Flipped Classroom

The Beginning of the End! Course 5 Final

~ cpupovac ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a good journey but I am also excited to see it coming to an end.  Experimenting with flipping a couple of lessons in my Art 7 classes has been a great way for me to wrap things up. I love the idea of using technology in my room but I’m also very conscious of the fact that I don’t want to take away from the students time to get their hands dirty with the creative process. I’ve found that when I flip a lesson in my class I am actually creating more time for students to get their hands dirty.  Even better is that the time I have created for them to work on their art is also time that I can be standing by to help them when they need a little extra guidance.

When all was said and done I would have to say that I felt the most success with my flipped lesson on negative space.  Take a look.

Yes it takes some time to make the video but I am hoping that as I work with the tools more frequently the process will speed up. Even though making a video is time consuming my goals were met and then some, making it all worth it.

  1. Students had more time in class to complete there work.
  2. Students had their iPads out on there desks and were able to refer to the tutorial for review while working rather than asking me to repeat something.
  3. Because student had access to the tutorial while working they didn’t need as much assistance from me.  This gave me more time to work with students who were needing extra help.
  4. 39 of 42 students had their entry tickets and knew exactly what to do when they entered the class.  It was wonderful to see everyone come in and get straight to work.
  5. I learned a lot about the different tools I used to make the video.
  6. Student understanding of the concepts being taught was much higher than in previous semesters. I can see this because concepts taught in this lesson have been continually used by students when discussing works of art.
  7. Less classroom management was needed because students were not required to listen to me lecture and demonstrate.

As you can see there are many positive outcomes to my flipped experience.  A lot of this is also attributed to the thoughtful planning that went into the lesson.  I did flip another lesson a few weeks after my initial negative space lesson.  I have to admit that this lesson was not as successful.  I believe the reason for this was because the lesson was not one that needed flipping. I did not see a significant different in the outcome of the student work.  I also don’t feel that the technology actually helped to explain the concepts being taught any more clearly than when previously taught. That being said I don’t believe that all lessons should be flipped but flipping the right lesson will get the desired results.

Here is my Ubd framework for planning this project, as well my video explaining a bit more about my process.  I hope my work will give you a little insight into flipping some lessons of your own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready, Set, Flip!

~ cpupovac ~ 2 Comments
Photo accredited to Ilana Bressler

As I head into my final COETAIL course I am excited to experiment with flipping some of my lessons in my Intro to Art class. This particular class is very much focused on helping students to build their observation and drawing skills. In this course there are many little tricks that I teach my students in order to help them slow down and become better at observing. At times teaching these tricks can be a bit confusing in a live setting.  From time to time when I am giving a live demonstration students are asked to pay attention to my drawing that is being projected, the object I am drawing somewhere in the room, and listen to what I am saying. This can cause the students to practically become dizzy as they direct their attention from me to the screen to the object. Although it is usually not too much for most of my students to handle it all depends on the lesson and the kids in the class.

This is where I started to imagine how occasionally flipping my lessons might help the students to stay more focused and hopefully retain more of what I am saying. If I use a simple split screen and talk over the video I can easily eliminate all of the focus obstacles that so often take place during my lesson.

I want to flip a couple of lessons in this class to see if there is any noticeable difference in the product that students develop. I’m hoping to see better understanding of the concepts being taught. I will be looking to see if more or less students are demonstrating understanding. I am also curious to see if the quality of the work changes.  I am hoping to have more in class time for my students to work due to the fact that they will be watching my demo at home.   Will this help the quality to go up and go down? They will also have a device in front of them to review the lesson if needed.  This could also help for quality and understanding. These are not the only factors that could change in my classroom as I begin to flip lessons. Although these are things  that I will be looking at first and foremost. I will also be sure to take note of other changes that occurred in the lesson due to the flip. I went into a little more detail about why and how I will flip my classroom Final Unit for course 4. Now it’s time to get rolling.

Drawing on the Flipped Side of your Brain.

~ cpupovac ~ Leave a comment

Da Vinci HeadAs I have been going over the content of course 4 and reflecting on it though my blogs and others the topic that sticks out the most to me is the idea of the flipped classroom.  I pointed out in one of my previous posts reasons as to why I think this would be relatively helpful and at times easy for me to implements as an art teacher.

The top 4 reasons I’d like to flip:

  1. Flipping would save class instruction time and give students more time for their art which is always a top priority for my class time.
  2. Students would be able to review my instructions as often as they like.  This would also help give me more time to help students who are needing further clarity or wish to extend themselves.  At the moment a lot of my one on one time is spent simply repeating things from my demonstrations, videos for review would eliminate this repetition.
  3. Flipping lesson would give me a platform to introduce deeper concepts that sometimes get cut out of my lessons because we are short on time. I could easily introduce other concepts and bits of art history to give students more background on our current subject matters.
  4. Demonstration videos would be very easy to make since I am already doing many of them under a demo camera at the moment. With technology I can easily enhance them when appropriate.

As I have been reading through articles and other blogs I have come to realize that there are many other possible benefits to flipping the 4 I have mentioned.  I’m excited to see if these four possible benefits are noticeable once I have flipped a lesson or two.  I’m also curious to see what other types of benefits or possible setbacks may occur in the process.

I have decided to focus on simply flipping a lesson or two to start.  As I was reading Jon Bergman’s article on Flipping the Elementary Classroom, several ideas for flipped lessons came to mind. Bergman says to start will a lesson instead of a whole unit or class, and that you should pick one the historically students have struggled with.  When I read this a lesson on negative space that I have done many times immediately came to mind.

Looking Back: My lesson on negative space is a drawing exercise.  This particular lesson focuses on one of many exercises that I have taken from Betty Edwards and Drawing on the Right side of the Brain. Students draw the negative spaces around a stool so that when they are finished they end up with a well proportions outline of a stool.  It sounds simple when I type it out but it is actually very difficult because our eyes are not trained to look for negative spaces. I find this exercise to be incredibly helpful and it immensely helps student to find better proportion in there art work.  The problem is that I often find the demonstration of drawing negative space to be rather confusing for many of the students. I end up spending a lot of class time working with kids one on one to find the negative spaces and I rarely have enough time to get to everyone.

Looking Forward: Flipping the instruction for this class could be very beneficial for my students.  Technology could greatly enhance my demonstration.  When I do this lesson in class I often put a stool up on a table for everyone to see and then under my demonstration camera I draw the negative spaces and talk through it. A video demonstration for students to view on their own could look very different. I could use a split screen effect with a photo of the stool on one side of the screen and then a video of me drawing on the other side.  This way students can easily see the two side by side This is a big improvement over the live version in class where they have to look back and forth.  Another bonus to making a video for this demonstration is that I could easily draw on top of the photo using Explain Everything and show the students the negative space in a way that I haven’t been able to in the past.

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Prior to the demonstration portion of the video I can show different examples of positive and negative spaces in other artwork to help explain the keep concept.  I’m hoping that this new use of technology will further enhance students understand of the concept as well as more clearly explain the exercise so that they can easily jump into practicing.

To be sure that my students have taken the time to watch the flipped videos I will have a small drawing assignment for them to complete in their sketchbooks. The drawing assignment will be a sort of entry ticket into class, if they haven’t watched the video they will have to do so in class, taking away from their work time. This short sketching assignment will also give them a little practice with the exercise being taught and at times will become the beginning stages of another assignment down the road.

I plan on flipping a couple of other lessons as well in the same manner.  Each focuses on drawing exercise for the same class.  If all goes well I hope to continue to develop flipped lessons for some of my other classes.  Since the class I am focusing on is mostly a drawing class my videos will be mostly tutorial.  Other videos for other classes could easily give more insight into art history and deeper artistic concepts as well.  This is my ultimate goal,  flipping lessons, units and eventually classes.  Hoping to free up more time in class for critiques, discussions and more than anything, creating.

 

Flipping = More making

~ cpupovac ~ Leave a comment

Image attributed to Jeff DalyI have to say the idea of a flipped classroom really appeals to me as an art teacher.  There’s always so much that I would like to cover in order to give my students background knowledge and teach technique but the more time I take demonstrating and discussing art the less time students have to create and the creative process is my top priority.  I remember  very clearly when I was in school, it always seemed as though our art teacher couldn’t finish talking fast enough. We just wanted to get back to work.  I often try to remember this when teaching my own classes.  Listening to me do demonstrations is helpful and necessary but it also eats up work time for projects that simply can’t be done at home.  Taking the time to flip my classroom could have many benefits to it.

First and foremost recording my demonstrations for kids to watch at home will buy them more time in class to create. This should be relatively easy for me. I’m already demonstrating under a document camera.  I even record my demonstrations from time to time so that I can loop them on the screen while kids are working. I only need to take it one tiny step further. This will also have an added benefit for kids who are absent.  With the way things are now kids I often have to work very closely with kids who were absent in order to help them get caught up.  If my demonstrations were posted then students wouldn’t be waiting on me to help them get caught up.  Other students would also have the ability to re watch demonstrations if they need to look back. Helping eliminate the need for me to repeat myself.

Secondly, most of my demonstrations are fairly short  This means that I could easily add onto some of my demonstrations by introducing other artists, artistic concepts or additional  background.  I’m always wanting to give students a wider variety of content that can help encourage their own creative ideas and processes. Unfortunately this is the part of my class that often gets cut short so that students have more time to create.  With a flipped classroom I can easily tack on little bits of content along the way with my demonstration videos.

Lastly, with a flipped classroom I can eliminate some of the discipline problems that come along with trying to gather everyone and quiet them down for demonstrations.  Although discipline isn’t a big issue in my class it can eat up little bits of time here and there.  If I don’t have to give so many demonstrations and kids watch them on their own we would not only be saving work time but kids won’t be distracted by other kids when they should be watching what I’m doing.

In conclusion I would really like for this to be a new focus for me as I move into next year and even a bit next semester. The first steps should be easy.  Right now some of my biggest questions moving forward is how to begin organizing all of my information and videos.  The Herreid and Schiller case study on flipped classrooms offers lot of great suggestions for shooting videos and posting them.  I hope to do a little research into that for some direction.  If any others out there have any tips on how they shoot videos for demonstrations or organize their content I would love to hear about it.