My Flippin' Algebra One Experiment

I was recently given the opportunity to “flip” my Algebra 1 class. No martial arts or superpowers required. Flipping simply means switching the roles of homework and class work. Students watch short video lectures and take notes for the homework.  Then they solve problem sets based on the video lessons, usually collaboratively, in class, where their peers and teacher are available for help and support.  It went very well, especially considering the novelty and learning curve, both for the students as well as for me.  If you want to know more, read on.

After the seven weeks with my flipped Algebra class, 17 students responded to a survey that as a group they overall enjoyed the experiment, giving it a 3.4 on a scale of 1-5, where 3 was neutral.  Their perceptions were higher for enjoying the collaboration, 3.6, and they also believed that they had given and received more peer help, each 3.6, within the flipped format.  Because students retain 95% of what they teach, this is a very important piece.  I believe that they will retain this unit much better as a result of their teaching each other as they learned. The survey showed that they didn’t really enjoy homework or class work in either the flipped or traditional settings, so some things never change.

My own response to the overall flip would be more like a 4.9; the experience was extremely enjoyable and worthwhile from my point of view.  Students learned more, and ironically, I felt like I was a MORE active participant in their learning than when I had been more center stage in the lessons. It was a real joy to see two previously discouraged and tuned out students begin to engage much more during the flip, perhaps because they saw that help was more readily available.  I also got a couple of comments from students who liked that they were assigned more challenging problems during the flip. It was easier to differentiate the lessons, because I was able to stealthily adjust goals higher for some groups than for others.

The foundation for the unit in solving systems of equations was done the traditional way…with me teaching the lessons on solving systems by graphing in class. The students did some problem solving in class individually, and then were given sets of problems for homework. 

We did one flipped lesson before the official trial. Students were assigned a video about how to use their graphing calculators to find a linear regression.  This worked out some of the bugs for us and then the trial began.

The next 8 homework assignments were video lessons from Khan Academy, which has many hundreds of online lessons in various academic subjects aimed at students about grade 6 and up.  Links to the lessons were posted on Edline.net, our school’s intranet website.  Students came to class and were given examples to work on alone, then in pairs or small groups.

This class had only had occasional opportunities for collaboration prior to this unit. They would informally help each other and had several partner assignments and quizzes. But during this unit, they were held accountable to work with someone to find and show solutions together.  Because the instructional piece had already taken place, I was available to circulate among the students, answer questions, observe students and their work, eavesdrop on conversations, and catch and redirect them on errors or misconceptions.  The students reported, 3.4, that I had helped them more than previously.

An important advantage of my flipped class was that each student had reliable internet access at home.  Only one student had some issues, and that was only for a day or two.  Students without access at home would have been able to access the videos in our school media center, even if they had to do so after school.

This was by far the most difficult unit of our course, and yet the students did well on the summative assessment.  The median grade on the test was 86%, which was up from 79% on the previous unit test. 

Full disclosure.  Many of the students reported that they had completed the homework as often as in traditional units, but their claims belied the actual homework grades.  Homework completion actually decreased during the unit. The same 4 or 5 kids who had been neglecting homework for the previous months also neglected to watch most of the videos.  My best fix was to make them wait to start their problem sets, often meaning they lost their choice of work partner, until they watched the video in class on the Smartboard and showed me the notes they had taken.  This actually only took about 7-10 minutes and did not affect the pace of the better prepared students. 

The unprepared students would also have been wasting time (or worse) when we took 15 or 20 minutes to go over traditional homework.

All but two students said that they had taken advantage of rewinding and replaying the videos when they needed to hear/see something repeated.  I often have one or two students who get distracted or just need me to repeat something 2 or three times.  Loving the sound of my own voice as I do, I don’t mind repeating.  However, the 15 students who are ready to move on are often not as enchanted.

I fully intend to do some more flipping next year.  However, I will probably do more modeling and instruction on 2 of the key components of the flip.  One, students did not seem to really understand how to collaborate.  They sometimes tried to divide and conquer the problem set, rather than truly working together.  They complained about their partners at times, mentioning whether they “liked” the partner or not.  Secondly, I would want to set expectations for how to use the videos and take notes effectively.  I would also want to take advantage of more of the problem sets that are actually available through the Khan Academy web site.

Some of the lessons from Khan Academy were a bit too complicated, so I would also like to do a few video lessons myself for my classes next year.  But there is no need to reinvent the wheel with flipped lessons.   There are many good videos already available on Youtube and Teachertube.com.  I came across a really engaging and amusing set of geometry lessons from a hip young teacher named Tyler Tarver.  

The beauty of this flip is not that there was some cool fad or technology in play.  The real value in my book is that flipping paved the way for the much less sexy, but effective, low tech essentials in a classroom.  The students and I were relating to each other, sharing the roles of teaching and learning in the classroom.  There was engagement and excitement over learning systems of equations like I hadn't seen before. Geeky?  Sure.  But it was also very satisfying.