My method of planning is very much based off a constant iteration process. I’ve been teaching delivering classes for 20 years now in mostly the same location so I have the luxury of those experiences (and contact with colleagues) to pull from.
So I iterate each semester. I use what worked the past semester and throw out (or re-tool) what did not. Each end of semester whether summer or Christmas is a reflecting time for me.
Pick One (or two) Changes
This picture has nothing to do with planning, I just love the bunny. Original @ Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/xwd/3551390013/
I often make a large change each year and sometimes even each semester. Last January I switched to full-on flipped master (see post here), and this year I made a massive switch to fully open content in the style of a #connectedCourse (see blog post here).
Learn from Others
I am the teacher #facilitatorOfLearningExperiences that I am from working and talking with so many colleagues in my institution as well as the large internet (thank you Twitter). The time I spend on networking with other teachers is more important than time spent looking for yet-another-assignment.
Find people that interest you or that will at least listen and answer your questions on teaching. Don’t be shy, get out there and blog/tweet/network.
My goal as a facilitator of educational experiences is focused on creating a sharing culture where students not only take responsibility for their own educational pace but also contribute to the learning of their peers. The first half of this session is sharing the technology and techniques I use to foster this environment inside and outside of my classroom.
I view my main task as getting my students excited about learning computing science to increase their chances of a successful student and professional life. I still need to create formative and summative assessments to ensure they are prepared for the courses that follow. I use common tools as well as my own custom testing platform for in my courses. In the second half of this session, I will share those tools and experiences with the audience. The tools I use could be easily adapted to all levels and topics.
Videos
Please watch the videos and include in the survey (see below) form your comments or questions about my students’ experiences with a Flipped Mastery classroom.
Survey
Please fill out the survey if you plan to attend (or even if you don’t) my session at FlipCon15.
This is at the Guadalajara Campus of the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Please arrange to visit ahead of time so we ensure you can enter the campus and have information at the security gate of why you will enter the campus. The session locations are as follows:
2:30pm-3:45pm Open Class in room 1402 (building 1, 4th/top floor, room 2)
4pm-5:15pm “Aula Invertida”(slides here) in room 1405, right down the hall from the other session.
Feel free to attend both, only one or contact me for future information about sessions, courses and talks about Flipped Learning
My entire course as well as the submissions of my students are online for you to view at this website: Courses by Ken. This course (syllabus here) is an introductory course in computer programming at the undergraduate level for non-computing engineering majors. The website linked is used for both courses. The course TC1017 (Solutions to Problems with Programming with C++) is the one that I will be showing on Friday the 13th; the other course is TC1014 (Fundamentals of Programming with Python) is the equivalent course for computing program majors.
What will you see
This class meets twice per week over the 16 week semester. At the beginning of each week I record a video for the classes (usually the same video is for both variations of the course since the content is very similar). You can see the collection of videos for this course on my YouTube list for them
To be honest, every day in my classroom varies depending on the needs of the students at that time. The students are in between our exam periods so should be in the “normal pace” of activities which include:
working on a sequence of activities that I loosely format based on what Crystal Kirch‘s WSQ assignments. There is an average of one of these per week during our 16 week semester.
choosing with mastery topics they are able to meet as well as to which level (on an OSU – Outstanding/Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory scale) they will show mastery. There are 30 mastery topics they need to meet for mastery of the course content.
taking formative assessment activities which can be in class quizzes using a platform such as Socrative or Kahoot! or a quiz they can do on their own time (and multiple times).
Since my style of a mastery based classroom puts the deadlines on the activities #1,#2,#4 above are all on the last day of class May 6th, many students are at different levels. This is intentional. I have a varied range of prior experience in computing with my groups since some have 10+ years of programming experience before arriving and many others have close to no prior experience.
I start the class with a pep talk about what to be working on as well as addressing any common questions and then spend most of the time in the classroom working with individual students or small groups.
Are you Curious?
creative commons licensed (BY-SA) flickr photo by cogdogblog: http://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/16730075532
Please come visit this course or contact me to arrange to talk about my implementation of Flipped Learning, I am always eager to discuss my work with others. You can also see what we are doing in my Open Course on Flipped Learning which is currently running and I plan to offer it again starting in May 2015.
Since January 2014 I have a policy where all homework assignments (of which I have two types) are all due on the last day of classes. So this semester that will be at 5:30pm (local time in Guadalajara) on May 6th, 2015.
Are you Serious?
Another Boromir meme.
Yes, this works and here is Why
I’ve thought a lot about why students do not hand in homework early (well humans in general). The answer lies in following the incentives.
In most classes (including mine until about 5 years ago) there was no reason to hand in assignments early. Let us list the advantages:
You feel good about yourself
The teacher (if she notices) thinks you are amazing.
ummm. can’t think of anything else
Now, let’s list the reasons students wait until the last minute:
That physics/calculus/computing teacher that always screws up the homework problem and it turns out the problem was impossible to solve. Haha, that funny teacher #someoneShootMeForWastingHours
The teacher that always extends the deadline when they notice that nobody has done it yet (vicious cycle anyone?)
If I wait until all of my friends do it, they can help me
I get a buzz off that last minute rush
I could think of more, but this blog post is due soon……
Let’s Flip the Due Dates
See what I did there? Yeah, I’m hilarious under a #flashBlog time crunch. Instead of having students base their schedule on “What’s due tomorrow so I can start today?”, I want them to move towards “What is available that I can work on now?”
That’s It?
Well yeah and it works pretty well. I want to talk about this in much more detail at my FlipCon15 talk in Michigan so I’m saving all of the “good stuff” for then.
I sure hope that gets accepted. Details, details.
Your Turn
So, am I nuts? Are my students lining up to lynch me for yet another serious of crazy experiments from their Canadian teacher here in México? Let me know!
