End of Term Reflections: College Edition

Look who's being all productive! Two blog posts this weekend, plus several other school tasks.

The summer term of MTH 113 is almost over. We had our last regular class meeting this past Thursday; the final exam is next week.

I had my Pre-Cal Trig students write a reflection/evaluation for me this week. There's not a lot of technology use (I've missed it!), so I asked them to get out a piece of paper and write.

I asked them to address some or all of the following prompts:
What worked? What didn't? (particularly in the areas of videos, how class time was structured, and practice)
Suggestions for changes/improvements
What did you learn?
What do you wish you understood better?
What advice would you give a student taking MTH 113 with me this fall?

My students had good insight and gave good suggestions. They were very thorough and wrote more than I expected. (I would say something about this being a surprise to me since the class is made up entirely of young men, but someone near and dear to my heart told me an observation I made about my all-male class in a previous blog post was a bit sexist, so I'll leave that out, LOL)

Students liked the videos. They liked the length, the format, and my explanations. While I'm glad all of this worked for the students, I know elements of all three of these can be improved. There are several videos I am going to rework for the fall.

The biggest complaint about the class was the one-day-a-week schedule. That is completely out of my hands, but it was my biggest complaint, too. Students felt they would have gotten more out of the class if it had met two days a week.

One thing I was unsure about the entire summer was the way I structured class time. I pretty much put all the videos and suggested practice out there and told students to do what they needed as they needed. Several students indicated they would have liked a little more teacher-directed time in class working problems. If I teach this class again next summer, I will definitely try to incorporate a different structure into class time. A couple of students didn't need the extra structure, but a few would have benefitted from it.

Students felt weakest with the trigonometric identities. They wished they had had more time and practice with those. I agree.

One student - the most independent of the group - had an interesting observation about the flipped class. He said he treated it like online classes he has taken, except he actually showed up to class once a week. He said students who didn't like online classes might not like the flipped format. And he might have a point. None of the other students (in my very small sample size) indicated that, but I can see where a student who signed up to have a "3-D" teacher might be a little caught off guard that a portion of the class was going to be conducted via video.

I think the difference was made in having access to me in class. Several students have taken online/blended classes and said they liked the flipped format much better.

So...as I prepare for the fall semester of MTH 113, I have a lot to think about. Class time will be shorter, and I have more weeks of instruction to work with, but I am thinking about what I am going to do differently. I have a few ideas about class time, and I think I want to restructure a couple of the tests.

I told these guys they were my guinea pigs, and I appreciate their willingness to try some things out for me and give me useful feedback.

Hope - It's a Beautiful Thing

So, I'm teaching this Pre-Calculus Trigonometry class for a local community college. As I mentioned in my previous post, it is scheduled for one night a week, 4.5 hours. There are 9 class meetings and the exam.

I have a lot of material to cover in 9 class meetings.

After the first test, we have a test scheduled for every other week until the final. That means a whole unit of material in about a class and a half.

It's overwhelming (for students AND me).

Even with the flipped format - which, I'm sure, makes the situation more bearable - it is hard to make sure material is covered AND students understand it in a class and a half. I still feel I am throwing material at my students and hoping some of it sticks.

Our second test covered trigonometric expressions, identities, and equations.

Yikes. Learn all these trig concepts AND use every algebra skill you might have ever been shown.

Students were nervous and unsure as they came to class. Watching them take the test was hard for me. I made the test as straightforward as I could, and I gave them a reference sheet to use, but it covered. so. much. stuff.

I graded the test as a few students took a retest of Test 1. They were not pretty. A few knew parts of the material well, no one really showed mastery of all of it, and a few were completely lost.

After I returned Test 1 a couple of weeks ago, I told my students I was a big believer in hope.

I've been giving retakes in my 8th-grade classroom for several years, and I wanted to do something similar in the college class. I told students if they'd correct their original test, they could retake it the following week after they finished the scheduled test.

I plan to do the same thing for Test 2.

I was able to talk to a few of the students about the retake for Test 2 before they left.

As I gave one student his test, telling him to begin working through it this week and making corrections, another student asked, "We're going to get to retake that test?" When I said, "Yes," the look on his face was one of complete relief. Of hope.

I reminded them I was a big believer in hope.

The first student said, "I'm so glad you have hope in us." I think he meant "faith," but the thought is the same. These students can keep trying because they have hope.

I talked to another student who was extremely frustrated after the test. But he looked at me and said, "I'm not going to quit. I will not drop this class."

And I was able to tell him he didn't have to. He can work on the material he found difficult, work with me in class, and learn the material.

I'm still trying to figure out how to "do" this summer class format. Flipping instruction was the way to go, allowing retakes is the way to go, but there are a lot of things I'm still not sure I've approached correctly. Or how to approach things so I am better assured of students' grasp of the material. I'm hoping to get some feedback from the students by the end of the summer to see what worked and what I could have done better.

But I'm pretty sure of this: these students know I care, they know I want them to learn, and they know I'm going to give them time and opportunity to do so.

At this point, no one has dropped the class, and everyone is still working and trying.

All because of a little thing called hope.

Taking My Flipped Game to a New Level

Last spring I was asked to teach two classes for our local community college. I agreed (spring is a blur, so I'm not sure I can be held accountable for my actions, LOL). Only one of the classes made: Pre-Calculus Trigonometry.

The class meets one night a week for four and half hours.

That's right. Four and a half. Hours.

This flipped teacher can't stand to listen to herself for more than 10 or 15 minutes anymore.

And I'm supposed to teach for 270 minutes?

And my students. My poor students. They're supposed to listen to me (and absorb) for 4.5 hours?

I knew from the get-go I would be flipping my class.

Everything about this - the class structure, the students, the material - is completely different from my 8th Grade Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 classroom.

But I took what I know and ran with it.

I decided what I needed to cover each week - with only 9 class sessions, it's a TON - and split it into topics for videos.

I decide what to give as practice for material.

I give students a list for each class session with the videos and suggested practice. I give this list a week ahead of time so students can be watching videos throughout the week.

I told them the idea of the flipped classroom: they can watch videos to get the instruction whenever they want, and then they can practice with me so that I can help them.

It's been interesting. Time in class is mostly quiet. Not at all like a group of 20 or so 8th graders. Granted, the class is made up of 7 college males, but it's still pretty quiet. Students don't stay for the full scheduled time. Some leave after an hour; a few stay 3 hours.

The first night after a week of videos was particularly quiet.

The second time of flipped lessons was more of what I was hoping for and expecting. A couple of students worked together, everyone was working on something different, several asked me questions and I got to work one-on-one with students.

That night, students told me they liked the flipped class. They thought my videos were helpful, they liked being able to watch and rewatch and go at their own pace, they liked the class structure. They particularly like that they don't have to listen to me for 4.5 hours.

I think the students are still trying to figure out how to get the most out of the flipped environment. I think they like that they can stay with me for as long - or as little - as they feel necessary, but I'm not sure they're all staying long enough to get the help they need. That might change after they get their first test back. :)

I have learned something about videos that I think I'll implement in my middle school classroom this fall: smaller chunking of videos. One of the first videos I made for Trig was 18 minutes long. Now...these are college students and not 14-year olds, but still. I decided videos needed to be about topics, not entire lessons. That 18-minute video should have been 3 videos. Since that first week, the videos range from 7 to 10 minutes long.

It's time to rework my Algebra 1 videos this year, and I think I'm going to make videos by topic, not lesson. That will potentially mean more than one video per lesson - something I've fought against - but I think it will work nicely into self-pacing. It will also allow students to work with one thing at a time and give me more opportunities for formative assessment.

So...I've graded the first test, and students did about what I expected (there's that benefit of knowing who is where with grasping the material).

The student who obviously doesn't need me and loves the flipped format demonstrated understanding.

The student who stays and works and asks questions also demonstrated understanding.

A couple of students struggled.

Next task? Figure out how to structure a retake opportunity at this level.