creating your own flipped classroom

Creating your own Flipped Class How to Create Videos that Engage Students and What your Classroom Looks like After Flipping

eduCanon - February 18, 2015

EDUCANON - CREATING YOUR OWN FLIPPED CLASS �1

What do the best videos look like? As a teacher, you may think slick production is the way to go in building engaging

learning videos, but data out of MIT's edX shows that variables within your control (and 1

budget!) have more of an impact. I'm going to display two different types of video lessons and I want you to consider which one would lead to higher student engagement:

Video 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI: This 10-minute video on the atomic structure is produced by a well-respected production company. It is comprehensive and includes advanced computer graphics with detailed visualizations of protons, neutrons, electrons, and more.

Video 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oa2kkzzXY0: This six-minute video on the same subject is recorded by a teacher with no background in video production. The video was recorded using a consumer recording device and visualizations were hand-drawn. While the video has a logical flow, it includes a lot of informal or off- the-cuff speaking that was clearly not scripted.

Teachers might assume that the first video, with its more professional production quality and comprehensive overview of the subject material, would lead to better results and higher student engagement. Considering our traditional relationship with video, through pre-recorded televisions shows or DVDs made by experienced video producers, it is logical for educators to assume the highest "quality" videos are most effective.

But new research and performance improvements we've tracked through the eduCanon platform suggests otherwise. edX recently commissioned a study of nearly 1,000 videos, segmenting them out by by video type and production style, and discovered this among their other findings:

• Shorter videos are more engaging. Engagement drops after 6 minutes.

Guo, Philip J., Juho Kim, and Rob Rubin. "How Video Production Affects Student Engagement: An Empirical 1

Study of MOOC Videos." EdX, 1 Mar. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oa2kkzzXY0:







• Videos with a more personal feeling are more effective than high-fidelity studio recordings.

• Videos in which the instructor speaks quickly and with high enthusiasm are more engaging.

• Khan-style tablet drawings are more engaging than power point slides. You can find more details on the edX study and the findings here.

Now lets break down the components of an engaging video lesson delivered through eduCanon. This lesson made by Mr. Leatherwood, a math teacher from Bledsoe Elementary School, and his colleagues covers adding and subtracting decimals:

https://educanon.com/public/14894/94728

1. Video length: Though there is a lot to cover on this topic Mr. Leatherwood kept his video down to six minutes. He created other videos on related topics (like decimal place value and comparing decimals) rather than try to cram everything into one video. He segmented out the video with multiple choice questions from eduCanon so that his students are engaged throughout the video and accountable to his lecture.

2. Personal feeling: Throughout the lesson Mr. Leatherwood makes jokes with his colleagues and the lesson feels more like a conversation rather than a boring, dry run-through of the topic. While there is a lot of extemporaneous speaking, there is a clear, logical flow to the lesson with the examples building up in difficulty.


https://educanon.com/public/




3. Presentation stye: Notice how the presenters speak quickly, but never at a speed that is difficult to keep up with. The energy and enthusiasm is palpable, but never tiring.

4. Production style: No fancy equipment or editing was needed to make this lesson. A simple iPad recording app like Explain Everything was used to create the video, uploaded to YouTube, and delivered to the classroom through eduCanon.

5 Steps to a Perfect Flipped Video Lesson

We just discussed the pedagogy behind some of the highest-performing lessons video lessons. Now I want to dive a little bit more into the nitty gritty—the best techniques and strategies that we've seen teachers use in effective lessons. Much of the information below has been gleaned through direct interviews with eduCanon's master teachers.

Step 1 - Finding a purpose

Before jumping straight into the production of the video, have a clear instructional vision. The instructional value can be virtually anything, but here are a few examples we've seen videos being used for:

• Content delivery - http://www.educanon.com/public/185/4418• Skills modelling - http://www.educanon.com/public/3/90994• Differentiation - http://www.educanon.com/public/3/10148• Review - http://www.educanon.com/public/3/37640• Introducing an assignment - http://www.educanon.com/public/3/24421

Step 2 - Finding the right tools

I'm going to divide video capture into two camps: screen casting and traditional video recording. While there is some evidence to support the theory that Khan-style tablet recordings perform better than standard powerpoint lectures, for the most part the effectiveness of the video is less dependent upon the medium and more upon your comfort level.


http://www.educanon.com/public/185/4418





Screencasting

If you are running a laptop or desktop device, Screencast-O-Matic is a great place to start. It is free, web-based, and directly records the audio and visuals on the screen at the click of a button. For an eduCanon lesson built with Screencast-O-Matic, check out http://www.educanon.com/public/234235/11428. For more advanced editing, ScreenFlow is great, but does require a purchase ($99 in the Mac App Store).

If you are creating videos with an iPad, Explain Everything and ShowMe does all you need. The functionality is comprehensive and you have the option to export the recording straight to YouTube (or use the ShowMe url with eduCanon).

Video Recording

Thankfully, it is not necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on a video camera if you already own a smartphone. Many eduCanon users build their video lessons with their iPhones, iPads, or other smartphone device. If combined with a tripod (~$15 on Amazon), you will have the steadiness and production capacity to create a high-quality recording.

Step 3 - Find your presentation style

This part is pretty easy. If you are screencasting or video recording, choose your form of presentation (PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, Google Presentations, whiteboard drawing, etc.). Go through your presentation just as you usually would, but now your screencasting device will capture your screen and voice. Of course, if you are using a tablet device you will be using the presentation style of the chosen app.

Step 4 - Production!

For those in the traditional video recording camp, the most common mistakes we see in video production relate to lighting, sound quality, and camera orientation. The light should





http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=node%3D499310&field-keywords=iphone+tripod&rh=n%3A499310%2Ck%3Aiphone+tripod


never be behind the subject (which is most likely you). If it is, shift the subject or the recording device so light is facing the subject and not creating shadows. If you're using a smartphone or other smaller recording device, try to get as close to the camera as possible in order to have good audio while still maintaining decent visuals. It is common to see people holding their smartphones vertically as they take a recording. Unfortunately, this is a bad idea. In everything from YouTube to television, the aspect ratio is suited for horizontally aligned recording.

As far as video length goes, try to keep the length down to 1.5 times the grade level of the student. For instance for a fourth grade student, keep the lesson under 6 (4 x 1.5) minutes.

Step 5 - Share Away!

At the end of your recording, you will want to find a video hosting site to share the lesson with your students. The most popular are YouTube, Vimeo, and (if your network blocks the former) TeacherTube. If possible, I recommend YouTube as it is the most reliable and the host adjusts the video resolution based upon the viewer's network strength.

What a classroom looks like for teachers and students after flipping

Flipping your classroom is not just about the videos. Often times the discussion surrounding the flipped classroom centers on the technical aspect of video creation and video delivery, but in reality the flipped classroom revolves around the increased face-to-face time that it affords teachers to interact with their students.


By taking the lower level Bloom’s activities outside of class through video, podcasts, texts, or other medium, teachers are able to spend class time on higher-order activities.

And when the flipped classroom is coupled with the right technology, even more of class time is devoted to active learning (as the beginning of class does not need to be spent checking whether students watched the video or not).

So what are a couple of teachers doing with the increased class time they have due to their flipped instruction? The examples below are taken from direct interviews with users of eduCanon.

1. Building a Music Video with Students

Carolyn Daniels teaches middle school literature, science, and social studies at OLMC and is no stranger to the flipped classroom.

She flips her classroom so that she can spend more time connecting and working through activities with her students rather than just talking at them. Moreover, she finds that because her students are visual learners, watching a video is much more engaging than reading a textbook.

She recently built an eduCanon lesson out of a Scientific Method rap video. With the data that Carolyn captured from eduCanon, she understood before class where student misconceptions lay and how to best group students for the next day's lesson. In class she worked with her students on building their own scientific method rap video.

Scientific Method Rap Video by Carolyn’s students: http://www.educanon.com/public/185/1815


http://www.educanon.com/public/




As Carolyn puts it, "It was an awesome experience for them", after all the students not only watched a lesson, but also engaged the highest Bloom’s (creating) as they built their own.

2. Working on problem sets

Lawrence Whisenant teaches AP Physics at Arab High School in Alabama. Although he loves working on problem sets with his students he found during his first year of teaching that little time was left to work hands on with his students. Rather, the majority of his class time was spent reviewing concepts and examples through traditional lectures.

Last year, Lawrence flipped his class for the first time so that he could work on problem sets with his students in class and get a better understanding of the concepts that challenge his students. Moreover, he wanted to make sure that he was with his students when questions arise so he could correct misconceptions in the moment.

He used the iPad recording app, Explain Everything to deliver the basic concepts and introductory examples outside of class. In order to ensure his students watched the video, he embedded questions into the video lectures with eduCanon.

Lawrence attests that his lessons are more student-centered than ever. His students are more engaged and class time is now used exclusively for student understanding.


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