A teachers’ diary

Date:12-06-2017

Before I had known about the flipped class, I would stand in front of the class and lecture.
Then the students would practice and go over the work done. I would then address
student’s query and lecture some more. In the process I found that there were roughly
three types of students in my class - "Got it" type constituted about 30% of the class,
"Almost there" was a sizeable 50%, and the ‘Struggling to be there’ consisted of about 20%
of them.

Each of these groups presented their own set of problems to me. The "Got it" kids
would often get bored and tune out as I tried to help the "Almost there" group to
n understand the material. The ‘Struggling to be there’ kids would start feeling hopeless
because I would have explained a concept multiple times and they would still somehow
have perplexed expression on their faces. Despite my repeated assurances, the last group
would often pretend to have understood by not asking any further questions to avoid
embarrassment. I was just not able to find a way to meet the diverse needs of all the
students without others getting bored or frustrated. It was then when I stumbled upon the
concept of flipped classroom.

In the process of flipping my class, I started moving most of my "lecture" to a Ted-Ed

video (see the method of doing it below). This way, a student could take as long as they
needed, they could carry at their own pace to go over the ‘notes’ and the video till they got
it. No one missed out on anything because we moved on nor they were afraid to ask to
repeat something. This meant that each student ended up with the same base of knowledge
to work from, when we started applying the lecture to the classroom activities. Then, by
changing the structure of my class time to allow every student an opportunity to work on
assignments in a more self-paced manner over the course of a week, I found that students
worked in their own ways on different types of assignments. Some students were great
readers, but struggled with listening. Others could write with ease, but couldn't put a
sentence together in a conversation.

So, by making classwork assignments allocated in a weekly time frame, rather than
on a day-by-day basis, students were able to dedicate their time across all of the activities
and amazingly were finishing the week pretty much all at the same pace. Students who
needed to read a passage five times to gain the necessary comprehension could do so
because they only had to do a listening selection to get the gist. This structure gave all my
students a bit more freedom with their class time and I really saw an improvement in their
comprehension of all the modes of communication. Thus, with the Flipped Classroom
method, I gained more class time and am better at meeting the needs of all my students
who had different types of needs.
 When the students could work individually (or in small groups) on tasks, I was able to
better monitor my students as they worked. This enabled me to see the errors that the
students made BEFORE they had made the same errors repeatedly. This also allowed me to
do mini-lessons on an ongoing basis to address student’s needs as well as to give students
the consistent encouragement that they needed to be able to have the confidence to keep
trying.

Additionally, I was able to use reading to help students of different abilities to

improve. I loved to work with students as they read and made connections with everything
we had learned and they continued to gain not only in their language proficiency but in their
self-confidence too.

Overall the flipped class enabled me to focus on individual students. Best of all, I see more
smiles now than the frustrated sighs when I began teaching. ;)

Here is a sample of one of my lessons that I have used in my flipped class

https://ed.ted.com/on/mcxmZwss

How to create our own Ted-Ed lesson?

Now it is easy to create your own Ted Ed Lesson. Please find the note below for your
reference.

Teacher’s note to use, modify or create Ted Ed Lesson: There might be some Youtube
videos that a teacher might feel like using in her class and asking questions around it to be
used for assessment or remedial teaching. Follow these simple steps to use the existing
lessons, tailor them to your classroom needs and create your own Ted Ed lesson.

i) Click on the Ted Ed lesson link https://ed.ted.com/videos . In front of the screen

there will be an option to search a lesson using a keyword, this is to choose a
lesson of your choice from the existing Ted lessons. You can also copy and paste
the link of the Youtube video of your choice.
ii) After signing up for the account, you can customize the particular lesson chosen
from the existing lesson repertoire. You can also create a new lesson.
iii) After selecting a lesson, on the right side of the screen, the first option i.e.
“lesson title” gives the user a space to give a title to the lesson using a maximum
of 41 characters.
iv) On the left side of the screen there is a Video section, where there are options
to change a video / crop a video (by adjusting the starting pin and the stop pin or
by adjusting the video timer).
v) Then there is the Get Started section, where the “Let’s Begin “option will show
an interface where a user can introduce a lesson using a few sentences. User gets
the space to introduce a lesson in an effective way by using the Bold B, Underline
U, Italic I, superscript, subscript and attaching the link tools.
vi) In the Think section, there is space to create Open Answer Question/Multiple
Choice Question. The Open Answer Question gives the user space to write only
questions, while choices of multiple choice questions can be customised with the
help of the available tools like bold, italic, underline, superscript / subscript.
There is an option to drag the order of choices as well as the questions.
vii) Supplemental Info could be provided in the Dig Deeper section where the
interface gives a space to add some more information for the students. The tools
available are the same as that of the Let’s Begin section but with one additional
tool i.e. “Insert Image” tool.
viii) If a teacher feels that there is a possibility to have discussion about a particular
topic in her class, there is a “Discuss” section in which a teacher can prompt a
discussion. A description about the discussion can also be incorporated here.
ix) In the last, the lesson ends with the closing thoughts which would be displayed in
the “And Finally” section.

There are a few more options available to preview the lesson, to adjust the settings, to get
help and delete the lesson.

After the final draft, click on the Publish tab to make your lesson public. Happy Lesson
Creation☺

- By Komal Mahajan with Academic Team