I admit I am a novice when it comes to the idea of Flipped Classrooms. Though, seeing some examples of teachers’ flipped classroom videos has put the idea in my mind firmly enough to start creating my own recordings and experiment a bit.  Initially, a couple of students and parents needed help with privacy settings on platforms we used for a project.  After typing out a long and convoluted email, I hit “delete,” went back to my NCSS conference notes, and found Screencast-O-matic was recommended for making on-screen recordings.  Of course it’s easier to see where to click than to try and describe it without a visual.  I posted my “how to” and was able to simply send the link out to anyone else that needed help.   

Tomorrow I am headed to Learning and the Brain’s Web-Connected Minds conference in Washington, DC.  I had planned to go over a number of things related to end of the year assignments and tried to type it out (so, essentially, my substitute could read a list of “to dos”) but that did not seem reasonable or effective for anyone.  So, I decided to do another screencast, but this time I would add a video of myself speaking.

This morning, I planned for my first period class to get the “live” version of the lesson.  However, I was curious how they would respond to the video and at what points I might observe it was going too fast or that students needed to pause and process.  So, I decided to turn the video on during class, while I was there.  After getting past the discomfort of watching and listening to myself, I observed some very interesting things. 

First, the students sustained attention for a longer period of time.  I usually get through about two minutes of explanation before hands start to go up for questions.  Though I typically plan to answer all their questions, it’s just difficult for sixth graders to hang in there and attend to information that isn’t answering the question on their mind right now.  However, when listening to the video they appeared to be more patient.  Of course, perhaps this was because the videos cannot respond to raised hands; maybe their questions were just going unanswered.  However, given my additional observations, I do not think that was the case. 

Second, I had the opportunity to observe my own teaching.  While there are the obvious and more subtle benefits to “live” teaching, from a distance I was able to more closely observe how students listen and take notes.  As I was teaching on screen, I was also in the back of the room watching the tenor of the group and the responses of individual students.  When, in my screencast, I prompted students to look at their answer key, many of them didn’t.  I stopped the video and prompted them again, reminding them of the importance of active attentiveness and self-motivation. From that point forward, everyone followed my on-screen prompts.  Usually, in Grade 6, it takes more than one reminder.

Finally, after about 10 minutes (of a 30 minute screencast) I offered to turn it off and do the live version.  They, almost unanimously, preferred to watch the video.  I thought this was really funny, because part of me was offended that they didn’t want to listen to me… yet, they were opting to listen to me instead.  I guess it’s a win-win.  When I asked them why they preferred the screencast, they said, “because we can go back and listen to it again.”  I asked for a show of hands and the majority of students planned to watch it again at home.  I can only speculate, but I think that the reason they were listening more carefully was because they wanted to know what specific sections to go back to later. 

There is a lot of information out there about the benefits of flipped lessons.  However, showing the same video in class may be another way to use digital resources.  While I have no intention of recording all my lessons so I can sit in the back of the room and observe, there are certainly benefits to doing this occasionally.  I see how it could be a great way to teach note taking skills and it would be much easier to differentiate for struggling students. Teaching students how to effectively watch videos is a valuable skill that can be more discretely taught when they are shown these videos in class.  And then, at the end of the day, the benefits of watching it again at home is icing on the cake.  

This whole project began with the idea of not using a KWL to introduce my Middle East unit; I did not have any plan for word clouds, never mind making a global connection.  I simply decided to use a modified Frayer Model, which focused on how students viewed the Middle East and how they did not view it.   That was the plan.  But after class discussion, I could sense some common themes and wanted to visualize their answers so that we could analyze them as a whole. 

I collected students’ responses and put them into two separate word clouds to show their perceptions of what the Middle East is, and what it is not.  I then took all the words from my blogs and articles about Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Jordan and put them into one word cloud; I wanted my cloud to represent my perceptions at the time of travel, not a rosy hindsight view. 

The word clouds spoke for themselves and I proudly shared them with my husband and brother-in-law.  My brother-in-law casually commented on how great it would be to get a class in the Middle East to do the same about the United States.   I jumped on Twitter at 11pm on a Sunday night and tweeted a request for collaboration.  By the next morning, @Intrepidteacher, in Indonesia, had sent me some connections to former students, in Qatar, and @missnoor28, in Jordan, had expressed interest in the project.  Within a couple weeks, I was able to add word clouds from both Jordan and Qatar.  I thought this would conclude the project.

Yet, when my American students saw what students in Jordan and Qatar thought of their country, they reacted with frustration and disappointment.  Through emails with @missnoor28, I knew that her students felt the same regarding American students’ perceptions of the Middle East.  The tone was negative and it just didn’t seem right to land in a place where each group was left feeling disliked and misunderstood.

Through email, @missnoor28 and I decided to go one more round.  We asked our students to share how they would like their country to be viewed.  “When you think of America/Jordan, please think of these words….”  As I put these final clouds into the Prezi, it felt right.  Of course, perceptions will change and evolve, but we had a conclusion that allowed students to speak for their own country and showed more commonalities than the differences they started with.  I am very grateful to @missnoor28 and her students for working with us through this process. 

Something else came out of this project that was unexpected.  In addition to sharing differences and similarities with people in another part of the world, my students also learned to respect the differences among them.  When my students looked at the final word cloud, some were not happy with the words they collectively chose to represent America.  Yet, everyone in the 6^th grade got three words and it was not my job to censor their responses.  Ultimately, they learned that even students who are the same age, at the same school, in the same country have different perceptions of the United States– opinions that they might not agree with, but can respect as part of the diverse views in our own community.

I’ve never done a KWL where kids come in asking to add to what they want to know, or what they learned.  But every day throughout this unit, students have come into class asking if I’ve heard back from the kids in Jordan.  At the end of the unit, they will reflect on these word clouds and what they learned through this process.  I expect that I will hear some heartfelt reasons for why this lesson resonated with them and how it might affect their perceptions of other cultures in the future.  I can’t wait to not do another KWL again.  

Back in February, I started following Andy Carvin on Twitter and for the first time since my initiation to tweeting in November 2011, I experienced the power of social media journalism.   “Primary Source Documents” took on a whole new meaning and my heart ached as I read retweet after retweet from people on the ground, reporting from the attacks on Homs, Syria.  I believe it is part of the human experience to feel pain when we hear of peoples’ tragedy, but it is more profound when it is people with whom you have personally connected.  In the same way that we can be guilty of stereotyping people for negative actions, a group of people can also represent a warm memory.  For me, this was such an experience.  My time in Syria in June 2009 made me fall in love with a country; not its government and not every person, but the people I met and the history I walked invited me to experience the charms of a nation I had known little about.  In February 2012, I felt clammy and short of breath, as I lay on my comfortable couch, in my safe home, reading the second by second bloodbath that was going on in a distant place that felt so very close to my heart.  I wanted to stop it.  I wanted to do something.

The tricky part of action is figuring out what action is most meaningful and effective.  That involves a careful weighing of consequences and a sort of cost-benefit analysis.  Yelling too loudly can deafen people’s ears and falling silent can align us with the problem. How could I make a difference for the civilians caught in this violence? What were my options? I wasn’t going to fly to Syria and join the rebels: cross that off.  Letter campaigns, maybe.  Write a letter, sign a petition: yes.  And, oh, there’s that thing I do everyday; I teach.  Yes, teaching people about Syria and getting people to talk about it is an option.

At the same time, my responsibility as a citizen of the world and my responsibility as a classroom teacher gave me pause. To encourage critical thinking, I gravitate towards teaching conflicts so that students can analyze differing perspectives; though I am also very conscious not to communicate personal positions to my students or leave them thinking that there is one right answer. I want them to find the grey area and be comfortable seeing multiple sides.  But when is it the time to teach middle ground and when is it time to teach students to speak up?

In hindsight, most of us can agree on points in history that don’t have middle ground.   The Holocaust was wrong.  Rwanda was wrong.  September 11^th was wrong.  Agreed.  But what about points of history that we are living, that we are a part of?   We teach students about past historic events and the value of speaking up, yet I’ll bet we can all recall moments when political correctness sanitized our teaching and our teachable moments. We teach civics lessons about the power of our constitution and the importance of exercising our freedom of speech.  But when do we model that and how often do we give students the opportunity to evaluate what is going on right now.

In a time when, as parents and teachers, we are deeply invested in anti-bullying education, we need to also analyze how we incorporate that into our instruction of history and global citizenship. Bullying does not just happen on the playground.  The worst and most terrifying bullies are abusive governments.   And though we cannot loom every social justice issue over students’ heads and ask them to carry the weight of the world, we can model action for those that speak to us. 

Even though we shouldn’t need a label to give us permission to act, there is evidence that what the actions of the Syrian government may be motivated by religious hatred; in other words, genocide. And, even if it’s not, there is enough evidence to warrant action that silence was no longer an option for me.  So, in January, I began by attending a fundraiser for the Syrian people, through the Syrian Sunrise Foundation.  I listened to Syrian ex-pats describe the political history, the current conflict, and the desire of Syrians to be free of the current corrupt and autocratic regime. I also listened to a father, who described how his son, a paramedic in Syria, was shot and killed while driving in an ambulance that was helping the wounded.  I then decided to hold an optional lunch conversation for interested students.  I made a Prezi to explain the situation in Syria at a Middle School level, and eleven students and three colleagues showed up.  Given that’s about 5% of our total Middle School population, I was actually pleased.  They brought their lunch, listened to what was happening in Syria, and asked questions.  Perhaps they told their friends.  Maybe they talked to their parents.  It’s a start.  It’s something. 

When we were in Syria, we connected with a family in Damascus for lunch.  Though they live in FL, they spend summers visiting family in Syria and they invited us to share a meal and visit their home.  In March 2012, I was able to visit again with this family on a visit to FL to visit my parents, and I later Skyped a presentation with their 12^th grade son’s school to help educate his peers about Syria.  Again.  Something.

I know that there are many, many teachers out there who educate on issues of social justice.  I’m not the only one.  But this was an instance of personal significance that allowed me to model my gratitude as an American, as well as my support for the many Syrians living in fear—or, worse, dying—who once took us by the hand for a cup of tea. 

*Photos in flyer are from BBC News Syria: Guide to the Uprising (now called Guide: Syria Crisis) 
Images and Graphics designed in Glogster  

I have seen a lot of articles and blogs talking about Pinterest– why people are using it, how people are using it, and the benefits of it as social media.  Pinterest was one of my first attempts to use social media in my classroom, and I approached it as an experiment to see how I might make these crafty bulletin boards work for my students. 

Over the last ten years, I curated a categorized list of content-related resources on my teaching website.  As the years passed, the list grew, many links died, and student traffic slowed dramatically.  I suspect that the latter happened because students gained proficiency with search engines—and search engines improved their ability to target results, even with a poorly-worded query.  I also found that students looked at the first link or two and stopped searching.  Ultimately, students were not as interested in following my suggestions as they were to find it on their own. This pleased me because it showed that students are becoming more independent learners online.  It was also concerning because not all students who explore on their own are prepared to evaluate websites effectively.  In an effort to guide student research, spark interest in the topics, and provide students the opportunity to search and discover, I decided that Pinterest was worth a try.  

Below, I describe the goals of my Pinterest boards, as well as some welcomed surprises.

 1.  Spring Cleaning
Setting up Pinterest gave me an excuse to do some spring-cleaning on my more traditional teacher website.  When transferring links, I removed a lot of dead and outdated information, and added new sites and articles from my bookmarks. 

 2.  Visual appeal
Let’s be honest.  When students – especially young students– search for information, they are attracted to images.  As Forbes noted, “[Pinterest is] about discovery, not search.”  If I could create a focused, visual archive for students, then I could attract their attention to vetted sources of information.  Essentially, I want to get students to look at my unit boards –rather than an image search—and say, “hey- what’s that? I want to learn more.”

3.  Pragmatic and Dynamic
No matter how many presentations I prepare, or images I frontload into a Prezi or Powerpoint, I cannot predict where the conversation will go—and I don’t really want to.  So, when the opportunity comes up to show an image, I can search my files or Dropbox folders from my desktop or Smartboard, but that takes time.  If I click on my bookmarked Pinterest page, it only takes a couple clicks to get to the picture I want.  And, while I’m getting there, their interest is piqued by all the other images they see.  It makes them want to go back and read more.  Also,  when I need an image that I don’t have in Pinterest, or in a file or presentation, I can do a search and add it to Pinterest immediately.  Then, I can easily access it for other classes.

4.  Modeling
I do not want to lecture students to use social media appropriately for academic purposes, while hiding my activity or using it to collect pictures of cuteness and things I want.  I also figured that, if their first exposure to Pinterest was collecting pictures of celebrities, then that would be their association. I want to model for students how to use social media to share information about the world and learn collaboratively. I am, however, reluctant to encourage students to sign up for their own Pinterest accounts. One reason is that I teach young students who are still learning how to evaluate sources and apply internet safety, and Pinterest is a new and public service– which does not currently have an option for private or class accounts. I also do not have an immediate need for students to use Pinterest for any pending projects, and I believe that the technology should support and enhance the content, not the other way around.  That said, I think it is valuable for students to observe the way that social media can be used for learning, and practice their Web 1.0 skills (being “finders”) before jumping into 2.0 (becoming “contributors”). 

5.  Collaboration
I have connected with other teachers and photographers to build up my boards and enhance my instruction. Many pictures from teachers link to lesson ideas or blogs about pedagogy.  Down the line, I hope to see some options for private, educational class accounts and I could see Pinterest as a way for school communities to share pictures of anything from blog posts and research, to summer travel. 

Ultimately, my use of Pinterest is still evolving and time will tell how valuable it will be to my instruction.  But, for now, I am glad to have it in my digital toolbox. 

Two weeks ago, Dr. Temple Grandin came to speak to our Middle and Senior School students. Her film, Temple Grandin, won countless awards and she, herself, has earned accolades and honors among her peers in the field of animal science. Behind her fame, Grandin impresses many of us by being the person we aspire to be– brilliant, passionate, persevering, and successful– while, at the same time being the person many of us are afraid of becoming– eccentric, ostracized, and misunderstood. Any one of those latter qualities, on its own, could give rise to fear.  But Grandin owns her uniqueness in a way that radiates excellence, not exception. For a society that values individuality, we are so very quick to demand conformity.  But, as the title of her talk directed, we must embrace  ”different kinds of minds.” Grandin encourages us to appreciate the gifts and talents of each individual because the only way to achieve great innovation is with the collaboration of individuals who think differently from one another.  Above all, her most important message to us?  ”Do something real.” 

A brilliant, bold, and sometimes bawdy poet, Hayes selected his works carefully for our young audience. Hayes interspersed readings of his poetry with stories of the risks he’s taken to follow his creative spirit and the inspirations that feed his poetic themes.  From going against the grain of a military career family and leaving behind talents in basketball to choosing poetry because the tools of the craft were more affordable, Hayes connected with students in a way that acknowledged the opportunity and angst of adolescent life.  In speaking to an age group that, developmentally, is struggling with identity and limits, Hayes described the exhilaration of writing within constraints and seeing what he can do when “pushed up against boundaries.”  His words resonated long after he left the stage and the auditorium cleared, leaving even the youngest among them wide-eyed and inspired.  His most important message to us?   ”Create something.” 

Both Grandin and Hayes faced limits.  And each, in his or her own way, found ways to embrace those limits and develop talents in ways that contribute to the world.  I took their collective message, “Create something real” as a call to action. As a teacher who is deeply committed to developing 21st C skills in my students, I found the messages of collaboration, risk-taking, and authenticity inspiring. I believe, for our students to embody the tools for success in a 21st C world, we need to celebrate and develop different kinds of minds and engender innovative thinking, by giving students opportunities to collaborate with others and contribute to their world in real ways.  

There is a fine line between giving students freedom over their learning and providing clear expectations and structure. Achieving that balance can be a challenge to attain, but usually generates the most enthusiasm and motivation for learning. Over the years, I have increased opportunities for student choice and participation in online collaborative environments, but progress has been slow and meticiulous and it was time to losen the reigns. This past month, I introduced an old project with a new twist: choose a project and present it online– on a platform of your choice.   As it happened last year, my Grade 6 students worked with teachers across the school (we are a PK-12 school) and Dr. Robert Edwards in our art department. This year, our new computer teacher, Stephanie Pell, also jumped on board to collaborate with the technical aspects of the project. 

The project was related to our study of East Asian religions and philosophies, which I developed last year, following my participation in UPITT’s National Consortium for Teaching about Asia seminar. After an introduction to four of the common belief systems, readings, and group discussions, students were given the following menu of choices:

Buddhist Breakfast:   Make a game that teaches people about the history and beliefs of Buddhism. Include directions about how to play.

Confucian Luncheon: Write and illustrate a story or cartoon that teaches people about the history and beliefs of Confucianism. 

Taoist Dinner a.  Create your own Taoist landscape art and provide a description of how it incorporates Taoist beliefs. or b.  Write and illustrate a story or cartoon that teaches people about the history and beliefs of Taoism through the Eight Immortals. 

Feng Shui Buffet:  Select one teacher, administrator, staff member, or specialist and apply feng shui to his or her space (classroom, office, or specialty area). Showcase before and after pictures, with a written explanation of a.) the basic beliefs behind feng shui and b.) how you applied the principles.

Once I gave them the above choices, they prepared for a reading quiz about the topic of their choice and we talked in smaller groups about process.  All students were expected to begin with a brainstorm of what they already knew, launching them into the formulation of research questions about what they still wanted to know.  From there, students progressed from various angles; some students began with their platform choice, others went to the art studio to paint landscapes, some analyzed a teacher’s room for feng shui, while others stayed in the classroom to strategize plans for a Buddhist game. I am so fortunate to work with engaged and mature students, who could handle the freedom this project entailed. 

When given time in class to work on projects, I am always in awe of the near absolute engagement of students in their learning.  The process of this project was even more fun to observe than others, because I could see evidence of students thinking critically about their choices. Rather than plodding through a checklist of expectations, they used my procedure as a guide, but modified it for the project topics and platform they chose. We also made use of our school discussion board for the first time, so that students could collaborate on content resources and technology questions.  

There were a number of tools that Stephanie and I introduced to the students, but they ultimately landed on Voicethread, Edublogs, Vimeo, and Little Bird Tales.  In some cases, students even decided that their project would be best presented with a combination of these– which was an exciting evolution in their grasp of the tools. One student asked if he could use Minecraft to design his Buddhism game, which turned out to be an enlightening moment for me.  Having never played Minecraft, I did not know the capabilities, so Stephanie and I discussed the options.  She found this article about using Minecraft as a teaching tool and we gave him the green light, as long as he could turn it into a game.  For the rest of the 70 minute period, this student — independently– researched ways of programming and designing true/false switches for the game, even making use of YouTube  how-to videos. In the end, he presented his introduction and research through edublogs, followed by a video tour of the game recorded on bandicam– in which he built the Mahabodhi Temple and the Wild Goose Pagoda. 

At the end of this unit, the students posted their projects to a school wiki and presented them in class.  The projects were diverse and creative and the students paid close attention, in order to learn the strategies their peers mastered and look for similarities with their own work.  The students presented for 10-15 minutes, and most were able to articulate depth and connections far better than I have seen without the use of 2.0 platforms.  I am convinced that choice led them to an inquiry model of thinking and they made more connections based on their own curiosity and interest. 

As for me, this turned out to be my own Taoist experience with “going with the flow,” and I would say that we ended up in a better place without a detailed map.  When one teaches the same thing all day, year after year, the knowledge comes easily and we forget what it was like to learn it for the first time.  Each time around, as students master the checklists and content, the expectations become etched in stone and the bar gets higher and higher. Only, the next year, students are beginning with as little prior knowledge and skill as they did that very first time we taught it.  I find that, though it can be intimidating to rework material, change the expectations, and let students have more control, it allows me to become more of a partner and guide, rather than a teacher of process and content. For me, this is is critical.  I also have more fun and am able to let students surprise me. As I plan my next unit about India, I am bearing this in mind and preparing for more inquiry and online collaboration. Beyond the plan lies a newfound trust between my students and me and we need to have more opportunities to explore together.

I have been sucked into the vortex of the internet– ahem, Twitter – and it’s a bit like finding myself in The Matrix. I’ve been online for last the last fifteen years and I thought I had a handle on it’s capabilities, but Web 2.0 is truly a new game. Like the Matrix, there is a whole new dimension. In broad terms, the world can make sense and things can connect in ways that can kind of bend your mind.

I registered with Twitter a couple years ago, but after a couple reviews of my timeline, I gave up; it was just too overwhelming.   Then I attended the National Council for Social Studies Conference (NCSS) in DC this past November and decided to give it another try.  I signed up as a teacher, followed only educators and news, and I was hooked.  Most significally, I learned at least as much through my Twitter feed as I did at the conference– mostly from people at the conference or posting to people at the conference.  

When I initially jumped onto Web 2.0- ahem, facebook– my goal was to keep my online identities private, and I have gone to great lengths to keep myself untraceable. In the last couple years, I used Web 2.0 technologies, but really launched into them this winter with multiple options for student choice.  I then realized that I had to rethink my strategy.  How do I ask students to engage in social media for the sake of learning and participating in the global conversation, if my voice in that conversation is absent?  It seemed a bit hypocritcial.  

Just like in real-life (a.k.a. IRL), I have to negotiate my own personal experiences and goals with my professional ones. I don’t hide from restaurants, or the mall, or grocery stores.  I may bump into students and their families, but we say hello and respect that we each have a life outside of school.  In fact, I enjoy seeing my students and their families out and about since it gives me a glimpse into a different part of who they are.  And I like to think that they may feel the same.  

Now, I realize that– though I’ve always felt somewhat on the curve when it came to technology– I did not exactly ride this new wave as it was coming in.  But, here I am.  And when I conscientiously looked at the situation, it seemed to make the most sense to deliberately put my professional identity out there.

So, in the Matrix, I am looking at things differently.  I am approaching every online opportunity as a way to connect myself to other professionals and a way to connect my students to the content and skills that the internet has to offer. If I may apply some literary license to the words of JFK, I am following the motto, “Ask not what the internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the internet.” That means that I may limit my personal social experiences online, or that sometimes they may cross with my professional ones.  But what I have gained in the last two months has already helped me to grow as a teacher and opened my students’ eyes to new ways to create and share their own learning (stay tuned for a future blog post on this). 

Like many of the bloggers out there, I need a space to reflect, process, and share.  And because I love to write, this blog seemed to be a natural next step.  There are lots more risks for me to take, and I hope you will take the risk to come back and read more.