By Melissa Coman, Instructional Partner
Mill Creek Elementary (Madison City)
Last May, Amber Merrill, a 6th grade math teacher at Mill Creek Elementary, came to me with an exciting idea. She’d been reading about a new instructional approach where students are introduced to concepts at home through a video and then practice the concepts during the day with their teacher and peers.
I said, “Oh, you’re talking about the flipped classroom!” And so the journey began. Mrs. Merrill and I met a few times and discussed ideas, brainstormed resources, and roughed out some possible templates for videos. By the beginning this school year, Mrs. Merrill had already uploaded all of the home tutorials for her first math chapter on her school website.
She found free math tutorials at the Khan Academy site and at Teacher Tube. There are other sites that also offer free tutorials, including Sophia and the Flipped Learning Network.
After the first or second week of school I went to visit and watch the experience. Wow, the excitement for learning in the student/teacher and student/student conversations was contagious. There were a few students who were unable to connect to the tutorials due to internet availability or access problems (less than 10%). If this happened Mrs. Merrill provided computer lab time in the morning as well as iPad access in her classroom.
I spent time interviewing the class as a whole to gain the student as well as teacher perspective. The energy was high and the learning impact was evident. I observed both students and teacher excited about the transition from traditional to flipped classroom.
The students have more time with Mrs. Merrill for small group instruction, there’s more clarification of the learning taking place at home, more opportunities to practice, and more sharing in groups.
Mrs. Merrill is also able to review problems (step by step) and make her thinking visible. That is powerful for math concepts.
What students are saying
I followed up a few weeks later with some individual student interviews. The opportunities for learning, the confidence expressed by the students, and the comments were inspiring.
To one question I asked, “Do you want to go back to the old way, the traditional way of learning?” a student replied, “No, I don’t think I could.” Another question, “What do you love most about this experience with flipped classroom?” drew this reply: “I don’t feel judged by other students when asking questions.” He feels supported and safe in his learning environment.
I also asked all students if there was anything they didn’t like about flipping the learning process — anything they would change. They all agreed they’d like to continue learning just this way, and they hope that they are able to have this option offered in future math classes.
Tips from Mrs. Merrill
As a conclusion, Mrs. Merrill and I sat down for one more interview. I wanted to know what she thought about the impact after about two months of implementation. Here are some of her thoughts.
I would caution anyone trying something new to not be afraid of jumping in head first, but also know your limits.
When it comes the actual instructional day we have more time to problem solve/troubleshoot with our learning.
If a student has a question, they have the choice of doing the problem on the board, having me do the problem, or having a peer do the problem. It’s usually a pretty even divide between the three. In the last five minutes, they have to summarize the essential question and provide an example on an index card. We call this the “tweet” of the day.
Likening it to Twitter is a gimmick to keep them interested. I don’t grade it (although they can get in trouble if they don’t do it), but they are allowed to keep their tweets on their desk during a test, which provides one more incentive to do a good job and keep up the record of their learning for later.
As you can see it has been an empowering experience for both teacher and students. The students are more active participants in the learning process, which is incredibly powerful, and Mrs. Merrill is an innovator who is excited about the impact this learning strategy is having on her students.
