(upbeat pop music) - Today students have been called the net generation.

They've grown up with digital devices and use them for communication, entertainment, and learning.

So how are teachers modernizing their classrooms to reflect this new reality?

What does it mean for parents and is your child school ready to embrace these changes?

Find out next on IQ smart parents.

Hi, I'm Darieth Chisolm.

Welcome to IQ smart parent.

As the link between technology and the classroom continues to grow.

We're seeing more media being used in education, and this can impact learning at home.

Some teachers are even taking it even further and flipping the way students are learning in the classrooms.

It's a strategy that is actually called flipped learning and it's changing the way technology is used inside and outside the classroom.

(rustic guitar music) - I'm Aaron Sams and I teach science here at Woodland park high school.

My ultimate goal, I guess as a teacher is to help students become learners who can learn for themselves and by themselves, one of the problems that I was guilty of, even prior to flipping my classroom around was the classroom was centered around me.

I told them exactly what to learn, how to learn it, what assignments to do to learn it and when to learn it and how to prove to me that they learned it.

I don't do that anymore.

We changed the plates in which content is delivered instead of standing in front of a class and delivering here's how you do this type of problem.

Here's how this work.

I deliver that direct instruction.

Now asynchronously at home through these videos that we make with Camtasia studio.

times to hold.

- Now we didn't do that the last time - Because the last step they were already hold numbers.

We had one, one and four here.

- Yeah.

- Here We don't have a whole number.

So here's a few little tricks when you need to multiply by whole numbers.

If one of your numbers ends in 0.5, you're going to multiply by two .

- Something .5 times it by 2 - Right.

- Write this down Guys.

- Yes if something ends in .3 or .33, or .66, you multiply by three.

And then the kids come to class.

They don't show up to learn new stuff.

They show up to apply the things that they learn at home.

And to ask me questions about the things they've learned at home.

So now they can have my lesson, If you will.

What I would normally have stood up and lectured to them in class with some added features, they get that at home.

And then what they were expected to do for, for homework is now what they do in my class.

Life is different for me because I don't, I no longer am the guy who stands up in the front of the classroom and just yaks at a student for an hour or however long the class is.

Now, I walk around the class and I helped kids.

I'm a tutor, I'm a guide.

I'm the putter outer of fires, whatever it happens to be in my crazy chemistry class, I walk around and do that.

I don't stand up front and teach on the kind of the traditional model.

I'm Aaron Sams.

I'm a teacher, I'm a dad, I'm a husband.

And I love Camtasia studio.

- And with me now is Aaron sams.

He is the founder of the flipped learning network, as well as an educator and an author.

Welcome to the show.

It's so great to have you.

- [Aron Sams] It's great to be here.

- Great video.

And I love the fire in the hand.

So that was certainly very fun as a science teacher though.

How did you make the jump to flip learning?

And it really began experimenting with it.

- Yeah.

You know, back in 2006, 2007 school year, my colleague and co-author John Bergman, And I, we both ended up at a small school up in the mountains in Colorado at Woodland park high school.

And what we realized is we were kind of in a rural remote area and a lot of our students missed class for whatever reason where there, it was going to a football game or a speech and debate tournament.

You know, the nearest high school was an hour away, so they had to travel significant distances.

And so we started to experiment with video in our classroom by recording our live lectures, our live lessons so that students wouldn't get behind.

The great thing is that technology was really just kind of emerging at that point where it was very simple for a teacher to create their own content.

You didn't need expensive video cameras.

You didn't need expensive video editing software.

You could use those things, but there were a lot of really tangible tools that, that any teacher could, I think, leverage to create video content for their, for their students.

We realized after a few months that, that these were, these are reaching a lot of students, not just our own students, but students around the world were accessing our content online and we're thanking us for producing it.

And we realized that we've kind of tapped into something really powerful here.

The power of, of, of teacher created video as a, as a learning resource for our students.

So over the, a few conversations, over a few lunches, we decided to simply not lecture anymore in our classrooms to give up the direct instruction, to shift all of that onto videos that we created expecting students to then view the content before they came to class so that they were ready to engage deeply, to really dive deep in with the material when they got to class, instead of showing up to class for their first exposure to the material.

- And how did you find how receptive were they and how did that continue to evolve?

- You know, the students were very receptive there.

I mean, we're teaching the YouTube generation when, when students want to learn how to do something, they jump online and they learn how to do it.

When I want to learn how to do something, I jump online and I learn how to do it.

My own son, he's eight years old.

He could text before he could write.

And he really likes origami.

So our houses is just littered with these little origami things that he makes, and just almost every day, he'll hop online and he'll find a new thing to make, you know, a ninja star or a cat or, or a little, you know, flying disc that he'll, he'll, you know, fabricate and build, but he goes to YouTube, learn how to do it.

So this is a natural place for students to go for content.

So I decided as an educator, not to, not to, to sh to shy away from this medium, but to infiltrate the medium and to get good quality instructional material out there for my students.

So I think it was a natural progression for my students.

It was a familiar medium that, that, that they, that they liked it's ubiquitous.

They can access it on any device.

And it was, it was a natural transition for me as an educator.

- Yeah.

To really meet them where they are anyway.

- [Aron Sands] Absolutely.

- And, and as opposed to trying to steer them in a different direction, move with their demand and their interest, how difficult was it to get things up and running?

I mean, it's obviously you spend time as a teacher and in the science lab and not a videographer.

So how did all of this come together?

- You know, I've always dabbled with educational technology was I'm a fairly early adopter when it comes to that, but I am by no means of a video producer or filmmaker.

So the material that I was producing is not, it does not have a lot of high production value.

It's very simple, kind of a screen recording, you know, with my face on it, with my voice, with a digital pen, but it took some time to learn the technology.

The great thing though, is a lot of these technologies are, are one-stop.

So there's software that you can record your screen and your face and the digital pen, and do the video editing and produce the content and upload it all within the same piece of software.

So you're not learning multiple types of programs.

It's just one stop shopping and they continue to get easier and easier.

And a lot of tablet applications have made it even simpler, whether it's literally start, stop, upload, and you've created material for your students.

- And certainly the students know how to manage it because they're, of course, in this digital age, very comfortable with doing that.

Let's fast forward, - Okay.

- no pun intended.

And talk a little bit about a couple of books that you've written on, flipped learning.

It's certainly fascinating where you've taken this from, from concept to putting it into place.

And now of course, getting it out to other educators and your books have been certainly helpful in other classrooms.

- Yeah.

You know, I think one thing that teachers are really resonating with with the concept in general, and also, I think just with me and my colleague is that we are teachers we've spent many years in the classroom.

I was in the classroom for 12 years.

My colleague, John, who coauthored, he was in the classroom for 25 years.

So this wasn't an idea that was kind of hatched outside of an educational institution.

This is an idea that came to life with my colleague and I, and others around the country who we, who we later networked with, who were using video.

This, this is been a really a grassroots movement that has just kind of spread from, from colleague to colleague spread through, through students, requesting other teachers adopt this as they hear about it from their friends and, and friends from even other schools.

So it's really kind of been a ground swell, but the most effective implementations have been kind of ground up with support from the top.

- Great.

I want to turn things over now to some questions that we've received via social media from parents.

And here's the first one.

How does this work in elementary schools when younger children might not be able to understand maybe a video lecture?

- Yeah.

You know, the idea of using video as a teaching tool, it's going to look different at different grade levels.

So, you know, a high school teacher, I might make a 15 minute video teaching a general concept, but for younger students, you're probably going to want to limit that time.

Our general rule of thumb is typically one to one and a half minutes per grade level.

So a fourth grade student, four to six minutes now I made 100 chemistry videos for my students.

That was a lot of content, but I know some elementary teachers who just maybe make five for very key concepts that they want students to be able to pause, to be able to go back and review multiple times and for parents to be able to go through that learning process as well.

A lot of elementary teachers are also using this as a parent education tool where they can create video content of, you know, here's a project that your students were going to be working on.

You know, here's an example of a very good project.

Here's an example of one that's not so great.

And here's an example of one that mom and dad built for them.

You know, things like that to, to educate the parents about what's going on in the class room.

- And This really helps the parents stay in tune with what's going on in the classroom, because if they can sit down with their child and watch the videos, because there's nothing like asking a child, what did you do in school today?

Or what did you learn?

And of course, nothing comes out of their mouth.

Now you can actually see the video, watch it with them and help them learn or, or better supplement what they are learning.

- Right?

There's no mystery.

You know, some, some teachers teach in communities where there's some skepticism of what's going on in the school system.

This really opens up the doors and says, you want to know what's being taught here.

It is.

You can watch it on at home with your student.

You can support them as they're doing it and, and come in and, and see where, what we're going to do with it and where it goes from there.

And it presents better feedback for the parents when they get with the teacher, because they, they know what's happened because they've been watching their teacher on video.

- Right.

Exactly.

And, you know, there are many times I would bump into parents in the grocery store and they would say, Hey Mr. Sams, thanks for that Those chemistry videos, I really enjoy watching them.

And I'm thinking, what, what are you talking about?

But the, the, the parents were viewing the content with their students and either relearning something that they learned years past, or were learning something for the first time, cause they never had the opportunity to take the course I was teaching.

- Awesome.

This is great information.

And we're going to ask you to stay with us as we continue our conversation.

So from script writing to satire, we're now going to see how an English teacher flipped his classroom and became a PBS digital innovator.

That's next on IQ smart parent.

(upbeat pop music) - And welcome back.

Joining us now is Daniel Herald a high school English teacher who uses flipped learning approach.

He recently became one of 100 educators across the country to be named as a PBS digital innovator.

Congratulations and welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having me.

- So what inspired you to start using the flipped learning model in your classroom?

- Well it was probably a combination of two things.

The first is I had the same students as their seniors, as I had in 10th grade and their 10th grade year had gone really well.

They got good grades.

They were in class on time.

They seem to pay attention and I was excited to have them as seniors, but I soon realized that they forgot a lot of the information.

And so that taught me really that just because the students are compliant, just because they're getting good grades doesn't mean they're learning.

There's something not quite right about the way, At least I was doing things.

I also had the chance to see Aron at a conference in Pennsylvania, PETE&C.

And I saw a number of other videos online and that really got me inspired to think what other student centered options are there to really get kids learning content, not just getting grades.

- So you Realized there was an opportunity to now expose your kids to this model of learning, but then you had to get started.

- [Aron Sands] Right.

- [Darieth Chisolm] Was it difficult?

- Well yes and no.

I think there's certainly a lot of time that's involved.

The design is complex, especially if you want to do it for your whole class.

But like Aron was saying, the technology is such that even if you're not a video expert, you can really easily put together some quality products.

And so I think 10 years ago, could I have done it?

Probably not also because I was in high school, but also because the technology wasn't there, but now it's a lot easier.

- And you also knew that, that the audience, the kids were certainly consuming YouTube videos and watching videos.

And so they would obviously be open to this no matter what the production value looked like.

The purpose of it was obviously to find better ways for them to learn.

- Right.

I was spending so much time telling them to put their phones away.

You know, why not use that time to have them use them productively.

- Now, how receptive have they been to it?

And are you really seeing that they're getting more value out of this type of learning?

- Absolutely.

I think the, the quality of work that I'm getting is a lot better.

I grade on a mastery system.

What that means is that if students make a mistake on an assignment, I don't necessarily take off points and put it in a grade book.

I give it back to them with feedback and I ask them to fix it.

So they become less afraid of making a mistake in school when they have that freedom to fail.

And they're more interested in the content and, you know, high school kids don't always tell you when they like something.

So if anybody says something good, you know, you're on to something.

- Now What about their parents?

Cause I would imagine some of them may think, well, this isn't learning there.

They're playing around with YouTube videos and their cell phones.

So did you get any of that type of feedback or have they been very receptive?

- most parents have been very receptive.

Anytime I see them at a school function, they, they congratulate me on, on how the class is and they say that they've never seen their child interested in English class like that before, because sometimes English is a tough sell, but I have had a little bit of pushback.

I had a parent call and say, why are they making videos in your class?

Shouldn't it be English and shouldn't they be reading a book.

And I told him, well, we do read books.

However, when you think about English, it's not just about learning the plot of a story.

It's about reading, writing performance, being able to edit things.

And if you look at the plot of a video and putting all of that together, all of those skills are used.

So in a way they're learning more than they ever were before.

- But it is interesting.

When we think about how you can demonstrate that in a classroom, because clearly in the video that we saw with Aaron earlier, it was a science project.

There were things blowing up.

There were lots of tangible things for the kids to be involved with, but English and a book, you know?

So did you, did that present a challenge or you just found that you could be as creative as you wanted?

- Well, I think when you do flip learning with English, it's a lot different than with science and math.

I know science and math.

You have that element, at least, I assume I don't remember, but you have that practice at home.

And then you come in and you're able to work on labs.

You really don't have labs in English.

What you do have is reading and then beyond reading, what do you do with the book?

Why are we reading Beowulf, which was written 1300 years ago, you have to ask yourself, what are these bigger questions?

So I designed my class using a method similar to flipped learning.

It's called gamification.

In other words, the class is structured as though it is a video game.

Students start off at zero and they have to work their way up.

They acquire experience points instead of grades, they get badges for doing extra work on the side.

And eventually they gained powers and abilities to opt out of assignments, to do assignments in a new ways and really take ownership of their learning.

- So Aron, in this national scope, as you've working with lots of educators across the country, are they finding very creative ways like Dan to use this model, but to also maybe get out on the fringes and do different things that they might not normally be able to?

- Yes, definitely.

One thing that a lot of teachers are doing is they're using this idea of flipped learning and it's kind of a launch pad into, into greater things, into better things.

And so actually in my, in the second book called flip learning, we, we interviewed quite a few teachers and ask them to write a chapter on their experience of, of using this idea of, of video as an instructional tool and then sharing with us where that took them as an educator, how that took them from a student centered classroom to a learner centered classroom, to a student centered classroom.

So we have those experiences as well.

My colleague and I we've hosted a national conference for the last seven years.

It was actually just here in Pittsburgh.

This last year, Dan was one of the presenters there and shared his story of gamification in his classroom.

And so what we're seeing is just this, this kind of eruption of this network of people who start by using video and then take it to a second iteration, take it to gamification, take it to mastery-based learning, take it to project based, learning, taking it to, to inquiry learning.

All these student centered things that are well-researched well-established.

Ways of learning that are well researched, And well-established that, that a lot of teachers are maybe reluctant to move towards, or maybe don't know how to make that transition toward a lot of teachers are kind of stuck on content because we have, we have the standards, we have state standards, we have national standards.

We have, we have exams that go with that.

And a lot of teachers are clinging to that going well.

I might be a little afraid to take a step out of my comfort zone because I'm worried about those standards.

This gives them a way to kind of archive the content, the direct instruction, that information transfer to let students access that when they're ready for it.

So that then they can reinvent the class time to make it more of a rich learning environment without sacrificing content.

I mean, content is everywhere.

It's all over the place.

Teacher can grade couldn't create their own content.

There's content on YouTube.

You've got things like Khan academy.

You've got iTunes.

You you've got you Audacity.

You have all these resources out there for students to access material.

The teacher then has to ask the question, what's the value of the classroom space.

This is not online education here.

This is a kind of a hybrid blended approach where we're using these digital resorts to, to get that time back when the teacher and the students are face-to-face when the student's struggling, when they're, there's a learning expert in the room that can help them really get their head around these concepts.

That's what we're trying to maximize that time.

- And obviously we're talking about engaging students fully, but it totally engages the teachers because now they get to be creative and find new ways to teach in their classroom.

So we'd like to take a look at a video of a student who actually made a demonstration of a satire in one of Dan's classes.

So let's take a look.

- This is the big and bulky 5,000.

Do you want to lose weight and build muscle mass quickly?

Are you tired of being scammed by all the fitness machines sold in stores and infomercials?

Hi, my name is big and bulky and I'm here today to present to you a new product that has not yet hit the market, but we'll help you get big, fast.

This indestructible machine will last you a lifetime.

As a matter of fact, it has a lifetime guarantee.

I created it about five years ago in my parents' basement with some sweat and a little bit of elbow grease.

You can do just about any exercise with this glorious machine.

There are over 2000 exercise, including four bench inclines, pushups, sit ups, step ups.

God gave me lemons.

So I made the big and bulky 5,000.

- Okay.

So this was a part of an English class, right?

Obviously, you know, a satire, but, but what did the kids learn out of that that's what's most important or get out of it.

- Right.

So this is all part of a, just as an example, unit of Gulliver's travels and the British satire.

So what students did is to start the unit.

They watched a video of me.

I make a series of flipped lectures, just like Aron was talking about before, where I deliver the content that they don't, they don't know.

I use Camtasia studios and a PowerPoint.

Then the students will read the text and they'll work through it.

And they have some ways they can demonstrate that they understand it to me, but afterwards they have to make a project in which they have to usually complete a challenge.

In this case, what I told them was you need to make a satire of something.

It can be any industry, it could be any field, it can be any person.

And so these guys, they, they went with it.

They decided they were going to satirize infomercials, and they actually made a whole series of them.

They have a website where they have the original, they have their satire and they did a write-up explaining just what they were making fun of.

So it's basically using these skills and putting them into practice rather than just all hypothetical and work sheets.

- Well They clearly had fun doing it.

That's for sure.

Let's take another question that we have from one of our parents via social media.

This one, my child was in a flipped learning classroom last year.

And we were surprised at how much homework we received then in previous years is this typical?

- My experience has actually been the opposite.

My students got time back.

If I had previously sent home 30 minutes of homework in my chemistry class, in the flipped model, students probably had more like 15.

So that's, that's an, an it's unusual for me to hear that response from a parent.

What I typically hear from parents is my students said that you're not teaching them anymore.

And then you have to say time out, what do you mean by teaching?

Or do you mean, I'm standing up in front of the classroom and telling them new content.

You're right.

I'm not doing that anymore.

Here's how it's being delivered and look how great the classroom space has become and how much individualized attention your student is getting as a result of this change.

So once they actually get their head around that concept or even come visit the classroom, they, they, they see that this change is a positive one.

- So let's talk a little bit about how parents prepare for this.

And, and if they're interested in this model, what should be some of the things that they should be asking teachers or educators?

I mean, what direction and involvement should parents have?

- You know, the first thing I think is just recognizing that, yes, this is different than the way they went to school.

The second thing is if a, if a parent is, is questioning the model and wondering about, you know, is it effective or not just to come visit the classroom and they can see what's actually going on, but it's very important that teachers and administrators and districts, depending on if this is happening in a classroom or a school or a larger scale, that they communicate this very carefully to parents, that this is the way instruction is being delivered.

That you know, if you have trouble accessing this material at home, here are some ways that we will provide you to get that access, because that's very important that all students have access to the material.

So communicate directly show them that you're willing to, to overcome some of these hurdles and that the best you have the best interest of the students in mind.

And that's why you're proceeding.

- You got about a minute left in the show, and I'd love to just get any final thoughts or any comments that you'd like to share with us before we wrap.

- I always like, Aaron has said this in the past that a flipped learning is about what's the best use of your class time.

So it's not necessarily standing in front of the room.

It's giving students that autonomy.

I don't have just one type of student.

I have 30 different students.

Last year My students moved at their own pace.

Some finished the course in June, others finished in March and others were a little bit behind and I was there and I was available to give them that extra help.

I think that's one of the biggest elements.

- Right?

- Yeah.

You know, teachers, it could be difficult for them to make this transition and parents, it might be difficult for this transition, but the kids are ready and we really need to be looking out for the best interest of our students and meeting them where they're at and their consumption of media and in the way that they naturally learn and doing what we can to, to, to meet them where they are and not just have them fulfill our unnecessary expectations.

- And meeting them where they are is certainly the best way to get kids involved and keep them involved in that.

So thank you so much, gentlemen, for being here on the show today.

- Thank you.

- And as we look at this technology really does offer students a new way to show what they are learning.

It gives them a chance to personalize this learning in a way that is meaningful for them, modernizing how we learn and teach is more than just putting a computer or an iPad or a smart board in a classroom.

It means expanding the classroom to new horizons and new places that are both physical and virtual.

So flipping the classroom might mean flipping your roles at home as well.

Go ahead and let your children teach you something new that they're learning on the computer or iPad.

And don't hesitate to talk to your child's teacher, other families, other school administrators, to find out what strategies they're using and how parents can help.

For more information, you can visit our website iqsmartparent.org and visit our Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages for parent tips and much more.

(upbeat pop music) We'd love to hear about your experience with flipped learning.

Thanks so much for joining us.

(upbeat pop music) - IQ smart parent is made possible in part by Shady Side Academy and with generous support from the McCune foundation and the Grable foundation.