Flipped Math Classroom
Flipped Professional Development
Recap and Reflections
Openness to Opportunity
As information has now become ubiquitous, so have opportunities. Digital resources and information have become ever more abundant. Making connections between different kinds of information, different content areas, or different ideas can produce opportunities for making projects. This is true for the classroom teacher participating in Flipped PD, and it is true for a student who creates and solves a unique problem in the Flipped Math classroom.
For example, a group of gifted/talented students in fifth grade math class understand the two-digit story problems without undue effort. They use what they already know about this type of mathematics to apply it to a creative project. The creativity comes from two different sources: mathematical problems that need solutions, and artistic illustrations representing these problems in a diverse way.
The students construct a problem that calls for a two digit multiplication solution. The artistic challenge comes into play by creating an artistic rendition of the same problem in the form of an animated movie. These animated movies can easily be created using pencast techniques. Each student creates two pencasts. One presents a problem requiring a mathematical solution, and the other is a solution to that same problem.
After the pencasts have been completed, they are added to a Pages template for creating an e-book. The e-book with these pencasts is entitled “Pencast Math Problems”. In addition to the pencasts themselves, the e-book shows images of a flip chart lesson which shows a solution to that problem. The e-book is distributed through a free download on a website, a free download from the iTunes bookstore, email distribution, or other means. The e-book is downloaded and viewed on an ipad, an iphone, or some other mobile device.
From start to finish, each of the steps in this described scenario is an example of being open to an information opportunity or an idea opportunity. From the onset, projects such as these spring from opportunities within a classroom for students who need addtitional challenges. In the Flipped Math classroom, this type of extended learning results from an openness to opportunities.
Finding Focus
Devising a plan in a Flipped PD session often involves finding direction after negotiating the possibilities. We begin by organizing the possibilities in the four strand areas of collaboration, communication, creative media and presentation. From the broader picture of these classifications, examples are produced that resonate with a teacher’s context of experience. Priorities emerge. For some teachers a single priority is obvious because it meets an immediate need or excites a particular creative opportunity. For others, however, the range of possibilities generates a desire to tackle multiple areas without delay. For these teachers choosing the best first step is a challenge.
Providing assurance that this first step is a worthy one is a responsibility of the technology integration specialist. One step leads to another, a direction is established, and a plan forms. Even if this plan is similar to that of many other teachers (making a website, for example), choices are made about selecting content, presenting content elegantly, or making connections between ideas, locations and people. These choices are personalized. Like snowflakes, no two are alike.
All teachers seek satisfaction with the choices, of course. How does one know that any one choice is the best choice, especially when the outcomes are divergent (no one best choice exists)? To avoid freezing with indecision (to use a metaphor), both mirrors and windows are needed. The mirrors help one see what has been done with oneself and with others, and the windows help one see the possibilities that are yet to come. Finding clarity using these two principles is a primary charge for the technology integration specialist in the role of a professional learning coach.
When a teacher in the Flipped Math classroom makes choices about how to communicate the content, the natural inclination is to rely on past practices of delivery. For a personal delivery style, this is an asset. When media such as instructional movies are used for the delivery of content, however, the experience for the student is somewhat different than the usual classroom style. With video instruction, being concise and clear trumps repetition. As one student told us about the difference in presentations, “In class, you can’t rewind the teacher.”
Motivation and Engagement
In a 2009 TED talk “The Surprising Science of Motivation”, Daniel Pink made the case that businesses need to change their model of motivation to increase productivity. Instead of a system of rewards and punishments, businesses need to promote autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He suggested that research demonstrates that self-direction works better than compliance, extrinsic motivators work only in a narrow band of circumstances, if/then rewards often destroy creativity, and the secret to high-performance is to do things because they matter.
These ideas are directly applicable to education. Teachers who have participated in Flipped PD have been most productive when they have taken an autonomous approach towards their own professional development. When they select their own projects, they are highly invested in the outcomes. When they are empowered to make their own choices with the support of technology integration specialists, they achieve meaningful results. When their own choice of purposefulness guides their decisions, they are more creative and more willing to take chances with new information or processes. Personal investment in the process goes hand-in-hand with their perceived value of the outcomes.
Students who participate in the Flipped Math classroom experience a different form of engagement with the math content then students traditional classroom. Rather than receiving the content in an environment where every student sees and hears the information at the same pace and the same time, students engage with the content in their home environments through media prepared in advance by their teachers. Rather than engaging with problems in solitude in their home environments, students engage with problems in a differentiated classroom environment where the teacher actively coaches individuals and small groups.
What is it that captures the attention of a student in Flipped Math classroom or a teacher in Flipped PD? Certainly a sense of purposefulness is a key part of motivation and engagement. If we believe something has purpose and meaning, we actively seek to make connections between ideas and information. There are other methods for capturing attention, however. Engagement increases through humor, curiosity, or sights and sounds. Motivation increases through competition, cooperation, exploration, or achievement. Regardless of the techniques, motivation and engagement are essential fuels for educational action.
Making Beauty, Solving Problems
Solving Problems, Making Beauty
At a banquet table, I once witnessed a conversation between an art docent and an architectural engineer. To the art docent, the principle of aesthetics was articulated as a primary purpose. To be human is to have a natural inclination to seek and create beauty, whether in art, music, writing, speaking, building, or forging relationships. Craft is a tool to create the beauty.
To the architectural engineer, function supersedes form. First make something work effectively, then address how it looks. Solving problems comes before making beauty. Once the singular solution for a problem has been identified, one can apply any number of tasteful choices for making it look nice.
For both of these occupations, however, making beauty and solving problems are both integral parts of their processes. Artists deal with technical problems and engineers confront issues relating to the beauty of their products. Even when there is a substantial investment in one area, purposes overlap.
When teachers work on their professional development in Flipped PD, these two thematic areas continuously intertwine. Using technologies when designing classroom projects inevitably involves solving problems, some of which are complex. Artistic decisions are equally important. The interplay between solving problems and making beauty creates a different pathway for each individual.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whosoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
---Albert Einstein