Working within the Textbook

I still hear an audible "yes!" when the students realize they have online homework.

In my class we are focusing on using Khan content when it fits with our Saxon math book. Saxon breaks down the content so incrementally that a lot of the times the videos and exercises on Khan are too advanced for what we are teaching the students. This is why I am only able to find lessons that fully fit, every once in a while. I am able to find topics that partially fit about once to twice a week, and some weeks I am not able to find ones that fit at all. That being said, when I am able to use this method, my students seem more engaged in the math lesson and seem to grasp the concepts more fully.

I was elated the other day when a parent came up to me and told me, "Khan has made it so that my son is excited about math. Before this year, he was doing only what was required of him in math. I was wondering what he was doing on the computer one evening and when I saw it was math I was excited."

Micro-skills

We haven't been using the Khan videos as much for this section on Newton's Laws and Forces. I feel like the progression of videos and sequencing of material given in the Khan videos for this chapter are inefficient in helping my students attain the level of mastery that I am looking for. Similarly, the Braingenie problem sets have had errors lately, so I've mostly been relying on having the students work through the progression of problems that I programmed over the summer.

The progression of problems I developed has students first fully understand how to use Newton's Second Law when all forces are given. It takes them through many different scenarios, and always builds on the previous problem by adding difficulty or a single new element at a time. Then, and only then do we move on to talking about particular forces (Normal force, tension, friction, inclines) and how to analyze them one at a time. Basically I'm delineating between the different micro-skills the students need in order to solve difficult force problems, and having them master each skill in a logical progression before trying to put them all together.

If you subscribe to the philosophy that students actually do the majority of their learning when they are solving problems and answering questions on their own, then it makes sense to spend the most time crafting the best possible sequence of questions and problems for them to do. It seems like many educators and textbook publishers focus 90% of their effort on the delivery of the material, and 10% on the problems sets and questions to ask. It always struck me as weird that the chapter text portion of a physics textbook follows a nice organized logical progression where each section builds off the previous one, but the problems sets for the most part have no logical progression. The problem sets are organized into sections like "Tension", but one problem is hard then the next is easy, one problem requires this skill, then the next problem requires a different skill. Just cause all problems are under the heading of "Tension", does not mean that there is only one skill to master.

Students seem to really appreciate using these progressions of problems since they can see themselves making progress instead of feeling like every new problem requires a whole new set of skills that makes them start all over again. Once students have made it to the end of all the incremental progressions, I give them a set of random problems in no logical order that require all skills in random ways to make sure they can apply what they know even when it might not be obvious what to do.

By doing using these progressions of problems, my students this year have shown a level of mastery of this material that I didn't think was possible. My students are now quickly able to handle complex problems that students from previous years would have never dared to even try.

Here's a sampling of a few problems from the various progression sets that would have made students from previous years freeze up and possibly break down in tears, but most of my students now handle with ease,

The Importance of Vocabulary

In the Modified-Flipped Algebra classroom one of the challenges has been teaching the students how to learn differently.  In the beginning of the quarter, the students notes were looking far better than if taken during class.  They were writing down the vocabulary and the example problems.  In the second quarter, I noticed that their notes were not including as much vocabulary as I would like.  In addition, when I would ask about vocabulary during class, most could not give me an explanation of the term or how they went from one step to the next.  

I wonder if this has to do with the material becoming more challenging and the students are not as familiar with the terms as at the beginning of the year when there is a lot of review.  The vocabulary is explained during most of the videos, however, most students do not write down the explanation of the term.  Instead they copy the screen with all the mechanics.  Again, I think this is a matter of the students learning what is important to put in their notes.

With this challenge in mind for me, during the last couple weeks, I have tried to improve the vocabulary content by discussing how important it is to write down the definitions in their notes as well as the mechanics. Students notes are slowly becoming more precise with the vocabulary.  I needed to spend time explaining the importance of knowing the how and why they achieve the next step.  This involves understanding all the terms.

In addition to this, I have added questions to their homework assignments.  The questions require the student to think and use the vocabulary.  In the past, I would begin the class with these questions but I have found it beneficial if the student prepares for the question the night before the content is practiced in class.

More labs and more ...

At the end of the first quarter, I had a discussion with my students about their perception of 'how things were going' in the hybrid organic class".  Their reactions and some of the adjustments for the class are:

1.    They commented that they were learning from the video, could do the problems associated with the lesson but they were unsure as to the 'when and why' associate with applying the information in the lessons.  So we are now having pre- and post assignments for the topics.  FYI: The pre-assignments are a new addition in the class format.  I am hoping it will give the students a better understanding of how they would integrate the information or skill set into what they have already learned and understand the implications of the information.

2.    They also wanted more review material integrated into the homework.  Easy enough to solve, I am now developing assignments which are more like an emerging final exam for them to work on.

3.    Whenever I have gone to the library to check on what is going on, I observe that they are using the Khan site in a collaborative setting, they discuss what is going on, they work together on the associated hand-out information but they were not checking to ensure that everyone was ‘on-board’ before they moved on to another topic and these students are not aggressive enough with their peers to get them to go over the material once again.  This has resulted in several students not really mastering the concept which is problematic.  I am not really sure what exactly to do about this since there are the issues of peer pressure and self-image – simply put, the students do not want to appear less bright in front of their classmates. Unfortunately, Adam’s suggestion would not work well in this class since we need to do experiments in our together time.  This leads into the last point of lab time.

4.    The students want to do more labs; in fact they want to do experiments whenever the class formally meets with me.  Unfortunately, I had to tell them that this is not possible since I need to make sure they know what they are doing before they can do it.  I would suggest that this strong desire to engage in hands on experiences is one of the major differences between students in high school and students in college.  College students want to do the work theoretically since it is less time consuming while high school students want to do labs – this is the part of the learning that they most enjoy, remember and WANT to do.  I am making a concerted effort this quarter to try and do more lab work with them and I am developing shorter versions of the experiments to fit more of them into the schedule to meet the students request for this experience.

"Wait? What the heck is the CPI?"

"Mr. B, what the heck is the CPI again?"  I heard this question numerous times over the past few weeks.  After watching assigned several resources, students "should" have known the definition of the CPI.  However, students were still struggling to grasp the vocabulary.  I encouraged them to look it up, to re-watch the video.  "Mr. B, I need to talk about it with somebody in class.  It doesn't make sense unless I talk about it myself."  What I noticed was that students needed application immediately upon learning a concept.  Application solidifies a concept.

Over the last two-three weeks, the Money, Banking and Finance flipped class focused on using intensive tutoring sessions to learn concepts.  In addition to students receiving direct instruction from Khan Videos and digital resources, those who understand the material were allowed to move at their own pace.

Many students flourished.  However, what quizzes and exam showed was that students really need application with vocabulary that is identical to their direct instruction.  When students were given application problems with synonyms for key vocab instead of the same term used in class, they became confused quite easily (two days lost to reteaching).  However, when the vocabulary was aligned consistently from direct instruction/Khan Videos with the assessments, students performed better.


Student comments included the following:
"I like the flipped model where we can work independently if we get the concept."
"I like it when you (Mr. B) lecture because it makes more sense."
"I get confused by having numerous different resources discuss things in different ways."
"I need practice problems to understand the concept during the videos."
"Reading a text makes more sense than the Khan Video or lecture because I can move at my own pace."

For this next unit, I'm going to try the following:
-Lecturing as a means of direct instruction.  I'll build application problems into the lectures.
-Students will still alternate days with me an in the learning commons.
-After lecture, we will break into a tutor session.  Students who want to work independently will be allowed to do so in either my room or the learning commons.  Students who need additional help will stay in the classroom.
-I'm going to use Khan Academy as a support tool to provide students with more context after I've introduced the material.