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I presented the flipped class and mastery learning models of instruction at the EARCOS Teacher’s Conference in Malaysia this past March. This is my first year using these methods, and honestly, I’ve been making a lot of it up as I go along. It’s worked out pretty well so far and students are engaged and learning every day.

The most questions I got at the conference had to do with documentation and grading, which makes sense. As I field more questions and have more opportunities to share these methods with other teachers, I’ve been missing subjectivity from my discussions, especially with exams and accommodating students with learning needs.

I am a firm believer that every student has the capacity to do great things…but that doesn’t always show on tests.

An observation I’ve made throughout this year is that many students who do poorly on written exams can often sit and have a discussion with me about the content. They know what they’re talking about, they just have a hard time connecting the writing on a test to what they know. So, I began to give oral exams to those students. Their grades instantly jumped from way below failing to right around the class average.

Because I knew my students, it was petty subjective. If they got one prompt from me, minus one point. Two prompts, two points, etc. I pulled the content from my chapter objectives they use to learn the content.

In an attempt to become more objective, I began to shift through volumes of rubrics on the internet…but I found most of them were for presentations or group projects and not for summative assessments. So, I sat down with our special ed coordinator and talked about oral exam rubrics and how to design an effective tool for summative assessment.

You can see the final product here. If you’re using the flipped model or if you are interested in differentiating assessment, feel free to use the template.

Let’s step up and not accept failure when simple accommodations can give every student an opportunity to succeed.

*More information on flipping the class and mastery learning can be found here.

At this moment, the AP Chemistry exam is in 19 days. I have about 1.5 chapters to cover with class only 3 times per week.

I was at this same point last year, but the exam was a week later, so the situation wasn’t as stressful as it is this year. But, that’s the nature of the exam and I have to work with it.

Currently, we’re discussing applications of aqueous equilibrium…specifically, titrations. This is one of the great topics for labs, but how does a time-strapped teacher work an entire titration into one class period? I feel like a lot of teachers at this point would just skip it and do what they could to get all of the content in.

Because there are so many people on the internet much smarter than me, I was able to find two fantastic titration simulations. You can see them here and [STRIKEOUT:here].

The first is a good introduction. I had students use it for a strong acid – strong base titration to get the idea down.  Students can select the type of reaction, which to titrate (acid or base) and what chemicals to use.  They then run the titration and calculate the molarity of the chemical in the buret and check to see if their answer is correct.  The mechanics of the simulation are the same as an actual titration and they can get instant feedback from me as I wander the room and from the web when they check their answer.

[STRIKEOUT:The second simulation is more in depth (designed by a college Ph.D) and is] [STRIKEOUT:more skill-based than the initial titration they ran. There are more variables and require the student to really understand what is happening in the chemical reaction.  I really like the real-time pH curve that is displayed for the students and the instant feedback the simulation gives.  This particular site also has 3 different experiments students can choose from…acetic acid titration, unknown weak acid titration, and determining pKa of an unknown solution.]

If you’re running out of time, don’t be afraid of virtual labs. My kids have now done 4 different titrations and I didn’t “lose” any class time. [STRIKEOUT:This is the Google Doc procedure my students used today if you’d like to use it.]

Another great simulation resource is the University of Colorado, Boulder physics department website sims made for chemistry, biology, physics, and math.

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Update 4/2/2012: After receiving some questions about my procedure and the websites, I am sad to report that the second titration simulation from the University of Pasadena is no longer available. Also, I have accidentally lost the Google Document procedure I linked in the original article. If you find other titrations that work well for you, I would love to hear about them in the comments.

I love being a teacher and I love being a soccer coach. But, those tend to get in the way of one another.

Being an international school, we compete with other international schools from all over Korea. I travel at least once a week, which means I need to miss school more frequently than I would like. It used to be very difficult to keep all of my classes engaged for an 85 minute period if I’m not there. But, because of the availability of great resources on the web, they become opportunities for students to be creative while learning something new.

I recently gave an assignment relating to nuclear power, and specifically, to the events in Japan. There is a lot of confusion about nuclear power and its role in society. There is a great webquest on nuclear energy put together by Ms. R Wadsworth and Ms. M. Shuck at Claremont Secondary School that I used and added to for the assignment.

The first part was a collaborative Q&A document students created and shared. This was simply the information gathering and served as a single location students could go to for information.

Second, they had to create a newsletter that could be given to someone that had zero prior information about nuclear power. They used the information from the GoogleDoc to build the newsletter. You can see some of the best ones in the slideshow below.

Third, I asked them to create an infographic on nuclear power as it related to Japan…not necessarily the tsunami, but in general. Many students had a hard time being creative with this, but some of the better ones are here…feel free to look through them and use them as exemplars if you’re interested in doing something similar. They used this website to begin building the graphics.

You can look at the slideshow or you can go to the album.

I suppose the title of this post says everything: I am skeptical of Sal Khan and I am worried about the influence he is having on education.

Now, if you’ve read this blog before (thank you, if you have), you might be wondering why I’m saying this. I am teaching a flipped chemistry class…his big point is that a flipped class is more effective than traditional classrooms because of 24/7 access, etc, etc.

I agree 100% with those comments.

So, why am I skeptical?

I’m skeptical because I’m afraid the flipped model is becoming a fad in the United States. I’m afraid its a buzzword that teachers (who don’t always understand the true working of the model) are going to start using to stay “current” or to keep administration happy.

I’m all for availability of material, and the volume of material that Mr. Khan has created and catalogued blows my mind (over 2,200 videos and counting). But, I’m concerned that teachers are going to turn these amazing resources into pop-and-play video lessons just to say they use them. I’m afraid that the power of the videos will be lost by just handing out an accompanying worksheet to fill in and get graded. I’m also afraid the availability of most curricula high schools offer will tempt teachers to sit back and stop teaching.

Again, I’m all for availability of resources, but there is also something to be said about learning from your teacher…not just a disembodied voice on YouTube.

So, I guess I should have titled this “How Do We Keep the Flipped Class From Becoming Ineffective?” It’s not what Mr. Khan is saying that worries me…its what the people that are listening to him will ultimately do with this idea. What I would like to see is more everyday teachers getting the focus. There are hundreds of teachers in the US alone using a flipped class…but they don’t get invited to do TED Talks or speak at keynote conventions.

I am convinced the power of flipping a classroom lies in the word-of-mouth transmission. We need teachers using a flipped model to step out and become more vocal about their methods. There are people like Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams (the guys I learned from) in Colorado, working very, very hard to promote the flipped classroom. We need to organize meetings, classroom visits, tutorials, webinars…anything that will help spread the word on how to effectively use podcasting in the classroom.

If you want more information on flipping your class, a good start is to visit The Flipped Class Network.

This week, my students are about to finish unit 7, thermochemistry. Looking back one year, I was a little bit further ahead (in terms of content) but this same chapter was chapter 6, not chapter 7.

That’s a very roundabout way of saying this year, using the flipped model, I’ve been able to add an entire unit of study just by flipping the class. This blew me away when I realized how much time I had gained.

Then, I began to think about how I was able to move through the content so quickly. Did I add to student misconception because I was so caught up in wanting this flipped model to be “more” successful because I could cover more material? Right now, after using this model for the past year, I would say no. But, thinking about my motivations as I started this model, I’m afraid to say it probably was a major factor in my decision to switch.

As I’ve learned more about student achievement and how the content isn’t as important as teaching the student, I’ve taken a major step back to think about my motivations. Sure, it would be great if I could move through the material faster, but only if students are performing at a higher level. Have I sacrificed student understanding to reach a specific end? I hope not.

The whole point of this is to say that technology is great and its easy to move through the material quickly because it is available 24/7. But, that does not mean that we should move at the speed of light through the content. Take time for supplemental activities and outside information. Take time for fun activities and keep the students interested in what you’re doing.

Don’t use technology as a means to reach content’s end.

A few days ago, I wrote a postt about a particular student, “Anne,” coming to grips with a very difficult topic to discuss…evolution.

Even though I was only the substitute teacher for the day, I gave them a homework assignment asking them to reflect on the discussion. You can read their responses if you’re interested.

Back to “Anne.” Her response was actually very short compared to the rest of the class, but again, I think it has profound depth despite its conciseness:

Yesterday, in Biology, I learned to get out of my narrow mind and think about evolution. I began to actually question my beliefs. It was challenging but a good experience. Questioning myself isn’t something I do regularly; I felt like yesterdays discussion was important. Whenever people ask me about my faith, I can never really answer them. I always grew up learning that God created everything. Yesterday, I learned that I will never know unless my faith grows. The discussion helped me a lot. I am still a nonbeliever in evolution.

The depth of her thoughts really stood out as she recognized that questioning her own beliefs aren’t something she does regularly…but who really does?

As teachers, we should be pushing students to think about hard topics.  We need to remind them that the world is not cut-and-dry nor black and white by any means.  How often, though, do we provide those opportunities?  Or even worse, how often do we see those opportunities and move past them in lieu of getting more content in?

Let’s not do our students a disservice by moving past the tough discussion to get more content in.  While it may be especially difficult with state tests and mandated benchmarks for students, it is not something we can afford to drop if we want to provide quality education for all students.

Welcome to the new-and-improved blog (previously Mastering Chemistry).

As I’ve gotten more and more involved with the technology, almost by default, I became more and more spread out across the internet on different servers and host sites. After talking with Jeff Utecht at the EARCOS Teacher’s Conference, he strongly encouraged me to set up my own name domain on a dedicated server…so, brianbennett.org was born.

This is merely the blog portion. I’m still working on a catchy name, but the theme of the blog will remain the same. I will continue to post thoughts on education philosophy as the 21st century marches onward and how we need to meet students where they are in the digital age.

The sister site to this one, brianbennett.org, will be the more “professional” side. It is still in its infancy, but my goal is to have a comprehensive professional portfolio that will also host (or link to) all materials I’ve used or seen used in the Flipped Classroom and Mastery Learning model.

Currently, I have videos posted on my YouTube channel and I will be adding a dedicated playlist soon (hopefully in the next week or two) walking interested educators through production and sharing of podcasts and how to manage a mastery classroom.

As you look through the post, please feel free to comment on any functionality issues you are having

Thanks for all the comments and thoughts over the last week. I’m excited about the turn my career has taken and I’m looking forward to continuing to network and connect with educators interested in challenging and building 21st century learners.

I teach in a small, private school in South Korea.  This has huge benefits, like small classes and intentional interaction occurring every day.  This also has disadvantages, like having multiple preps (3+ sometimes) and the unique opportunity to become a substitute teacher for a period or two if a colleague calls in sick.

I’m a biology teacher by training, but I chose to take the chemistry position when my wife and I came to the school last year.  I never thought I would be a chemistry teacher (and I do miss biology), but chances are, I’ll stay with them chemistry.

I had an opportunity this morning to sub for one of our biology teachers.  This is our second day back from spring break, so the students were between units, having just taken a test over evolutionary theories.  I decided to tweak the sub plans (group work on evolution discussions and articles) to a fish bowl activity.  I heard about this at EARCOS 2011 from Jeff Utecht.  Essentially, one group is in the middle of the room discussion a question (What do you think about evolution?) and a second group is around the perimeter of the room having their own discussion in a chat room.

Not only are we a private school, we are a Christian school.  Not all of our students are Christians (although we as faculty are), so I figured this would be a good discussion to have to get students thinking.

What happened was amazing.  You can skim the chat room log here if you’re interested.  I wish I had recorded the class dialogue.

What ended up happening though, was one particular student, “Anne,” having a very significant class play out in front of her.

As the discussion progressed, she looked more and more conflicted in her head.  I asked her to explain what she was thinking, and essentially, she said that she didn’t know what to believe because she had learned one particular view from home and was having a very hard time accepting the evidence being presented in the discussion.  She was very convicted about her beliefs, but her convictions aren’t what I want to comment on.

What really stuck with me was the fact that she was more concerned about the discussion being “hard.”  Discussions should be hard for students.  Easy discussions mean they aren’t thinking or questioning something they’ve known or thought they’ve known for a very, very long time.  Today’s discussion was asking Anne to think about something she hadn’t thought critically about ever.

As a teacher, students constantly want the easy answer…we’ve all experienced this.  It is difficult to go day after day and hear complaints and whining about class being hard.  But, I find it encouraging (and actually a point of pride) that my class is hard.  Not because of the content I’m teaching, but because of the questions I’m asking students to consider.

This is just something that stuck out to me on a rainy Tuesday morning in Korea.  Just reflect for a moment and find encouragement from someone who is, and will continue to ask students, hard questions.

I came across a very interesting post this morning from Dr. Lee Skallerup Bessette at College Ready Writing entitled “What Ed Tech Can’t Do.”  She compared Fahrenheit 451 to the influence technology is having in the classroom and in education in general.  The part that struck me was about how “the [technology] movement in education as analogous to industrial farming.”

Of course, this caught my attention.  As I begin to use more and more technology in my classes, I felt my nerves fire up and I was instantly on the defense as I continued to read.  But, I was pleasantly surprised at how she took her thoughts and really made an extremely compelling case for the absolute necessity of a teacher in the class room.

From her post:

Next fall, I will be integrating a lot more technology in my classroom, in part because of forced standardization and accountability. But part of it is trying to make my class more effective. My job is to teach, but it is also to coach my students, particularly my developmental students. It’s to disrupt their worlds in order to encourage critical thinking or knowledge creation.

The part I want to focus in on is where she says it is her job to coach and disrupt their worlds.  I love that she is stressing over the fact that it is still her job to teach.

It is so easy to fall into the technology trap…just throwing some hyperlinks on a page and telling students to “go.”  That isn’t teaching…it’s laziness.  The difference is when a teacher throws some hyperlinks on the page, asks students to go learn, but then brings them all back to create a working schema for learning.  Technology is a tool…a very powerful tool that can create the illusion of active learning.

Don’t get so caught up in the technology that we forget to be present for class.

After having most of this afternoon to mentally decompress from everything that happened this weekend at ETC11 and after a 2-hour advice session from Jeff Utecht, I’m going to begin moving my materials from my website to a new website (to be announced) over the coming days and weeks.

This has been such an encouraging week for me as I continue to present and talk about the flipped classroom I’ve had the opportunity to build this year.  Thank you so much if you came up and commented on my presentation, my blog, my tweets, or whatever.  It really humbles me and I want to sincerely thank you.

If you’ve already begun to think about using my materials, fear not, nothing is coming down from the current site.  I’ll also give plenty of warning via my Twitter account and this blog.  Hopefully, the word will spread on its own quickly if you’re one of my followers.

Some things I’m planning on putting up this week:

1. I’ll be doing a podcast showing how to make a podcast
2. A PDF file that walks through the process (think follow-along notes for production)

A very sincere thank you again for this week.

I recently read a blog post that talked about “Web 3.0” and how it has already begun to move in. (I can’t find the link, but I’ll update when I track it down again.)

If you’re scratching your head, wondering what Web 2.0 and what Web 3.0 are, you’re not alone.  I had only heard of Web 2.0 as it was gaining more and more notice in the US, but as I’ve learned about it, I realized I already knew what it was.

Essentially, Web 2.0 is the “blog” era…where the web has morphed from a few individuals creating content to literally billions of people creating content and posting it for the world to see, use, and pull from.  By posting this, I am present in Web 2.0.  Anyone with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, a blog, or umpteen other web presences is a contributor to the Web 2.0 sphere.

Web 3.0, on the other hand, is more of an idea than a place.  We used to “go to the internet” to find information.

Web 3.0 is the proliferation of the digital world into the physical world (QR codes, anyone?).  It is the idea that I can pull out any wireless device and instantly have information at my fingertips about where I am, what I’m looking for, suggestions, ads, special deals…whatever I could want.  We’re seeing this more and more with interactive kiosks in subway stations, showing neighborhood maps, restaurants, attractions, and offices, just to name a few.

The web is no longer a place…it is all around us, accessible in more forms than anyone can even begin to count.

So what does this mean for the classroom?

Our classes will become even more diverse and connected than they already are.  Students want teachers to incorporate the web, but we need to change our thinking of the web as a single, functional tool.  The web is an entity…and I don’t mean this in a weird, Skynet, sort of way; but simply as something that cannot and should not be limited to sitting in front of a computer.

My last post talked a little about QR codes in the class and how I’m planning on using them with my next unit.  But I’m not satisfied with that alone.  As the technology increases and as the web works its way into our lives, we have to embrace the changes to continue to mold dynamic, creative, and adaptive students.

As we head into spring break next week, I’ve been contemplating the changes that I’ve made this year in chemistry.  I started with assignment-based grading (never again) and then moved to purely objectives.  After objectives, I went to objectives with graded homework, and now I’m doing objectives with graded quizzes.  There has been a lot of change this year, and I’m still searching for that golden egg.

What has really struck me is the fact that I’ve been able to change so much.  My students have been great as I continue to tweak my model, trying to find a good fit.  Thinking about the four models I’ve worked my way though this year, I think the pure objective stands above the others.  It still fits a “true” mastery model, where students show that they have a certain skill or ability.  I didn’t like the quizzes because they were penalized if they didn’t get everything right the first time through.

Another thing I’ve been adding to my lessons is Critical Thinking Questions in which the students are asked to analyze and apply the material from that particular lesson.  This has really gotten them thinking and has helped them internalize the material more for each unit.

As I continue to work on the class, I realize more and more that there is no one perfect way to run mastery.  The students are stretching themselves regardless of how I structure the unit.  Hopefully, I can continue to do that with each unit regardless of how the grade goes into the book.

Again, I’m still trying to figure out how to run my class.  The mastery method is great, but it is very hard to assess student work effectively.  So, day to day, a student may be doing well, but when it comes to test time, they really struggle putting ideas together.  Students expressed frustration to me at the end of last semester, saying they didn’t feel like they were getting enough written practice and they felt cheated when tests came around.

So, I changed my class…again.  I think this is my third model this year.  We’ve done a lot of shifting, but I feel like its all been for the better so far.  I’ve outlined my changes below.

1. Students have written work turned in each week that corresponds directly to one specific podcast in the series.
2. I live-teach on Mondays so students have the chance to ask direct questions and get guided, step-by-step direction on how to solve a particular type of problem.
3. Every other week, students take a written quiz that gives them (and me) an idea of how they’re doing in the unit.  They can connect each problem back to the specific podcast and then go back and look at more examples if they need to.

Already, grades have been more reflective of their actual achievement.  The real struggle with this one is that I feel like I’m moving back to the traditional classroom, so I’m struggling to find a good medium.  Here’s a link to my homework assignments if you want to look at them or use them.

I’ve developed a fever over the past week.  I found a program called MacPorts, an open-source project aimed at making other open-source projects available to people.

It all started when I was looking for a way to run Windows-based programs on my Mac.  There is a program called Wine out there that “tricks” the program into thinking the necessary components are there in order for it to run.  I’m not totally sure how it works, but it was suggested as a good alternative to mirroring or even hard-drive partitioning.  (If that sounds good to you, there is a great step-by-step tutorial here).

Long story short, I had to install a couple of other programs (including MacPorts, from which all other installations were completed), but I didn’t end up using Wine.  I did, however, begin to play with MacPorts and some of the open-source freeware available.  I’ve caught the bug.

I’ve always had an interest in astronomy, but living in Seoul (population 18 million) makes it a little difficult to see much more than Jupiter on an extremely clear night.  In my toying with MacPorts, I found an open-source program called Nightshade, which is by far one of the best astronomy simulators I have ever seen.  I am now thinking about proposing a new astronomy class to be offered at my school because of the capabilities.

Like I said, I’ve caught the fever.

I’ve written a lot lately about general chemistry, but I’m also using technology in my AP Chemistry class when I can work it in around all of the podcasting.  That isn’t a great excuse (I don’t even feel like that’s the right word) but the podcasting has definitely taken up most of my technology time.

Anyways, I decided to play Jeopardy with my AP Chemistry class this year.  Now, the funny thing is, none of them (well, very few) have never even seen the show…all they know about it is what their American or Canadian teachers say about it.  So, after I finished trying to explain the whole answer-in-the-form-of-a-question concept, we got going.  It went really well because I put together a hyperlinked PowerPoint presentation that linked each question value to the slide.  There was no back-and-forth, searching for the slide, etc.  I ended up liking it so much, I’m posting it here if you’re in need of a quick time-saver for a review game or for whatever else.  Just click and download the file.  The file is set up such that all you need to change are the category titles and then add-in your questions for the appropriate unit.

Right now, I only have single Jeopardy.  I’ll get a double template posted this week (hooray Thanksgiving) so if you’d like to do a double round, you don’t have to go through and change every single slide.

I hope some of you find this helpful…enjoy!

Jeopardy! (Template v2.0)

I started teaching the concept of the mol (not the animal…the amount) in chemistry this week.  The problem is, the mol is such an impossibly large number to comprehend (6.02 x 10^23, or 602 sextillion, or 602 followed by 21 zeros) students often don’t grasp the quantity of things we are attempting to count.  So, I had them do a quick project on quantifying the number of things…anything…in a mol.  They had to relate one mol of an object to a concrete idea for people to visualize.  Many students just looked at the length of an object like a pen or a keyboard key.  Some others measured area, and still others measured volume.

For the project, they gave an example of a dozen, a gross (a dozen dozens), one million and one billion.  I got some great projects from this…better than I anticipated when I assigned it.  Below are some of the projects I had students turn in for the assignment.

Yesterday was the 115th anniversary of the discovery of the X-Ray.  Physics Buzz, a blog run by PhysicsCentral.com, ran an interesting post on the X-Ray.  It was good as my class is finishing up the unit on energy in atoms and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Have a good Tuesday…

I’ve been running my course thus far via Google sites (which I love).  The site itself is easy to set-up, although the customization can take some playing around with.  After a PD session or two, I’m happy with my class website.  For my testing, I’ve been using another site called ClassMarker.com.  It is functional because of its class-organization system, so I can track each student for each test.  What I don’t like is it’s randomizing capabilities.  It can only randomize questions and their answers, and even then, only to a certain degree.  Also, there is no import function for test questions, so I have to enter each test item-by-item (and for roughly 100 questions per test, that can be very time consuming).

I have never used Moodle for my own class, but after seeing how other teachers use it, I’m a fledgling convert.  Moodle will organize all of my class materials by unit as well as host ALL of my testing.  Moodle’s testing also randomizes about 100x more efficiently than any subscription testing site.  It has a test import option…no more typing every question.  It also will randomize everything, including short answer questions!  It take some parameters for the questions (let x=1-1000) and it changes for every student on every test.  It really tests student’s ability to use the information rather than try to remember the question from the last time they took the test.

The only thing that is daunting is that my school doesn’t have an on-site server…which means I get to learn about web hosting over the next few weeks as I try to figure this out.  I think I can sort through it, but if anyone happens to read this and knows how to perform an installation on a web host like GoDaddy or BlueHost, I would love to talk some more.

More coming as I work though this…

Update 9/18/2012 – Unfortunately, the videos no longer work because the students closed their accounts. Feel free to use this Google Doc for the activity.

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted about students putting together a periodic table of cereals for a project.  Well, the final drafts are in and I got some work this year that blew my mind.  Some of the best are shown below if you’re interested in browsing through some.

As an overview, students picked 25 cereals and then had to organize them in a comprehensive table.  It had to classify both rows (periods) and columns (groups) as well as 3 other properties of their choice.  Some students opted to use this as a test grade and were also required to submit a video answering some questions other students chose to write about.  Anyways, enjoy their work!

[STRIKEOUT:These are two of the videos that stood out amongst the rest.]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzNsLoQYKP4]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_Pusa0xJZM]