Why do classrooms have fronts?

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
“The unexamined classroom is not worth teaching in.” – Me, I guess.

Why do classrooms have fronts?

When I think of rooms that have fronts, there  aren’t that many that come to mind.

Rooms with fronts

• Cinemas
• Theatres
• Lounge room? (If you’re really into netflix)

ssshhhhh…. The shows about to start.

In these rooms we face the front and passively consume that which is fed to us. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to the movies. But calling it a learning experience is a bit of a stretch.

I think…

The most important thing in a room with a front is the thing at the front.

So what’s at the front of a classroom?

• A teacher
• A projector
• A whiteboard

Uh oh.

So when I recently moved classrooms, I was very conscious to make sure that my classroom was “frontless.”

Here is my current classroom setup. 

Now I don’t presume to say that this is the perfect classroom setup, because I don’t believe it is. But it’s the classroom I have for now and I’ve designed it this way for several reasons.

1. I don’t talk much
Today, across 210 minutes of class time, I spent approximately 6 minutes addressing my classes as a whole. That’s only 3% of class time when I expect all eyes on me. It would be strange to setup a classroom designed with a front.

Don’t get me wrong. I talk .I talk to small groups and individuals about their learning. This is a direct result of my flipped learning and allows much greater differentiation in instruction, not just in task.

The one who does the talking, does the learning.

2. Whiteboards for all
The whiteboards on every wall belong to everyone. If a student has a question, I can quickly write on the whiteboard directly in front of them. If a student needs an extension task, I can write them one on the whiteboard. If I’d like a student to demonstrate their understanding, they can work at their section of whiteboard. If we’re looking for group work, there’s the whiteboard.

Whiteboards are great and teachers have hogged them for far too long. Let the students have some fun!

3. 24 screens in this room (48 if you count the phones)
Behind each screen is a powerful computer connected to a repository of all the knowledge gathered across the entirety of human history.

Also, cat videos.

I want my students to use their computers effectively and I want to put them in the best position to do that. By standing almost anywhere in this room, I can see about 87% of their screens. A win for them because they get to use their computers and all the good that comes with them. A win for me because I remove the temptation to drift off task.

In Conclusion.

I think Pharrell summed it up best when he said.

 

How Coffee Improved My Teaching

How a weekly coffee made me a better, more reflective, more fearless educator. Alternatively, what teachers can learn from cliff-divers

What if I told you that the best thing I ever did for my teaching career was to have a coffee?

I know as teachers we love to joke about the performance enhancing effects of caffeine but in this case it wasn’t about that. It’s about the company I was keeping while I was drinking that coffee that counts.

The First Coffee

It started about 3 years ago now. I was the lone nut in my new school (I’d been there about 9 months), flipping my maths classroom for the first time and really enjoying it. It’s a large school and I was flat out, so I hadn’t really met that many people outside of my maths staffroom bubble.

A teacher from the other side of the school (PE department!) got wind of what I was doing and wanted to try something similar. So we arranged a time to have a chat.

That hour was the most productive PD I’d ever had in my life. Here was a teacher who was…restless (she might say hyperactive). She was excited about education, she wanted to try new things and she wanted to make a difference.

After the hour of conversation was over, I realised this seemed quite different. I realised…

Teacher’s don’t  talk much about education 

Staffrooms talk about the weather, the upcoming election, the new australian curriculum, little Timmy, Jimmy and Sally, all sorts of things.

What we don’t talk enough about is our classrooms. It’s rare for teachers to ask each other “What cool things have been happening in your classroom?” or “What are you struggling with at the moment?”

The Routine

Over the next 2 years, We settled into our schedule. About once a fortnight, it was coffee time. We used the one spare period that we shared to grab a coffee and talk about education.

We talked about our flipped classrooms. What was working, what wasn’t working. We both saw the value and we were determined to make it work. We endlessly workshopped our problems over lattes and banana bread.

We talked about teaching in a BYOD school. 56 screens (laptop and phone)  in one classroom, how do you make that work to your students’ advantage? We taught in different subject areas, so we often ended up using different tools. But we always had to justify it to each other.

We Became Fearless

Have you ever been to a place like this?

I’ve never been a fan of heights but I have jumped from a few cliffs in my time. In my experience there is a way to increase your courage instantly.

This is partly what our weekly Coffee Chats were. We were endlessly goading each other into trying something new, taking a risk. Then we’d meet up the following week to see how that cliff jump had gone and start planning the next one.

The End/Start of an Era

A little while ago I came to a coffee chat armed with an advertisement for head of PE that I was certain my fellow cliff jumper should apply for. She’d seen it but of course it seemed like a pretty big cliff…

But she jumped, she got it and she just finished her first term as Head of PE at a great new school.

We caught up just yesterday for an end of term coffee and nothing has changed. We’re still plotting, scheming and egging each other on.

Her latest jump is the wonderful world of twitter and blogging. Maybe you should follow her @suzietjin or check out her new blog at http://www.suzietjin.com/

The In-Flip: No Homework, No Problem

Last week I blogged about the ever-present flipped learning question What if they don’t watch the video?

Of course, that post was predicated on the assumption that you actually want your class to do homework.

There has been a growing noise for some time that perhaps homework isn’t the right way to go. School should remain at school and shouldn’t intrude on home life.

Now I’m not going to come down on either side of that argument. As usual, I think the issue is more nuanced than a simple homework/ no homework dichotomy.

I expect homework from some of my classes and none from others. In fact, homework is often negotiated with individual students rather than whole classes.

I still flip ALL my classes though. How?

Introducing the In-Flip. All the benefits of asynchronous instruction without the homework headaches first time flippers fear.

Watch my In-Flip video below to find out more.

Flipped Learning: What if they don’t watch the video?

So you want to flip your classroom but there’s one nagging question holding you back.

This is the number one question I get about flipped learning. Generally I answer this question with some questions of my own.

1. What if a student is away from school?

So how do we help this student catch up on the class they missed? If we’re worried about students not watching videos, shouldn’t we also be worried about them being sick? And If we are worried about them being sick, wouldn’t it be handy if your direct instruction was on video?

2. What do you currently do if your students don’t do homework?
If our students aren’t doing their homework, are they missing out on valuable learning? In a traditional classroom, if we give homework it’s so that students can apply what they’ve learned. What are we currently doing to encourage students to do their homework?

3. What is the most important part of your lesson?
Is it the time when you’re talking out the front of the classroom? Or is it while your students are actively engaged in doing something? Could a student who walked into your class late (after you’ve done some direct instruction) still engage with learning? How?

4. What other ways could a student learn besides watching your videos?
Is it possible that a student who never, ever watched any of your direct instruction could succeed in your class? How? Perhaps they could talk to their friends and their friends could teach them?  Wouldn’t having the opportunity to teach others benefit those who watched the video? After all, you haven’t really learned something until you’ve taught it yourself.

5. If you could choose to have only two parts of the pyramid below in your practise, which two would you choose?

Traditionally, if a student missed their homework, they are missing out on the “You Do”. In a flipped classroom, they miss out on the “I Do”. Which would you prefer they miss out on?

6. How long is your video going to be?
I’m hoping that your video will be short. Is it short enough to watch with headphones on at the start of class? If you’re not making the video short, here, let me convince you.

7. Do your students know the benefits of flipped learning?
Have you spoken to your class about flipped learning? Have you talked about the benefits? Have you asked them how they would like class to look? Did you listen?

8. Have you tried flipping your classroom yet?
This is a different kind of homework, maybe your students might surprise you! It’s short, it’s engaging and any student can handle watching a video. Is it possible they might like this homework better than the old style?

So there’s 8 good questions to ask when you’re asked “What if they don’t watch the video?!?!”

Happy flipping.

Edit: Still not convinced? Maybe homework isn’t for you. You can still flip! Learn how here: The In-Flip: No Homework, No Problem

First Week of Flip Class

(This blog post was originally written for www.stuartkellynz.com Join us Monday 20/6/16 7pm AEST when we’ll be talking about flipped learning at #digitalEDchat)

I’ve been flipping my classroom for a couple of years now. Over that time I’ve taught about 400 different students and made around 700 videos. I’ve made more mistakes than I care to mention and learned a lot in the process.

These are just the public videos!

I remember the absolutely uncertainty when I was just getting started. So many questions. What will I do in class? What if they don’t do the homework? What if I make a mistake?

These are the same questions I had when I was starting out as a “traditional teacher” as well. How did I get the answers? By jumping right in the deep end and giving it a go!

So here is my step-by-step guide to the first week of flipping your classroom. Jump in and see how you go.

Step 1. Talk to your students about it

Explain the concept of flipped learning to your students. Tell them why you’d like to try it. Tell them what you think the benefits of flipped learning are. Maybe you could show them this video in class so they have an idea of what to expect. Answer their questions.

Perhaps, more importantly, ask them questions. How long do they think a video should be? How much homework should they do each night? What should we do if they don’t watch the videos? What should we spend our time in class doing? Take their ideas on board and try to implement them.

Give your class ownership of their own flipped learning class and they’ll surprise you.

Step 2. Make a week’s worth of videos

Now a lot of people will tell you that flipped classrooms are not about making videos. I agree. But that doesn’t change the fact that the most unfamiliar aspect of this entire Flipped Classroom journey is going to be making videos.

By making a week’s worth of videos in a single sitting you’ll save yourself a lot of time. The hard part of making a movie (even in Hollywood) is getting set up. The bit where the camera is rolling is the easy bit.

These videos don’t need to be works of art. (you can watch my first flipped classroom video here) You’re not trying to win an Oscar here. All you need to do is convey enough knowledge that when the students come into class they can start applying it.

Couple of tips though…

• Don’t try to be perfect.
• Teach Fast.
• Make the video Short.

The easiest way to get started with making a video is probably using screencastomatic. Screencastomatic will capture video of your computer screen, webcam or both.

Step 3. Watch the video together in class

Learning from a video is a new concept for these students (although I’m sure they’ve learnt from youtube before!) It’s important that you teach them “how” to watch your videos. Put the video up on the projector and watch it as a class.

Should they take notes while they are watching the video? When is the right time to pause the videos? Should we rewind the video? When, Why? Doing this together is a great class activity and models metacognition. Students start thinking about their learning process and that is a great thing.

Popcorn is for cinemas – Watching these videos is different!

Step 4. Do an engaging class activity

Let’s be honest. As full-time teachers not every one of our classes is an absolute show-stopper. Sometimes we throw together an “ok” lesson. That’s absolutely fine and we shouldn’t feel bad about that.

But when we’re introducing our flipped classroom, it’s time to put our game face on and put together something a bit special. Something that shows your students that you’re really putting the effort in and the flipped classroom is going to be something good for them.

Don’t worry, not every lesson will need to be a killer but we should try to put our best foot forward here.

Step 5. Video Homework and an email home

Talk again about the flipped classroom concept. Talk about how long the video is, how they should take notes. Sell them on how their homework is now a predictable length of time and much shorter than conventional homework. Put your salesman hat on. The more people that watch this video the better!

Tonight is also a good night to send an email home to parents explaining the flipped classroom concept and asking them to ensure their son/daughter watches the video for homework. They might even watch it too. The more allies you have in flipping your classroom the better.

Step 6. Be ready for anything

This class will be an interesting one and it’s where flipped classrooms really come into their own. Your students will fall into three “fuzzy” categories:

• Watched the video and understood it.
• Watched the video and they aren’t sure about it.
• Didn’t watch the video. (you’ll know since they didn’t take notes)

You’ll know which category they fall into because you’ll ask them. Where you go to from here really depends on your subject. It’s up to you now to differentiate your lesson. The great part though is that you have A WHOLE LESSON to do it in. No direct instruction today!

Step 7. End of the week. Ask for feedback.

At the end of the week, it’s very important that you ask your students for feedback. The flipped classroom belongs to them and they should feel they have a say in how it’s run. What worked? What didn’t? What can we improve upon?

A google form or survey monkey is a good way to do this but a handwritten note from each student will work just as well. Don’t overcomplicate it. 3 questions is enough.

• What did you like?
• What didn’t you like?
• How can we improve?

Once you’ve read their feedback, take it seriously, make adjustments and get ready for week two!

So there’s my 7 step program to surviving (and thriving!) in your first week of flipping your classroom. Not so bad, is it?

The Long Apprenticeship Just Got Longer

As teachers, we serve incredibly long apprenticeships. We enter school as 6 year old children and watch and learn from our grade 1 teacher. We learn to count, to read, and intentionally or not, we learn to teach.

We spend the next twelve years moving from classroom to classroom, teacher to teacher, learning all the time.

When we eventually become teachers, we are the sum total of the teachers who taught us. We take the good bits, vow not to repeat the bad bits, and all things considered, we should be better educators than the teachers who came before us.

Not only are we the total of the teachers who taught us, but the teachers who taught them, and the teachers who taught them and on and on backwards.  For example, if each of your 10 teachers was the product of the 10 teachers that taught them, then you’ve gained the wisdom of 100 teachers.

If we project this dubious mathematics back through time, I’d suggest you’re the product of 1 Billion teachers or so!

In summary, you have the collected wisdom of all of the educators that came before you.

Unfortunately, this long apprenticeship is starting to fail us.

The pace of change in our classrooms today means that what worked for the teachers before us may not work for us.

My apprenticeship did not prepare me for a classroom in which every one of my students has access to the internet through not one, but two devices at any point in time. When I was serving my apprenticeship, this was the sum total of screens in the classroom.My apprenticeship certainly didn’t prepare me for a time when absolutely any information could be found by reaching into your pocket and asking “siri” about it. If you got lucky, you might have had a chance here.
I was tempted to put actual paper encyclopaedias here. But I guess I’m not that old.

So where am I going with this? Maybe our apprenticeship just got a whole lot longer.

To keep up with what it takes to be a teacher, we’re going to have to keep learning. An endless apprenticeship. But learning from where?

Go visit another classroom
Try your best to build a culture of classroom visits in your school. You can do that whether you’re the principal or just a regular teacher. The key is to visit with the purpose of learning. Don’t go to criticise, judge or appraise. Go to a person’s class to learn something new. If you do learn something, make sure you thank them for it!

Talk in your staffroom
Ask questions. About teaching. A simple, “how would you teach this?” gets a great conversation started. If you try something in your classroom and it works, make sure you share it with your fellow teachers.

Get onto twitter
If you’re reading this blog you’re probably already on twitter. But are you using it in the best possible way? Gather a large community of like minded followers and ask questions. Shout out to your professional learning community if you’re looking for a new tool or a website. You’ll be amazed by how quickly somebody will have a great answer for you. Don’t forget to share all the great tools you’ve found as well, people will thank you for it.

Learn from your students
Embracing the fact that your students know more about some things is a very freeing aspect of teaching today. Student asks you a question that you’re not sure of. Ask them to find the answer for you and report back. Interested in a new tech tool but not sure how to use it? Why not ask your students for help?

Don’t be scared to try new things
Your class will need to change over and over again in the coming years. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Sometimes they’ll work, sometimes they won’t. But the most risky thing of all is not trying anything new. In today’s society, if you’re not getting better, you’re definitely getting worse.

Good luck to all in your endless apprenticeship.

Please Ditch the SlideShow

An interesting paradox has slowly been presenting itself.

When I talk to teachers, I sometimes ask them about whether they use PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides or some other form of SlideShow in their classroom. The most common answer by far is, “Not Really“, “It’s not really my thing“, or “very occasionally“.

Yet whenever I see teachers in front of other teachers, at a conference, a seminar, a PD session, the same thing happens. POWERPOINT TIME!

Recently I attended a talk about the internet of things. The presenter (note that word) was standing in front of approximately 300 experienced teachers telling them how the huge number of devices connected to the internet was changing everything. She did this all with the help of her trusty PowerPoint presentation. PowerPoint. Invented in 1987, before we even had the internet!

Up until recently I found myself doing the same thing.

Until one day I was furiously trying to make an engaging SlideShow (and failing) when I realised something. I Don’t Teach Like This!

When students are learning in my classroom, I want them to participate. I don’t want to talk at them, I want them to engage. I want to hear what they have to say on the matter, I want to question them, I want them to question me. I want INTERACTION.

A SlideShow emphasises the importance of the person up the front. The things you have to say are so important that they can’t only be said in words, they need pictures too. The entire thing is completely one-sided. But here’s the truth when you’re presenting to a group of educators.

So, How can we provide something of worth to our audience while allowing them to engage and contribute. Why don’t we use that new-fangled “internet of things” to help us out.

I’ve blogged before about How I use a BackChannel in my classroom. I think a BackChannel is so much more important when educating adults. Everybody deserves to benefit from the collected wisdom in the room and a backchannel helps us to achieve that. It also means that teachers can question what you’re presenting at any time. A wonderful way to make sure that your presenting something meaningful to your audience.

Tools I like to use for this kind of thing are:
Today’s Meet
Socrative – If you like you can watch a brief video tutorial I made here
A Google Doc editable by all

And if you absolutely must use a PowerPoint, please consider switching over to Google Slides instead. They have a wonderful new Q&A feature which allows your audience to question your presentation as you go and discuss. You can watch a quick video about Q&A here.

Hit me in the comments below or find me on twitter @joelbsperanza I’d love to hear what you think… because there’s a lot of ideas in the room.

Edit: 5 minutes after I posted this, @MatthewOldridge  read it and tweeted the following at me.

“Powerpointless!” Why on earth didn’t I name this blog post that? Hilarious.

Twitter, another great way to engage with the bright ideas in the room.

 

 

 

 

 

Juggling Hammers – How to Use Tech Tools

If you gave a man a hammer with no further instructions, would he figure out its primary purpose was hitting things? Hammers are for hammering in nails right? But maybe he’d see that nice little hook on the back and use it as a backscratcher. Or maybe he’d get his hands on two more and juggle them like this guy.

On Monday as part of my technology coach job I ran our science department through a great website called ThingLink. ThingLink allows you to take images and add “tags” anywhere on the image. These tags can be hyperlinks, youtube clips, google docs or slides and a whole host of other web content.

Click this link to see a ThingLink of my dog Dexter.

“What will staff do with this new tool?” Thinglink can be used by teachers to create interactive images. Or maybe having students create interactive images would be better. Thinglink also allows multiple people to tag the one image, perhaps a whole class would do one image. Or you can embed thinglinks inside thinglinks, a kind of russian doll thing as a whole class project.

Of course those are only the uses I can currently think of. But maybe there’s a hammer juggler in my school who will come up with a totally different idea.

Another interesting tool I’ve been looking at is Draftback. Draftback is a chrome extension that allows you to play back the creation of a google doc character by character. I’m writing this blog post a little apprehensively as I have a plan to post the draftback playback when I’m done.

I see huge potential for using draftback as a learning tool in classrooms. How? I’m not sure? Wouldn’t it be amazing to see the playback of a famous authors writing process? Perhaps they could narrate over the top and try to remember why it was they were deleting and rearranging things.

Or maybe students could narrate their own Draftbacks. What insights could we gain into their learning then?

I’m honestly not sure about how draftback could be used but I can’t wait to meet the teacher who uses it really well.

What do you think? How would you use this great tool? Watch me write this blog post below.

Listen, Every Teacher is a Snowflake

For just 6 weeks now I’ve been in the role of technology coach at my school.

It has been an exciting time. Teachers have embraced the idea of having a person on staff who exists just for them. Somebody they can turn to and say, “What cool app is out there that could do x, y or z”? I’ve been kept incredibly busy and have loved every minute of it.

What I’ve discovered over this time is that every teacher really is unique. An english teacher has very little in common with a maths teacher who wouldn’t recognise a science teacher. Art teachers and Japanese teachers operate on completely different planes.

So my role has largely been one of listening. Being quiet for as long as possible while a teacher tells me all about their classroom, their practice, the curriculum, the assessment, all of it. I need a very clear picture of their classroom before I can even begin to speak.

I learnt the power of listening recently while doing a course on Growth Coaching with Nick Burnett from Growth Coaching International. During his 2 day growth coaching course he demonstrated the power of silence to get to the root of what people are trying to achieve. I’m amazed by how much people will say if you just learn to shut up.

Now Nick probably wouldn’t call me a “coach” in the true sense of the word. Coaches don’t offer solutions, instead allowing the “coachee” to arrive at their own plans. But as a technology coach, I believe it’s my job to keep up to date and to provide the solutions that others don’t know exist yet.

Once I’ve listened as hard as I can though I spring into action. For the english Head of Subject, the key idea they wanted was “Collaboration”. So we started looking at advanced google docs usage and some fantastic add-ons, lucidchart mind maps and collaborative poetry appreciation with Prism.

Prism: Words change size depending on how many students highlighted them

For the art department their ideas were around accountability and digital art journals. We’re currently working towards rolling out blogger accounts for all students. Making journals available to the public in a blog format, allowing comments from other students, teachers and the general public is an idea staff are excited about.

The Japanese teachers in my school have a crushing marking workload. Some teachers are responsible for 300+ students, All of whom need to be assessed at the end of this term. Enter the power of Google Forms + Flubaroo to do the marking for them. They also wanted something super “Kawaii” for creating listening tests, so enter the hilariously gimmicky “FaceRig“.
The hilarious FaceRig in action.

So, there’s just a few tools that teachers at my school have decided to integrate into their classrooms this week. Each carefully chosen for a specific purpose after a whole lot of listening.

There’s 130+ teachers at my school all doing something a little different. Tomorrow I meet with Marine Science HOS. He sent me this picture yesterday and I have no idea what it is. I wonder how we can use technology to help students learn about that?!

A Canadian Class & an Aussie Teacher Meet on Twitter

This story happens across 2 continents and was super exciting for everybody involved. To read a blog post from the other, more articulate side please visit Jessica Weber’s Blog Post here.

Early on in my flipped learning journey, I decided to make all my videos public on youtube.

This wasn’t out of some desire for worldwide fame. Rather, students at my school but not in my class had heard about my videos. They wanted access to them and I was happy to help. An open youtube channel was the easiest way to do it.

But obviously this means that people from around the world can view my videos if they search for the right thing.

I always wonder who these people are who watch and I was lucky enough to find out this week. It all started with this tweet.

How exciting! A grade 7 class from Ontario, Canada have been watching my videos. They were wondering if this question involving patterns could be solved algebraically. One of the students jokingly suggested we ask “the video guy” and Miss Weber ran with it!

The question was a great one as it didn’t exactly work cleanly. It did give me a chance to talk about some of my favourite algebraic ideas though. After a few direct messages back and forth with Miss Weber, I raced into work a little earlier than usual to make a video for them.

This video broke a lot of my flipped video lessons “rules”. It was too long, it didn’t have a clear learning goal and it took a little bit of “movie magic” in post production.

But we’re talking about transcontinental education here! A group of year 7’s asked a question about algebra and I really wanted to give them the answer they deserved.

It was such a trip to wake up to this tweet this morning.

This was all a rather happy accident. As a teacher, somebody asked for help and I definitely wasn’t going to say no.

But I wonder what we could achieve if we purposefully connected our classes? Would our students start to see the world differently if they habitually connected with other classes from around the world?