District Administration - November 2012 - (Page 34)

scr pt in K12 i Flipp ng the student became a doctor or engineer. So they required all students to complete the first four units and then left the fifth unit for extra enrichment for those who learned more quickly. “That was a huge win for us, and we thought the whole thing through,” Sams says. “Amazing things happened with those kids [who finished early]. They would slow down and help their friends, or they would get ahead.” Students—including special education students—having difficulty with concepts can pause and rewind the videos to give themselves extra time to parse out what a teacher means. “That’s one of the most powerful things about these videos: that students who process slower, can process slower,” Bergmann says. “We had one kid each year in Colorado who watched on fast-forward because he was one of those students who could process that fast.” Sams adds that special ed teachers are among the loudest advocates for flipped learning because of the pause and review capability. Arfstrom says that a special education student watching a lesson on double-digit multiplication “can watch that video as many times as he needs.” Those who still don’t grasp concepts can pull the teacher aside the next day, she adds. Slower learners can be afraid to interrupt a teacher in a lecture, for fear of being seen as less intelligent, Feller says, while brighter students quickly become bored. The flipped classroom also can help ELLs, especially since the videos can be equipped with closed-captioning so they can see and hear the English at once—and for the hearing impaired, he says. “The teacher who no longer necessarily has primary responsibility on lecturing about how to do math on that particular day, can also do much more powerful things with individual students, with regard to understanding where the roadblocks are happening, as they are happening,” Feller says. Video 101 Simple resources exist even for teachers who are not video-savvy, says Sams, who recalls that after he and Bergmann 34 November 2012 i Science students at Memorial Middle School in Sioux Falls (S.D.) School District use Chromebooks to research properties necessary to organize 27 basketball players in a Periodic Table. did flipped learning for a couple years, other science teachers became intrigued. “Not everybody did. It wasn’t universally accepted,” he says. “It wasn’t mandated. The administrators gave us autonomy.” While most students seem to prefer seeing their own teachers in the videos, some like to have options on which videos—and some teachers do, too, particularly those who are new to the profession or their subject matter and lacked the time to make many videos of their own. For them, online resources like the Khan Academy and TED Ed come into play. Bergmann and Sams have advised TED Ed, and Bergmann says the site is “creating high-quality videos, and they’re also creating a platform for teachers to use.” In Stillwater, teachers have worked to pool resources so they could create video tutorials for one another, Feller says. “The flipped classroom, when done in isolation, is a lot of work,” Feller says. “But when done in a network, there’s the pooling of resources, and more importantly, pooling of wisdom.” Teachers in Stillwater have not made much use of online videos, Feller adds. “There’s nothing wrong with those resources,” he says. But in-house videos align better and more closely with the district’s curriculum, and students prefer seeing their own teachers. Witten favors teachers making their own videos—partly because it cuts through parent concerns that “you’re not teaching my kid”—but she adds that the Khan Academy and others can be “good backup” as alternative sources. Flexible Assessments Bergmann and Sams also provided flexibility—within reason—for kids to prove they had learned concepts, enabling them to generate alternative assessments. “We were real loose on this,” Bergmann says. “We said, ‘You prove it to me in some other way. The creative kids, these are the kids who built robots. “It was really, really cool to see what they came up with,” Bergmann continues. “We still questioned them to make sure they understood the objectives,” and didn’t game the system, he says. “They spent more time on [their own assessments] than they ever would have done otherwise.” Sams’ two cents of advice to district leaders: don’t micromanage. “Don’t let your teachers be afraid to try things out. Give them the autonomy to meet the individual needs of their students. Give students flexibility and teachers autonomy and the test scores will work themselves out.” DA Ed Finkel is a contributing writer to District Administration. District Administration Video-based Learning Resources Atomic Learning, atomiclearning.com Khan Academy, khanacademy.org TeacherTube, teachertube.com Ted-Ed, ed.ted.com YouTube for Schools, www.youtube.com/schools http://www.atomiclearning.com http://www.khanacademy.org http://www.teachertube.com http://ed.ted.com http://www.youtube.com/schools

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - November 2012

District Administration - November 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Flipping the Script in K12
Sustainable Professional Development
Brave New World of Teacher Evaluation
Philadelphia’s “Servant- Leader” Superintendent
Enhancing School Access Control
New Products
Professional Opinion
New Directions

District Administration - November 2012