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This discussion forum is being moderated as an expression of servant leadership in teaching & learning. As a collaborative tool for brainstorming enriching experiences for students, teacher learning groups, and district learning teams, we can inspire and build experiences to help empower each of us to personal leadership in learning. Thank you, in advance, for your contributions and leadership to realizing outcomes for improving student achievement, equity and well-being.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

reflection & accountable talk: Powerful drivers to enhancing student & teacher Learning (part 2/2)

2/4/2017

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introduction

Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post, I wrote about our excitement, at North Grenville District High School (NGDHS, Kemptville, ON) to seeing students grow in their ability to communicate, collaborate, create, and think critically during their Mathematics classes.

Today's post has been structured to provide reader's with some insight as to how teachers and students have worked together to developing classroom spaces where thinking and communicating, mathematically, is vitally important to growing inclusive learning environments.

The narrative of this 'story' has been captured in two forms:

Form 1
-a presentation (via screen-cast, slide-deck provided) to delegates at the 2017-18 OAME (Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators) Annual Conference in Kingston, Ontario
​

Note: The screen-cast presentation can be re-purposed in different ways.
  • Option A: If you're a teacher and/or teacher leader, you might consider going through the "EDpuzzle" version (below) as a means of self-directed learning and/or cultivating ideas on how you can get talk going in your own classroom(s).
  • Option B: If you're a school administrator or instructional coach, you might consider using the YouTube version (below) as a means of facilitating a professional learning opportunity for other administrators, coaches, and learning teams of teachers.

Form 2
​-a collaborative, action-based research project conducted by students and their teacher at NGDHS, captured with video


The post ends with a reflection regarding next steps for student and teacher learning (as defined by our school's School Improvement Plan for Student Achievement, SIPSA), as well as a reflection on my own learning through engaging in creating and sustaining professional learning opportunities in Mathematics.

Readers might also find the posted resources helpful in moving their own learning forward.

narrative 1: OAME 2017-18 Annual conference

Option A: EDpuzzle Interactive Video

EDpuzzle is a video-hosting service that allows its users to upload their created and curated content for their viewers. A key feature of this service is the function of being able to embed questions, voice-over, comments, and links into your material. This feature allows viewers to interact with the video, thus increasing their engagement (and learning), while providing timely assessment information for the account holder.

Instructions: By clicking on "Start Assignment", you'll be prompted to create your free, EDpuzzle account. You'll need the join code, e394qx, to complete your registration. Alternatively, click on the the link that follows to complete your registration: https://edpuzzle.com/join/e394qx 
​

Option B: YouTube for Facilitating Professional Learning

Presentation Slide-deck:
VIEW

Resource: Talk Moves Checklist

​Below you'll find the checklist used during the course of the study. A link to download the file is also included below the document reader.

Talk Moves Tracking Tool:
math_talk_observation_checklist.docx
File Size: 21 kb
File Type: docx
Download File


narrative 2: collaborative action-based research

What processes can we immerse ourselves in to help engage students in deepening their own learning? The video (below),"Culture to Culture: Student Voice to Collaboration" captures the journey through collaborative, teacher professional inquiry, over a 2-year span at North Grenville District High School, Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) in Kemptville, Ontario. As co-learners in the process, students reflect on how their voices are critical aspects to growing student engagement and capacity to learning mathematics in a thinking classroom.

Reflection & next steps

Having interacted with the resources provided, you might be wondering: "What's next?" What are next steps for student learning? Teacher learning? School learning?

The answer to this lies not only in what we can takeaway from these results; further to this, we need to interpret this work in relation to the goals set out for our school's learning team, and then plan for the next cycle of inquiry.

Below you'll see a team reflection/analysis from school-based work this year. We're proud of the work accomplished by teachers and students and are looking forward to the next iteration of collaborative, action-based research and inquiry in 2017-18. 
Picture
As provided in the text (above), the school team would like to reconsider their lessons. In terms of re-looking, it will be important that we delve into studying our mathematical knowledge for teaching. Greater consideration will be given to Stage 2 and 3 instruments (Liljedahl, 2016) when planning our interactions with one another and facilitating problem-based lessons with our students through a co-teaching model.
Picture
In closing, thank you for your readership and participation with Flipping the Focus.

Having engaged with the content of this post, if something has resonated with you, please feel free to comment to the blog and/or contact me for further details or conversation.

Sincerely and Collegially Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT (North Grenville DHS, Kemptville, ON)
Learning Partner for 2017-18 (UCDSB Teaching and Learning Department)
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Flipped Elementary?

10/15/2014

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Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In the last post to this blog, I described an internet-based service, EDpuzzle, for hosting your own videos--videos that you can edit and to which you can add assessment items.  Altogether, this service has the potential to help educators help their students make the most out of the videos they're watching both in and out of the classroom.  In conjunction with the post, a professional learning opportunity was posted and is accessible by all--this opportunity is still available ... feel free to check it out.

This week, Sandy Pignon--Grades 4 and 5 teacher at Kemptville Public School, Upper Canada DSB--shares her experience re: a flipped model of learning in the elementary grades (see below).  I am thankful to Sandy for sharing her experiences with you, in this forum, as I believe that there is much to explore and much for teachers and students to gain by considering how flipped learning could tranform the teaching and learning experience in the elementary years.

In advance, I thank you for your interest in our writings and look forward to your comments to this and other postings.

Questions?  Feel free to contact us at
flippingthefocus@gmail.com.

Sincerely Yours,

Chris Stewart, OCT
Program Resource Teacher-Mathematics
Upper Canada DSB
Brockville, ON

SANDY PIGNON, OCT
It is not a secret that in the elementary school setting, parents are truly the key holders to a successful Flipped Learning model.  Yes, I tell my students that it is their responsibility to go to my website, open the homework tab and watch the videos posted there for them.  But the truth remains: they are young children who need their parents' support to ensure that they are using the internet in a safe way and that they are completing their 'homework' requirements.  To my parent community, I am very grateful.

But here is what surprised me most so far about Flipped Learning in a junior classroom:  It not only facilitates student learning in a quiet, 'safe' environment, but it allows PARENTS to learn alongside their child.  I know ... that sounds a bit ... "over the top".  It even sounds that way to me, as I write it.  Let me explain.

During the second week of Flipped Learning, I had a parent approach me and ask whether my flipped lessons were covering grade-level material.  "No, as it stated in the video; we were reviewing some of our primary, adding strategies such as doubles facts for single digit numbers," I explained.

He was truly not aware that this was a 'lagging skill' for his child. 

Armed with the new information, building basic math facts became a priority in his and a few other households in September.

At our school Open House, I was curious to hear reactions to the Flipped Learning.  Almost all the parents were supportive and a few asked me to clarify how adding strategies (such as double facts, compensation, etc.) would help with multiplication later in the year.  They had only considered repeated addition as an alternative to memorizing multiplication facts.  Why?   Because rote memory and algorithms are the way they learned multiplication.

Finally, just last week, I had a parent explain to me that when she was in grade three she missed almost her entire school year due to illness.  She now watches each and every video with her child and is learning strategies alongside him.  She commented that, even as an adult, she had no idea that there were strategies to make adding easier.

Flipped Learning is a rewarding, and sometimes, surprising journey.  When I started, I knew that parents were a key stakeholder in their students' success.  I never stopped to consider, however, that some parents may be on a journey of their own.

The bottom line is that although parents have a big role to play in the success of Flipped Learning in elementary school, one should consider the value it may hold for the parents personally or in their ability to support their child's learning.

Sincerely,
Sandy Pignon, OCT
Grades 4, 5
Kemptville Public School, UCDSB

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looking for a PLN? A flipped Pln?

9/19/2014

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Welcome back to Flipping the Focus.

In my last post, you read about and were challenged to see where you could link flipped learning to helping Ontario renew its vision for educational excellence.

As it is likely with most models of improvement, they are best designed, implemented, experienced and refined through collaboration.  Michael Fullan, in Stratosphere, writes that a "trial-experiment- learn-refine approach" will be required as we learn how technology, pedagogy, and knowledge of system reform combine to help students find their "purpose and passion."  From personal experience, I designed and implemented a flipped classroom model in a senior mathematics course. Through the co-experience (i.e., with students), we refined the model so that it helped them to best meet the expectations of learning.  For example, shortening videos and providing templates for creating summaries were suggestions used in refining and renewing the process we were engaged in pursuing.

Up to this point, I've mentioned a very important relationship--of paramount importance when it comes to supporting student learning: the teacher-student relationship.  As teachers, we have the wonderful privilege of helping students overcome obstacles in learning by instilling a growth mindset. As Stanford University Professors Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler would tell us, a growth mindset is characterized by the belief that learning is not fixed ... that your brain--like a muscle--has the ability to become stronger when it persists through challenging tasks.

But to help students grow their mindsets into one that supports their learning, we, too, need to grow our own efficacies about the subjects we teach and the coaching of learning skills.  We have a shared understanding that the most supportive forms of professional learning are those that are collaborative and embedded into our day-to-day experiences--collaborative inquiry supports our learning.  Thus, to achieve educational excellence through flipped learning requires that educators are able to engage in meaningful, professional learning about 'flipping' their practice--whether, they're establishing "Flipped 101" or growing their mastery with "Flipped Learning" (Jon Bergmann & Aaron Sams)--and are supported through the process of learning.

To our good fortune, the number of professionals experimenting with flipped models of instruction is growing across both Canada and the US, and there are a number of organizations that are available to helping teachers at getting started and growing their practice.  Examples of these organizations include the Flipped Learning Network and Flipped Learning: Turning Learning on Its Head.

Given that there is a growing number of teachers experimenting with flipped models of learning, the 'distance' between them (to engaging in timely, meaningful collaboration around a course of study, set of standards--curriculum or assessment, logistics of management, and/or 'mechanics' of the technologies leveraged) is sometimes far too vast.

Solution?  Not all too long ago, I finished reading Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement (Bergmann & Sams, 2014).  And it was within one of the contributing author's chapters that I was inspired to not only consider but to try leveraging current technology in connecting educators who are at similar positions along their 'journey' into flipping their practice.

Contributing author, Delia Bush (p142), explained how she discovered a website called Flipped Learning Journal (FLJ).  One of FLJ's resources--and there are many--aims to connect educators, with an interest in flipping, through completion of an on-line web-form.  By sharing some contact information and their interests, an educator helps build a network of professional learning from which they, too, can learn--fantastic idea!


If you explore the service's web-form results (in Google Sheets), you'll notice that there are many educators registered--registered from regions across the US and western Canada.  Something that you might also notice is that there is relatively smaller representation from Ontario.  This left me thinking about the following, "What more can be done, at this time, to help Ontario educators enter into experimenting and/or sharing their expertise with flipping with others?"  Do Ontario educators know of this service or others of its type?  Could it be that there might be some apprehension as to how effective their learning experience might be if collaborating with others who operate with a different curriculum, set of standards, assessment policy, etc?

Having been inspired by FLJ's web-form service, I took some time to experiment with Google Forms and providing access to potential registrants to the responses collected by the form.  The result--Flipped PLN Finder--is a similar service, but I'd like to gear it towards connecting Ontario educators interested in 'flipping' their practice.  The link (below post) will take you directly to the form.  Along with following #flipclass/#flipchat twitter chats, blogs, and websites, I sincerely hope that the PLN Finder will help Ontario educators find and take a plausible next step in self-directed professional learning.

If you have any questions or comments to make about this post and/or the PLN Finder, please feel free to do so.  Questions can be directed to flippingthefocus@gmail.com. 


Next Post

It's hard to believe that we're nearly three weeks into a new school year!  With the passage of time, I'm reminded of an upcoming conference that the Upper Canada District School Board is hosting on October 23rd and 24th at the NavCan Centre in Cornwall, Ontario--the Small School Summit.  Along with my colleagues, Andrew Pratt and Sandra Pignon, we'll be presenting a session geared at not only introducing the flipped classroom model to session participants but also what it might look like to reach 'flipped learning.'  Full details and registration for the conference are available here.  


Part of our presentation focuses on the use of educational technology--specifically, EDpuzzle--in helping craft videos that contain assessment questions--opportunities for a teacher to glean some insights about their students' viewing habits and understanding of what they've watched in teacher-created and/or -curated videos.

What you might find interesting and supportive is an opportunity to engage in the EDpuzzle student experience!  In the coming week, I will be opening my EDpuzzle class to you such that you have the opportunity to form your own conclusions about the service.  I think you'll like what you see!

Until then, ...



Collegially and Flippingly Yours,


Chris Stewart, OCT

Program Resource Teacher-Mathematics
Upper Canada DSB
Brockville, ON

Flipped PLN Finder
PLN Finder
Small School Summit, 2014
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    I am passionate about leadership for learning and teaching and learning through inquiry. Through collaborative exploration of high-yield, pedagogical strategies, I have been able to further engage students to deepen their learning and fellow educators in continuously growing their practice--Flipped Learning, Thinking Classrooms, and culturing Student Voice as examples.  I hope that this site serves you well in your educational journey through teaching and learning by moving professional learning into your time ... your space. If you have questions or feedback, please feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Chris Stewart (OCT).

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    ​The discussion, information, and materials provided in this online space do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB), Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators (OAME), Ontario Ministry of Education (MoE), the University of Windsor (Faculty of Education), and their affiliates. This online space is intended to provide its readers and/or contributors with opportunities to learn about and share, respectively, information about teaching & learning. The UCDSB, OAME, MoE, UWindsor, and their affiliates do not guarantee the accuracy and appropriateness of the content posted. Aside from the moderators' posts, Flipping the Focus does not guarantee the accuracy of the comments and/or information posted by contributors. The moderators have the right to remove and will remove any content that they deem inappropriate or offensive. Questions regarding the information posted can be directed to the site's moderators using the contact form provided (below).

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