Half-Flip? Un-Flip? Pre-Flip? Lot's of Options for Flipping Your Classroom

At TCEA13 there have been a ton of sessions discussing the Flipped classroom.  Generally speaking, "flipping" refers to assigning the major portion of the new assignment as homework in the form of a video or other on-line front-loaded work the student does outside of classroom and then using the time a teacher would normally be introducing the new concept for students to collaborate or for the teacher to clarify misconceptions, work with students who are struggling, or guide students through a more elaborate project.  However, through our discussions this week, the CISD staff has actually come up with some pretty interesting variations on flipping that may be more appropriate for teachers new to the concept, lower grade-levels, or classrooms without as much technology as we would like.
Our first idea was discussed in an early blog post.  It involves flipping a lesson for a smaller amount of students, our gifted and talented (GT) class of first and second graders.  If you have not read that post, please feel free to read it here.  This is a great way to allow our advanced students ample time to work on a project in a collaborative environment with little to no direct teach from an instructor during class time.
A second idea involves grouping students into Skill Builders and allowing the top three echelons of these students to work on a Project Based Learning lesson while the others are in remediation sessions.  We are discussing doing this with our first grade students.  Essentially, any student in first grade would be able to work on this PBL lesson with the consent of his or her teacher.  We have a schedule that lends itself very nicely to this sort of grouping because we have a 45 minute period built in 4 times a week for tutoring--isn't that amazing?  Simply put, one or two first grade teachers and myself (the Reading Specialist) and possibly the computer or library teacher would direct these students in a PBL or Inquiry Circle Project during that 45 minute block,.  The rest of the students would be grouped by skill gap and pulled by the rest of the first grade team or they would stay in rotation--PE, music, etc.  This would allow extra time for these students to collaborate and complete their end products.  How would this be fllipping?  I'm glad you asked!  We would front-load the information the students would need to know to research their topics and complete their projects either through videos they would need to watch at home or during their regular reading/social studies/science lesson time in class.  Many of these students finish their assignments quickly and they would have plenty of time to work on this while they are at school.
Yet another sort-of-flipping idea involves creating a lesson for students to watch at home or for students without the technology to watch during the beginning of the class period.  If our students have already watched the lesson, they can immediately begin working on the assignment while those who need to gather together to watch the lesson in one grade-level teacher's classroom.  This would also foster a learning environment of collaboration among the grade-level students.  It would no longer be necessary to look at students as belonging to a specific teacher per se, as we take the premise of "we own all students" one step further.
These are just a few of the great ideas we have had while collaborating at TCEA. Isn't it amazing how some great presentations and time to discuss can get brilliant minds creating?  We are thinking well beyond the walls of our classrooms, looking at the needs of all students, and creating an environment more suitable for the 21st Century Learner!

What ideas have you and your professional learning team come up with recently?  We would love to hear!

Awesome Idea: Flipping a Book Study and PBL

As you know, I am currently at TCEA in Austin and I attended several amazing sessions the last two days where I got a lot of great ideas to use with the students I work with and with classroom teachers at our campus.  I will be sharing a lot of these ideas in the days and weeks to come but my most favorite idea today revolves around the idea that we can flip a book study for our gifted and talented students and also incorporate a project based learning experience! I'm not quite sure where this idea came from, I had it while I was in a session talking about something else, but I absolutely love it, so let's go with it!
I chose our GT kids for this particular project because we are a PK-2nd campus and I don't know that all of our students would be able to easily access the technology I am planning to incorporate or if they would be able to handle some of the higher level content I am hoping to incorporate into the lesson plan. I am working with our GT teacher to solidify our plans but this is the basic premise:
We would select a short novel that is appropriate for our 1st and 2nd grade GT students.  All our lessons would be broken down by chapter or two chapters and we would incorporate the flip by teaching the lesson ahead of time and recording it.  These lessons will most likely be posted on this blog for the students to watch or possibly on edmodo--or both.  The students would need to read the assigned portion of the text, watch the video, and then answer a few higher-level thinking, opened ended response questions. We would also do a lesson about appropriate responses, the kinds of questions to ask yourself while reading, note taking, and questions to ask during conversations with others.  The students would meet to discuss their responses in class and share the notes and questions they jotted down while reading.

BrainPop Jr. exhibit in the Exhibition Hall at TCEA

Bats in our belfry! Can you see the little black speck ?  We had an unregistered guest at TCEA today!   

 They would also be working on an Inquiry Circle Project as evidence of their learning. If you are not familiar with ICP's, I highly recommend you read Comprehension and Collaboration by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels.  It's basically an idea that stems from PBL (project based learning)  but the most important difference is that the project doesn't have to be directly related to the text--it just has to circle back to it.  For example, I read Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff with a group of 5th graders last year. I explained ICP's to them and helped them brainstorm ideas.  One of the students decided he wanted to research Hershey's chocolate.  He created a Glogster all about the history of Hershey's. How is this related to the novel?  Hollis is eating a Hershey bar in a scene from the book. Hence, the circle!
ICP also involve some circling by the teacher.  It's incredibly important for the instructor to circle everything back to the Student Expectations you are trying to address through the text.  You have to be very mindful of where your students are headed with their topics and make sure it always ties back in to a pertinent skill or piece of knowledge students are expected to acquire.  Daniels and Harvey are very good at explaining strategies to ensure this happens in their book, which became a Bible of sorts for me for a couple of years as I learned to utilize ICP's with my higher level thinkers. Since that time, I've also tried it with my struggling students and it can be incredibly powerful for them as well.
For our GT students, I am hoping to give them lots of different options for their final presentations.  I have used Animoto, Xtranormal, Voki, Blabberize, Weebly, Wikispaces, Glogster, and several other sites before with great success. It seems like most of my students want to choose a PowerPoint and I do not think I will let this be an option this time. Prezi, maybe, ppt. no thank you!  One of the best parts of TCEA for me has been learning about a lot more really amazing websites and apps that work a lot like the ones I listed above and I'm hoping to be able to use some of these!  If anyone would like more information about how I've used these presentation tools before, please let me know and I'll be happy to discuss and link up some examples.
I've had three or four "Ah-ha" moments today and I can't wait to try out some of the other amazing ideas we've had during our sessions and from the conversation that's been generated from them.  If you're at TCEA and you've had an amazing moment of inspiration, please share it in the comments!  We'd love to hear it! Even if you aren't here and you've been inspired by something recently that's made you say, "Oh!  Wow, I can do this!" please let us know!
Tomorrow, I'm planning to post about another super idea we got from a presentation at TCEA.  It involves Xtranormal, Rachel's Challenge, and Classroom Management--three of my favorite topics!