course. It soon becameclear that they’d have to create t heirown video lessons rather than rely-ing on prepackaged web courses orlessons. Once the district agreed tounblock Youube, they embeddedthe video lessons in each course site.

A New Way of TeachingTroughout that first year, the teach-ers struggled to stay a ew video les-

sons ahead. Tey were all l earningtogether, continuing to meet in theirPLC, reviewing test data, and adjust-ing and tinkering with the Moodlelessons, resources, and videos.

Classroom management was an-other challenge, says 20-year veteranteacher Rob Warneke: “Kids need tobe trained and guided to stay on task,work collaboratively, solve their ownproblems, be disciplined,” he says.“Tis is harder than making everyonebe quiet during a lecture. Tinkingand learning can be quite noisy!”

Jen Green, who teaches math andEnglish, describes it this way: “It wasan incredible amount o work, but itwas the right work or the right reason:We were doing it or the kids. With thefirst student I could see the videos werehelping, I knew it was all worth it.”

Working collaboratively on develop-ment o the curriculum, common as-sessments, and guided notes ostereda bond among the teachers and stimu-lated their proessional growth. Teycreated a library o all the BHS teachercourse videos and allowed students towatch any teacher’s videos. Most preerto watch their own teacher, but somelike to watch a different teacher’s videolesson or review or to see a new angleor understanding a difficult concept.

It gives the kids great reedom, and theteachers are benefiting rom “flippedproessional development” as they learnnew approaches or their own teachingwhen viewing each other’s videos.

Faulkner expects that some videoswill be reused rom year to year, whileothers will be re-recorded.

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June/July 2012 | Learning & Leading with Tech16 Learning & Leading with Technology | June/July 2012

Kathleen Fulton isdent consultant. S

worked as a policy

writer for the Natision on Teaching a

Future, the Web B

tion Commission,of Maryland, and the Congressional O

nology Assessment.

ly i there is more than one student in ahousehold assigned to watch videos orhomework. Students with no internetconnection can get the lessons on a jump drive or CD.

Flipping ForwardBHS is already seeing a ripple effect.Other departments and grade levelsare creating their own versions andapplications o flipped classrooms. Te

social studies department is buildingdigital curriculum, and language artsteachers are using e-portolios.

With class time reed up rom lec-tures, teachers are developing open-ended, cross-curricular projects thatactively engage students and bringreal-lie relevance to their math skills.And, because o eighth grade teacherJeremy Baumbach’s involvement inthe math curriculum redesign, somemiddle school students are alreadyexperiencing flipped classes.

BHS educators are the first to ad-mit that one size does not fit all, withflipped teaching or any instructionalapproach. What is common, however,is their shared commitment to studentlearning and their belie that today’seducators must guide students to usetechnology in ways they will embraceor uture learning.

An email to Faulkner rom recentBHS grad imothy Salazar validatesthis approach:

Te online lectures were extra-ordinarily helpul, even in mypost-secondary schooling. ...Te Youube videos served asexcellent review sessions ormy college calculus classes.Tey present a very visual me-dium that I eel complements

traditional class lectures well,especially since they are accessiblerom virtually anywhere, so longas I have access to the internet.

For BHS, flipping is no ad. It isa way to ensure students have 24/7access to extraordinary teaching!

ResourcesByron High School Math Department website:

http://tinyurl.com/bhsmathFlipteaching: http://Flipteaching.com

Kuta: wwwkutasofware.com

Te Flipped Class Network: http://vodcasting.ning.com/video/video/listForContributor?

screenName=1vd2mu3elntt

Vodcasting and the Flipped Classroom:http://flippedclassroom.com

parents respond

A recent survey of parents suggests

an overall favorable reaction to the

new methodology too:

The flipped classroom seems to be

a much better use of the teacher’s

time. It also is less frustrating for

the student when they need extra

help as the teacher is available

during class time ending thenecessity of going in before/after

school to get needed help.

—Parent of a 12 th grade calculus student

Prior to the flipped classroom, we

had to pay for a math tutor. Now our

son is feeling more confident and

hasn’t needed the tutor because

he is able to get his questions

answered on a daily basis.

—Parent of 10 th grade geometry student

The flipped classroom approach is

a great idea for a hands-on subject,

like math. We believe it better

utilizes the students’ and teachers’classroom time. Thank you for

taking the extra time to record the

teaching lessons!

—Parent of 9 th grade geometry student

Documented Success

Separating the effects o the newdigital curriculum rom the flippedteaching technique can be difficult.Nonetheless, teachers are collectingdetailed data on student achievement,and the results are promising. Earlydata suggest significant increases in

student learning and achievementwhen flipping compared to baselinedata on the same courses taught in thetraditional classroom lecture mode,using the same assessments.

Te graph above shows that calcu-lus proficiencies are up an average o9.8%. Proficiency reers to the number

o students who score 80% or aboveon unit assessments. Meanwhile, pre-calculus proficiencies increased anaverage o 6.1%.

In Accelerated Algebra II, therewas a 5.1% increase in median testscores afer including digital content(videos, notes, homework, homeworksolutions, and extra links to help stu-dents visualize mathematics) online.Other courses, such as Algebra I andgeometry, have posted similar gains instudent scores.

Student math scores on standard-ized external exams also have risendramatically. In 2006, Byron’s highschool math mastery level was 29.9%on the Minnesota Comprehensive As-

sessment (MCA). In 2010, its masteryrate had risen to 65.6% as a result odata analysis and curriculum align-ment with state standards. In responseto a desire to continually improve,the department implemented digitalcontent and the flipped classroom in2010–11, and this change resulted in

73.8% mastery on the MCAs in 2011.Byron has insisted on a solid high-level math education or all students,as shown by the act that at the end othe 2011–12 school year, 94.7% o By-ron’s seniors completed our or morecredits o math.

Student and Parent ReactionAfer every course, teachers surveyedstudents about the flipped classroomexperience. When asked what theyliked (besides having one less bookto lug home each night!), thestudent comments were candid (see“Students Respond,” page 14).

Parents were also generally happywith the results (see “Parents Re-

spond”). However, as with any newpractice, not all reactions are going tobe positive. Many parents had a hardtime adjusting because the changewas different rom the way they wereschooled. One common concern wasthe demand this approach can makeon a amily’s home computer, especial-

This graph compares

the proficiency levels

of students who ex-

perienced the flipped

classroom compared

to those who partici-

pated in a traditional

lecture format (chap-

ter 2 is omitted be-

cause it was taught

only with lecture).

Studies showed that

including digital con-

tent (videos, notes,

homework, home-

work solutions, and

extra links to help

students visualize

mathematics) online

improved academic

performance.

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