The iPad and Flipping the Classroom

My next adventure in teaching is going to be flipping my classroom.  This involves posting video lessons for students to complete for homework and then spending class time practicing the concepts with teacher support and having the opportunity to then delve into the topics in more depth together.  I decided to get my feet wet with this approach this year and, using my iPad, developed my first simple video lesson on metric conversions for my grade 9 science class.  I used the App "Stage", made the video in my kitchen in between trick-or-treaters on Hallowe'en, and posted the completed video to YouTube for the students to access via the class webpage (created on our board LMS).

Students watched the video for homework and then came to class to practice conversions and work on more complex problems involving density.  Students worked together in small groups and coached each other on the concept.  I moved from group to group to offer guidance and suggestions and to give further support for those struggling with any of the practice questions.

Students were overwhelmingly in favour of this approach.  Comments included: "It was a great way to learn a simple concept";  "I'd rather do this more often and have class time to practice when the teacher is around to help"; "I liked it because I could rewind it if I didn't quite get something"; "I liked being able to help each other in class - I learned the concept way better"; "watching videos for homework is way better than my usual homework assignments"; "can we do this for every lesson?"

Definitely an approach that I will be exploring further.