It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since I last published to this blog, which means one thing: The flipped classroom is indeed the time consumer that it was advertised to be. I would like to recap some of the highlights of the experience to date:

• I quickly gave up running three preps with it because of the time demands. I reduced it to two which became relatively manageable.
• On average, it took about 6 hours AFTER the recording to prepare a week. The syntax followed:
• At home:
• Student would watch a video
• Take a checking for understanding quiz (hopefully).
• In class:
• Brief 5 minute review about the material.
• Work with the material in class.
• Making sure teacher is readily available during work period.
• So do the math:
• 2 courses
• 18 weeks a semester
• 6 hours of additional content preparation.
• 6 * 18 * 2 = 216 additional hours of preparation and content creation
• 216 hours/24 hours = 9 full days of times per semester of additional preparation.
• So at this point, I would like to thank my forgiving and understanding fiance for being understanding and supportive.

Some conclusions:

• You can't go back: Long after the students were used to the flipped classroom model, one day I tried a half hour lecture and it failed miserably. The students got used to the flipped style and the lecture ended up producing the worst retention of the year.
• Your A's will not increase, your B's and C's will though: Through this model, I only had 4 total students get F's. Compare the stats below for my Visual Basic course:

Grade:	2013-14 (Not flipped)	2014015 (Flipped)
A	14 (24.1%)	21 (36.2%)
B	7 (12.1%)	26 (44.8%)
C	6 (10.3%)	8 (13.8%)
D	3 (5.1%)	2 (3.4%)
F	4 (6.9%)	1 (1.7%)
Population:	34	58

The AP Course had one additional F. No previous statistics to show for this. Out of 18, 1 F. The rest had C's or above.

So all in all, while the initial work is a tremendous effort, there is proof that the results do make significant gains in the class. I am currently in the process of flipping two more classrooms and want to continue to encourage everyone out there trying it that the results are highly worth it!