As a teacher in the flipped learning movement, I sometimes struggle with sharing what I do in class.  Especially when I am running what looks more like a teacher-centred classroom than what I would like.  

However, I've had to come to the realisation that being student-centred is about doing what the students need for where they are in their education and with the content knowledge and academic habits they bring with them.  So sometimes that looks like me being at the "front" (there is no front in my classroom) and everyone engaged in a synchronous activity.  In fact, that's what it looks like most of the time right now.

For both years Andrew and I have team-taught, we started running several minutes before even hitting the ground.  We planned to throw our students into the deep end, and then hope that they could swim as well as we wanted them to.  And yeah, that failed.  Shocking, I know.

After only a few days (it took six weeks last time), we saw that we needed to take a few steps back and build their skills before expecting them to take ownership over their learning in any meaningful way.  Since that's the ultimate goal of any class we teach, it was important enough to change enough that we could get it right.

We were already planning the first unit (for me, the entire first trimester) to be about the brain, how teenagers think, feel, and learn, and to centre around the novel Looking for Alaska, by John Green.  So we started thinking about the skills and knowledge they would need in order to start taking responsibility for their learning.  The short (and nowhere near comprehensive) list came down to:

1. Taking notes, both as annotations while reading and while taking in information from a video or in class
2. Collaborating and having academic conversations with peers
3. Establishing a procedure for writing fluency - writing without stopping or talking for 3-10 mins
4. The basics of patterning - finding patterns in a text, categorising those patterns, and starting to find meaning
5. Using information from sources accurately and effectively
6. How to work productively and independently for a short amount of time without disrupting others
7. Using technology essential to the course - Google Drive, MentorMob, YouTube, Gmail, Blogger
8. What it means to work to mastery, rather than just for completion

We gave ourselves the first trimester or so to teach and assess those skills.

As we started to plan out the unit, we thought about what content we should use for this unit.  Other than Looking for Alaska, we didn't want to use fiction, either short or long-form, or poetry (or at least not predominantly).  So we decided to focus on two things:

1. How the teenage brain operates, and how it learns
2. What the purpose of school is, and how our understanding and decision-making is (or should be) influenced by brain development

So we began to build a unit that would teach our students those concepts; however, the real focus is on the skills.  So we will watch a TED Talk on the adolescent brain, but the actual assessed skill is note-taking.  The question on the open-notes assessment is just a way of checking to make sure students see the utility of good note-taking.  We may do a piece of visual art about one of the videos we watched, but the real skill is in finding patterns and showing the main idea clearly through their art (even if it's stick figures).  All of these skills are things that are required in the Common Core standards, or lead to students becoming more critical readers, writers, and thinkers.  We also believe that regardless of whether these things are in the standards verbatim, they are the skills that literate human beings need for whatever they do after leaving high school.

Everything is leading toward the project students are undertaking that centres around this question:
What is the purpose of a high school, and what can we do to implement one change at our school to make it fit that purpose better?

That question will guide all of our study.  If you want to see what this looks like, here is the MentorMob playlist that has all the videos we're using (we do a video every day at the start of class to get students in their seats on time and focused, and also to give them something to write about if they need a topic for their daily writing warm-up.  We also have used lots of TED Talks about education and the teen brain) and many of the assignments we've created to lead them towards thinking about education and their place in their school community.  I've also started getting in the habit of taking a picture of anything I write, whether it's on the board or my own personal notes about something.  I post these for my students, and many of the steps on the playlist are the notes/instructions that I've modelled and made available for all students.

As with all our curriculum, please take what works for you and use it.  We do ask that you credit us if you take something exactly as-is.  We also acknowledge that NONE of this would be possible without having TED Talks available for free online, and without the work of many of our colleagues, particularly Karl Lindgren-Streicher, who did a version of the "What would you do to make a positive change at our school" project.  We are blessed to have such amazing people share so freely with us, and we'd like to extend the same offer to all of you.

This is part three of a series on my collaborative partnership with Andrew Thomasson. 

It seems like every time I write about the mechanics of our collaborative partnership here on the blog, Andrew and I end up fighting.  Not just disagreement fights, where one of us wants to use Batman cartoons, and the other wants to go super arty hipster and use Batman comics...but only in an ironic way.  

No, these are Real Fights.  I guess when we talk about how awesome it is to work together, all that awesome has to be balanced out by some not-awesome.  This fight was about time.  We have about a dozen projects in the works, and we've had trouble finding the time to do any of it.  Even finding time just to be Friends First was tough the past two weeks.  Coming back from FlipCon, where we were used to having as much time together as we wanted, made readjusting to life lived through technology difficult.  

Finding time is probably our biggest problem, either in the school year or the summer, although our summer schedules conflict far more than in the school year.  Without bells to regulate where we are and at what time in a reliable manner, we have to prioritise differently when we do get time together.  There are always more ideas than we have time for.  And there are always more projects than we could finish in years of work.

But you know what?  That's actually a pretty awesome problem.  

We could be sitting there, bored with each other, running on the fumes of what we've already done or trying to reinvent our ideas just a little to make people think they were different.  But we have SO MANY NEW IDEAS that we can't possibly use them all.  Maybe that's why we like blogging and sharing on Twitter.  If we didn't share some of the ideas we have, then no one would ever use them.  

So even when we've seen our ideas on other people's blogs, or shared on Twitter, or in presentations or videos, there's something pretty cool about that.  Sure, we'd like attribution if the idea was taken from us, but we love that our ideas have a life beyond us.  

It's almost like creating more time for our work.  

We may not produce work forever, and it's even possible that we might not stay in a collaborative partnership forever.  But there have been so many cool things we've done, and even more cool things we've seen other people do with help from us or our ideas, that we think our work will last longer than we will.

And none of the good ideas we've had in the last year could have existed outside of our collaborative partnership.  It's the relationship that generates the ideas. 

 Just like in our classroom, it's the relationship that really matters.

Oh yeah, and we're not fighting any more.  When we argue, it tends to burn out quickly and resolve completely within a few hours (or even minutes), assuming we can find time to talk about it.  Conflict is just a part of life, and one of the things I'm proud of in our partnership - that we've learned ways to fight humanely, resolve issues completely, and not allow resentment to build.  As much as it sucks to fight, we've found that even the fighting is worth it.  It helps when you know that no matter what the fight is about, there's no escape hatch.  Neither of us is going to play the, "Forget it. This partnership and friendship is too much work and drama.  I'm out" card.  There's security in that knowledge.

Again, we are really blessed to be working together, even if there are occasional arguments and not nearly enough time for all the awesome we have planned.

There will always be too much awesome to be contained in our CoLab Partnership. 

#CoLabProblems

This is part two in a series on my collaborative partnership with Andrew Thomasson.  Some of you are probably saying, "Um, what post here is NOT about your collaborative partnership with Andrew Thomasson?" and you would be right.  This partnership has defined my career for the last twelve months, and has changed just about everything that happens in my classroom, and even in my outside-of-school-life. 

He and I were discussing this series of posts this morning, and realised that there is no way to talk about our partnership without talking about our friendship.  Without going into too much detail, both of us have had a very difficult personal and academic year, and we both have years and years of bad patterns with friends and work situations.  Both of us have had close friends who tend towards seasonality; friendship with them is great while it lasts, but life moves one or both of us in a different direction and the friendship dissolves.

Given those factors, it makes our partnership and friendship even more remarkable.  As I wrote in the last post, it is pretty easy to avoid one another if and when we want to, unlike with people who are physically in your living room, rather than pixelly (is that a word? No? It is now).  But maybe the fact that we became friends through technology broke that pattern.  While it doesn't occur to me to have a Google Hangout with friends who live an hour away, Andrew and I have always hung out that way, so it doesn't seem weird at all.

The distance also allows us to spend time at lunch and at night together that would be more difficult if we were in the same place.  We can pretty easily wear pajamas and have dessert and work right up until bedtime without a problem.  If we were in the same place, that just wouldn't be possible.  And because there's so much work, that is a massive benefit.

If you've never had a teaching partner, you probably don't know how much extra work it can be over just teaching your own classes.  The first team-teaching situation I was in involved another English teacher who taught English 10 at the same time I did, and we combined for a project.  It was fantastic, but it only lasted for one project.  The planning burden was overwhelming and we couldn't sustain it.  

The second team-teaching situation was a nightmare.  She didn't respect my content knowledge (it was my first year teaching history, even though I have a history degree and had three years of experience teaching English), and I didn't respect her classroom management (it was her first year teaching in an inner-city Oakland school).  The mentor who worked with our principal told us that team-teaching was sort of like a marriage, and helped us through some marriage counselling.  He told us that we had to commit to each other and that we should have spent more time choosing carefully (we jumped in, based on a commitment made in my INTERVIEW for the position).  As it happened, we ended up "married" to someone who hated us and that subsequently made both of us (and our kids) miserable.  Thank goodness that it didn't last long, as I was able to switch to teaching physics instead about two months into school.  


So when Andrew and I met, I didn't expect it to be a team-teaching situation.  I thought we'd make some videos and work on some projects together and that'd be it.

Then we became friends.  The friends part actually preceded the decision to team-teach; we could only make that commitment once we were sure that we knew and liked the other person, and that it wouldn't make our kids miserable.  It took us about a month of working together to get to that point, and it was pretty obvious that we were well-matched by then.  We actually enjoyed spending time together, the work was better when we collaborated, and we compensated for each other's weaknesses.  All of those things were important in assessing whether or not we should dive into team-teaching together.

So if you're considering a collaborative partner, you need to assess those same things.  You also will need to decide how much control you're willing to give up, and how much you are willing to invest in them as a person, as a friend, and as a teacher.  Inevitably, team-teaching involves putting aside what you want and helping the other person get what they need.  This is really, really, really freaking hard.  It also involves mentoring and being mentored.  If you don't respect and value their opinion, it won't work; if they don't respect and value yours, you shouldn't choose them.

When it comes down to it, choose someone who makes your life better, and whom you would hate to live or teach without.  I can't emphasise that enough: you have to be willing to say, "As difficult as this is, I'm willing to persist because I believe in what we're doing, and you're worth it."

Believe me....that will be tested.  For us, that started about three months into our partnership.

Around October of last year, Andrew and I started having arguments for the first time.  We are pretty low-conflict people, and so tend towards resentment and unspoken bitterness...not the best thing when you're working as closely as we were.  There were two options, really:

1. Both of us had to change
2. We had to stop working together

There were a few times that we limited our work because one or both of us was angry or bitter about something.  The trouble was, that once we got used to having a shared brain and had seen how much better it was in our classroom when we did collaborative planning, it was really hard to go back to the Before Times.  


So we - both of us - had to change because that was less painful than walking away altogether.  


We don't talk about this aspect of our partnership all that much, because it felt too private, too sacred to share.  But what gave us the ability to resolve our differences and continue to forge ahead was our shared faith.  We are both generic non-denominational Christians, and that has given us not only a way to resolve conflict, but a community to help us keep going until we felt like it was worth it again.  There were a lot of weeks where Andrew practically joined my community group, and he's been introduced to almost all of them through Hangout.  Having people who know both of us allowed us to get perspective on how to serve the other person, rather than just caring about what we wanted.


We both believe that without that shared faith, we would have never made it through the last year.  Neither of us was good at friendship a year ago; now, I think we've learned a lot about what it means to sacrifice for the other person to get what they need, but also to advocate for ourselves and what we need.  A solid relationship has to balance both - if only one person cares about the other person's needs, then they will burn out on the other person's selfishness.  And if neither cares, the friendship will dissolve or explode fairly quickly.  


One of the reflections we had in the final FlipCon13 session was that in five years, we'd like to be even better friends to one another.  That is perhaps the most important goal we have for ourselves and our work.


We know that people see our partnership and the work we do and want to know how to duplicate it (it's the question we get asked most, actually).  And the most fundamental rule we can give you is this one: Friends First.  The work we do together is made possible by a really amazing friendship that strengthens us, energises us, and motivates us to keep going with the work and with each other.  


That's not to say that it's all rainbows and ponies.  It's not.  We have disagreements still, but we've learned how to actually practice the rules we set in place a year ago.  Here are some of them:

• Trust Best Intentions - I've heard this in every team situation I've ever been in, and it's been followed in just about zero of those cases.  Both of us find trust difficult, and learning to not jump to conclusions and see through the actions to the intentions has been really, really difficult.  There are still times where he won't text me back, or doesn't do something he says he'll do, and I have to stop myself from inventing negative motivations to his actions and trust that there's a reason and that it doesn't come from lack of care.
• Work is Secondary to Emotional Health - there are some nights that, instead of planning, we need to spend time just being friends.  Sometimes, that's hanging out and watching bad 80's movies.  Sometimes, that's talking about whatever is weighing us down.  Sometimes, it's watching Wheezy Waiter videos and crying with laughter.  We've learned that trying to push through and do ALL OF THE PLANNING first is nearly always a failure.  We need to value the friendship above having an amazing lesson plan.
• Talk About Whatever You're Angry About - we don't allow silent resentment to build up anymore.  Instead, we talk about it together - no matter how crappy the conversation is going to be.  We also don't call each other names, ever.  We do tell each other to shut up (or the more adult equivalent) sarcastically from time to time.  And then we laugh about it.  We have never had an argument where one of us resorts to name-calling because we always deal with issues before we get to the point where we are willing to assign a permanent negative label (jerk, asshole, etc.) to the other person.  I've never really been able to say what I'm thinking or what I'm angry about and not have the other person react badly.  I'm really proud to say that Andrew and I are getting good at this, and that it's changing the patterns in our other friendships as a result.

None of those are all that revolutionary.  Frankly, there are probably people who look at that list and wonder why two 30-ish year olds don't just do that naturally by now.  And to those people, we would say, "Shut it."

But only sarcastically. 

One of our friends on Twitter, Gary Strickland (@SciAggie), recently asked me to share the workflow and logistics of my collaborative partnership with Andrew Thomasson.  

If you're new to this blog, I'll start with a little context.  I flipped my high school English class for two semesters before looking to Twitter to find people to help me.  I talked to a few English teachers (there weren't many around then) and had some great conversations.  But none of them seemed like a match - either personality-wise, or with the classes they teach, or what they were looking for from their flipped class.  I still work with many of them, and have learned a lot through their sharing on Twitter and on their blogs.  Here's the blog post I wrote after our first conversation.  

So here are Rules For Finding a Collaborative Partner.

1. The first rule of finding a collaborative partner is that they have to be the right person.  I had to meet and interact with lots of people before I felt like I found someone with whom I could work.  And with Andrew, from the very beginning, it just felt right.  That's almost impossible to quantify, I know.  But there was an ease to the conversation, and an obvious chemistry when we started recording videos (as cringe-y as I find watching them now, it's still there).  As we started working, it became clear that we also were a match in personality and classroom contexts that fit...and those things were just as important as the work we produced together.  We only completed a single video before we started talking about non-school stuff (first conversation: "What music do you like?".  Very important).

2. The second rule is to try to produce something and assess the way each of you work and approach the work.  At FlipCon, we observed that nearly all collaborative partnerships have the basic dynamic that Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams do.  Jon is more type-A and organised, Aaron is more care-free and improvisational.  I'm Jon, and Andrew is Aaron.  Without me, we might not finish anything.  Without him, I would get bored and/or never take risks on things that might not work.  Now we're actually pretty similar in most ways, but that one difference means that we get a lot done that neither of us would ever do on our own.  We want the same things: intellectual engagement, new and exciting ideas, projects that become bigger than we would have committed to alone, and to have fun.  I know that I would eventually get frustrated if I was working with someone who was more driven than me.  And Andrew would be frustrated if he was working with someone who wasn't open to being flexible and changing products every now and then.

3. The third rule is to have your students and PLN assess the work you've done and listen to what they say about the success of the product and partnership.  We had Crystal Kirch and Karl Lindgren-Streicher help us pretty early on, and it made a difference that they were solidly supportive and thought our work was interesting.  We also got attention quickly from some of the people we most respected - Jon, Aaron, Brian - and they loved what we were doing.  Now, I have done enough collaboration to know that if people are uninterested in what you're doing, it's not always because you're uninteresting.  But if the collaboration chemistry isn't right, and other people sense it too, then it's probably not going to last.

4. The next rule is that you have to have time for the collaboration, and when you don't, that you make time for the collaboration.  At the beginning, we probably spent about 15 hours a week together.  And during the school year, we spent about 3 hours on school days talking, reflecting, and planning.  That doesn't include emails and other textual communication.  We planned for nine classes together, and wrote all new curriculum, so it took a lot of time.  Plus, there were lots of classroom issues and school issues and...well...issues.  We needed that much time, and whenever we had an article to write or other professional obligations, we needed more than that.  Most other years where we were teaching classes we'd taught before, or in schools where we were more established (both of us were at new schools), or with less insane workloads (6 new preps and 310 students for me), we would have needed far less time.

5. The final rule (for now) is to be the collaborative partner you want, and be prepared to compromise and discuss when that doesn't happen.  Like in any relationship, we have to put aside the things we want sometimes to do what's right for the other person.  Each of us sacrifices for the other, and if we weren't willing to do that, there's no way we could still be friends or collaborative partners.  There were times that we wanted to kill each other, so we developed a set of rules so that we wouldn't actually commit murder from across the country.  Seriously though, do you know how easy it is to hang up the phone, turn it off, and shut the laptop cover?  It's much easier than walking out of a room to avoid an argument.  I won't share our rules in their entirety because they don't make sense out of the context of our relationship, but here are a few, with explanations:

• Friends first - we put the friendship and the other person's emotional health above the work.
• No shutting down to avoid an argument - shutting down can be emotional or technological.  Even when it's uncomfortable, we stay and fix it instead of running.
• No self-criticism - we're both convinced the other person is smarter, better at everything, and that we are getting the better end of the deal in this partnership.  And we don't allow self-deprecation, even as humour.
• Cheryl always spells things correctly - this is mostly because Andrew uses too many z's (like in realize, instead of the right spelling - realise) or like missing the u in colour or humour.
  

I'm going to write some more posts in this vein, as there is a lot to say about collaborative partnerships, and I've learned from someone that it's better to have short posts with one main idea than one post covering a million ideas.

So much to say.

In the last few days of our time in Minnesota, Andrew and I talked a lot about what the next year will hold for us.  You can watch our 5-5-5-5 video reflection here, but that's really just the Big Picture Overview.

And the first thing you have to do when you look at changing your classroom is take stock of where you've been.  I haven't blogged much since early March, which is for lots of reasons (all of them, I assure you, are Very Good Reasons.  I know that Andrew will write me a note attesting to the veracity of that statement).  Practically, what that means is that all of the work we did in the last two units are completely and utterly unblogged.

So there are several major summer projects on the table for Thomasson Morris Instruction (TMI), but more than anything, we need to start by reflecting on the work we have been too busy working on to blog about.  Here are some of the blog topics/subjects we'll be covering in the near future, either as separate posts or combined in some way:

• Close reading
• Collaborative reading activities
• Student-designed novel unit(s)
• Use of student-made #coflip videos
• Integrating blogging into the 20% project (Blank White Page)
• Integrating blogging into a novel unit
• Going paperless without having 1:1
• The Really Hard (but No Rules) College Test
• Flipping feedback with VoiceComments
• Reading analytically as you go vs. reading entire novel, then analysing it
• Socratic Seminar as part of #CoFlipReads The Fault In Our Stars
• Student-selected literature circle unit (hint: Not A Success)
• Reading journals with a difference (and choice!)
• Student feedback and reflections
• Critical reading --> critical thinking --> critical writing?
• Using new media and YouTube Edutainment to engage students

That's a pretty good list.  And of course, that doesn't include any of our plans for next year, or our extended reflections on #FlipCon13.  We have about two hours of video with Andrew and me IN THE SAME ROOM AT THE SAME TIME and that will eventually be a series of short videos about what we learned and how we plan to use it in our classrooms.

Now, because I believe in adding value, I'll write about one thing in this blog post that's not on the list, but is relevant nonetheless.

Andrew and I are approaching summer much like we would the regular year.  We have a schedule that includes several important projects: short and long-form writing, making and editing instructional videos, planning our courses for next year, etc.  My first administrator told me that if you ever take a summer off from work (he was talking about summer school particularly) that you'll never go back to it because you will be forever spoiled by luxury.  Well, that turns out to not be true in this case.  I took the large majority of last summer off, and this summer, I'm actually MORE excited to work than I have been in a while.  I know the tasks won't all be "fun" but honestly, there have been very few times in the last year (of intense collaboration) where it hasn't been enjoyable.  It feels less like work and more like hanging out with my best friend and co-teacher.

I know inspiration is fleeting, but the excitement I have for our summer work is founded on a few reasons.  First, FlipCon helped to light a fire in me.  I have been so drained and worn down and exhausted that I really limped over the finish line of spring semester.  But now, I have had so many ideas, and feel much more energised and ready to work.  I know it will be difficult, and there will be times we don't feel like continuing on.  But this is more excited than I've been about summer....maybe ever.  And it's not because I get to sleep in until 10 AM every day and watch a lot of Dexter and Wheezy Waiter all day; it's because of work.


Well, it's sort of about work.  Like EVERYTHING we do, it's more about collaboration.  Andrew has made even the most mundane of tasks much more fun.  There is a rumour that we are indeed one person, and sometimes, that doesn't feel so incorrect.  It's pretty difficult to write anything substantial without his #SpecialSkillz in writing and editing and thinking now that I've gotten used to having his help.


But more importantly than a shared brain, is the real reason behind "Better Together": that we know we would have burnt out alone.  Yes, the collaboration gives us new ideas, and it gives us a second brain to help when ours isn't finding the right words.  But more than anything, I have someone invested in my success.  I have someone who believes in me far more than I believe in myself.  I have someone to filter my thoughts and writing so I don't say something stupid on the internet...where NOTHING EVER DIES.  Andrew pushes me to be a better teacher, a better writer, and a better learner.  I know not everyone needs that, but I do.  He knows when I'm doing something half-assedly, and isn't afraid to call me on it, but then also will help me fix it.  I trust his opinion more than my own.

It is totally possible to flip your class on your own, but we sure don't recommend it.  I think the reason our story resonates with people is because most teachers, and nearly all #flipclass teachers, want someone who will help them do a better job for their students.  But the reality for most of us is that there are few colleagues willing to help us do that, or if some are willing, many are pedagogically opposed, or over-scheduled to the point of uselessness.  That's why Andrew and I needed each other - neither of us had colleagues willing to experiment with flipped learning.  Neither of us had the knowledge, the tools, or the experience to know how to flip our class.

So we embarked on this journey together, just three days short of one year ago.  I would not still be blogging, I would not have attended #FlipCon13, I would not have several Very Exciting Offers to consider, and I would not be as happy as I am now.  I don't need Andrew to be a good teacher.  But this way, even with the many, many challenges we face, is So Much Better than anything I ever did on my own.  And I am grateful - ridiculously so - to have a teaching partner and friend like Andrew.

So I'm really looking forward to this summer - there is much to be done, and I am excited to see what crazy ideas we hatch as we dive into our projects. I would love to hear which of the topics you'd like us to write up first, so leave that in comments if you have a preference.  And if you are part of (or starting) a collaborative partnership, please let us know!  Andrew and I love to talk to people who are starting this same journey.  We were lucky enough to meet half a dozen collaborative partnerships at #FlipCon13, and we'd love to add to that list.

Happy start of summer, everyone, and we'll see you all at #flipclass chat Monday night!  All are welcome, 8 EST, to talk about #FlipCon13, #CanFlip, and all other #flipclass summer work and reflections.

I never realised just how much I took for granted about reading.  Every year, I vastly overestimate my students' ability to read on their own.  I assume that just because everyone in my department assigns reading regularly as homework that students are actually doing it and getting it.

This week has been the reality check for me: They aren't.  Even the "high achievers" either aren't doing the reading or they are doing it and not understanding it.  Even the AP students in some cases.  These are kids who get A's in everything, who can write and articulate intelligent arguments.  And they aren't reading what we assign.

These are the kids who are getting accepted left and right to Purdue and Brown and Cornell and UCLA and Cal.  These are the best kids from the best school in the best area.  

The real tragedy is that these are the exact kids who need the beauty and the breath of fresh air that comes with a good book.  The bookroom is filled with titles that I would have killed to teach at previous schools - Kite Runner, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sula, The Things They Carried, Things Fall Apart, The Namesake, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Indian Country, Slaughterhouse Five, Pride and Prejudice, Man's Search For Meaning...our bookroom has hundreds of choices.

Hundreds of choices that our students pretend to read or understand for most of their four years here.

I'm not pointing fingers at my colleagues - I assigned reading homework last semester, and many of my students told me they didn't read all of those books either.  And some of them got A's from me too.  So we're taking kids who love reading, who read for pleasure, who will do homework, who are compliant, and churning out students addicted to Sparknotes, trained to jump into the point in the discussion where their failure to read or understand will be noticed least, and who think that literature is just an excuse for a treasure hunt for symbols that they can identify and spit back out on a test.

So what's going on?  And more importantly, how do we fix it?

If we believe that teaching through literature is the Right Way, and that the skills developed through beautiful literature can help students see their own life more clearly, analyse more carefully, and engage with the world more actively, then it's imperative we figure this out.  And I'm the least capable person to figure this out, because I did all the assigned reading in high school and college, loved it, and understood the vast majority of it.

So I asked my students.  In a previous post, I outlined the process we went through to ascertain what would be the best reading strategy for them.  I would encourage you to read that before continuing with this post.

So here's are some of the take-aways from that mini-unit.

First of all, it's different for every group of students.  That makes sense - any teacher can tell you that the climate of one section can be wildly different to another section of the same class.  But how often have we treated them the same in the method we use for reading?  I know I have.

Secondly, it will be a system of trial and error.  When we came up with the plan, I had a student ask, "What happens if we end up not liking this, or it doesn't work - are we stuck with it?"  NO!  The whole purpose in giving them voice and choice is to make it work for them.  Why would I force them to stick with something that wasn't working just because "they chose it"?

Thirdly, students are not used to being asked these questions.  They haven't thought about it either, on the whole.  They never think to question their teachers.  They said to me, when I asked why they don't question what we're doing, "But we just assume that either you have a reason or that it would be rude to ask.  So we don't ask why."  I died a little inside on that one.  Any student, regardless of age or ethnicity or grade level or ability, should be able to respectfully ask the teacher for rationale behind any assignment.  And if the teacher doesn't have one, it should prompt some serious reflection on the teacher's part.  I told my students that I would never ask them to do something for which I couldn't articulate a reason.

Finally, it's not enough just to have class discussions or to have students reflect on what they're learning and why.  Students need to be given far more voice and choice than they usually get in factory-style education.  I've found, over and over, that when I ask them for input, their ideas and cognitive process are amazing...often better than what Andrew and I came up with.  Most of the plans are a result of students advocating for what they need, and trying to take ownership over their education.  I'm confident that more students will be reading the assigned novels for these courses.  And it's not because they like me.  It's because they feel like it was their choice, and that if they have something to say about the process, the product, or the text itself, they have the freedom to say it.  They don't have to hide the fact that they hate the book - in fact, sometimes that's the start of the best discussions in my classroom.  And if they honestly aren't reading at home, how is it helpful to act out a farce in which we all pretend they ARE reading?  It's teaching them that education has shortcuts.  That they can get all of the answers off the internet.*  

Is that really what we want to be teaching them?

*side note: When I said that many of my PLN agree that "if you can google it, it's not a good question to include on a test" they just couldn't understand what a test would look like with information that wasn't googleable.  I gave some examples, such as: instead of memorising the dates of the Civil War (googleable), argue whether or not Lincoln did enough to prevent the war (not googleable).  Their words: "Yeah, that second option is way more interesting and useful."  Yes.  Yes, it is.

Below the fold are the specific plans that we worked out in each of my three classes that have started a novel. 

There are some days where you just don't feel quite so alone - that was today.  

For most of my colleagues, the first day back to class meant hiding out, staying isolated all day, learning new names, handing out syllabi, just surviving.

And even though I had five brand new classes that started today, it was a day of really meaningful connection.  I intentionally got out of my classroom to talk to a few colleagues and had some great (short) conversations with them.  

I also got to speak to every one of my new students (all 152 of them!) at least twice, and often five to six times in the class period.  I don't know their names yet, but I have seating charts with preferred names filled out and group pictures so I can try to learn them faster than last semester (I'm pretty sure I was still guessing on names in the 6th week...remembering that many new names in 50 minute periods just doesn't work for me I guess).  I ha former students drop in to say hi.  The best ones were when 6th period was about to start, and a whole group of my former 6th period students walked by - they wouldn't stop telling the newbies how lucky they were, and how they wished they could switch with them.

But the amazing thing was tonight.  For about 90 minutes, Andrew and I had the pleasure of being a part of the largest gathering of English flipped learning teachers that we know about.  Here's the line-up:

• Me, 11-12th grade, California
• Andrew Thomasson, 10th grade, North Carolina
• April Gudenrath, 9-12 IB, Colorado
• Kate Baker, 9th/12th grade, New Jersey
• Katie Regan, 10th grade, New York
• Shari Sloane, Alternative school environment, New York
• Sam Patterson, 9th grade, California
• Dave Constant, HS, Connecticut 
• Troy Cockrum, 7th-8th, Indiana

The amount of knowledge in that room is just absolutely incredible.  I learned so much just from being there and listening.  It reminds me of just how much we really need each other and how important it is to work with each other, but also just to connect and be friends.  We need both.

The most amazing thing is that all this time, there has been another collaborative partnership - Katie and Shari - in the English Flipped world.  It seems that Katie and I play a similar role, and Andrew and Shari play a similar role in the way we work together.  

As Andrew and I debriefed the conversation, we were struck by just how much we know, but how much we don't know.  None of our flipped classes look the same.  We all flip writing to some degree, but it looks different in every context, every classroom, every video.  Reading is a much more open field with far fewer answers.

We recorded the conversation and will be posting it soon.  I hope more people can learn with us.  As Andrew says, we may know stuff and may be "defacto experts" but we are learning as we go.  

If you're interested in joining us for one of these conversations, let us know either here on the blog or by finding us on twitter.  Maybe we can fill the room a little bit more next time.

I've always loved writing, but I haven't always been good at it.

And I've never been good at teaching writing.  I think that's because I never was taught how to write.  I was given writing instruction, sure, but the attitude of my teachers was that writing was something you just got better at when you practiced more.  They focused on helping me develop my ideas and not so much on how to structure those ideas so they made sense to the reader.

That might be giving them too much credit.  I don't remember ANYONE telling me how to write.  I do remember being encouraged to write on a variety of subjects in low-stakes assignments, but that was mostly in college English classes.

I also remember my creativity being discouraged actively, mostly in high school.

My high school grammar teacher (we spent half the year in literature, and half in grammar) would give us daily journals.  We had to write 20 lines, and the topics were things like, "Imagine sliding down a hill" or "What is a song you like, and why do you like it?"

So I decided to start writing an epic short story.  One that would incorporate the topic every day, but would be about this community of elves.  Ones that had mysterious adventures, like sliding down hills while composing their own inspirational tunes.  Where characters were developed and put in situations where they could be tested, or they could demonstrate their true nature.

After two weeks, she collected our journals.  I waited for her feedback anxiously, as I believed my Elf Soap Opera was my greatest writing achievement yet.

I still remember what she wrote at the bottom of the last journal entry:

This is not appropriate and if you continue to not write about the assigned topics, I will give you a zero on every one.  In fact, I will give you a zero if you even use the word "elf" in another journal.

I cared too much about my grade to push it any farther.  But it was just another event, in a long string of events, that convinced me that I needed to stop believing that people would understand me or see me for who I really was.

I got an A in that class.  But my writing didn't improve; in fact, my confidence as a writer dropped significantly, as a result of having a teacher who meant well, but couldn't see me as anything except a kid trying to get out of an assignment.

I never wrote on a creative topic again in high school.

**

I had forgotten about that until a student in my Essay class mentioned that he had done something similar and had a similar consequence for it.  He asked me what I would have done if he had done that for my class.  My answer was simple: I would have written him a comment that told him what I liked about it.  If it didn't meet the requirements of the assignment, I would ask that he make sure he did that next time.

This was in the context of a discussion about how writing instruction is done here at the school.  What my students said was that, at this level, there are just expected to know how to write already.  They said that, other than a few comments on essays and a grade, they hadn't had much instruction in how to improve their writing.  They knew how to write a five-paragraph essay.  But when asked to do a creative topic, they would completely blank out.

They started naming things they wished they could have had in their English classes:

• individual writing conferences, where they are given specific feedback on what to improve and how to deal with problems they struggled when writing in general
• freedom to write something without obsessing about a grade
• the ability to explore interesting ideas without worrying about how many sentences in a paragraph, or how many paragraphs were required
• instruction on how to take their ideas and make it work in writing
• help in developing and honing their voice as a writer

Basically, the exact same goals I had for them at the start of the class.


We did one-on-one conferences (took three weeks of class time), and when I asked them if that had been helpful (and worth the three weeks it took), they said it was probably the most helpful thing we did all semester.

I disconnected writing from grading.  Nothing they wrote for me received a grade (with three exceptions, which I'll talk about in a minute).  If they completed the assignment, they got 100%.  If they didn't complete it or it didn't meet the requirements, it got a 0%.  My theory was that frequent writing practice would build their confidence and ability, and that they had to stop seeing writing as a transaction; good writing evolves and develops, and the idea only ever grading first drafts is not attractive to me.  

Andrew Thomasson and I do a lot of writing together (like, at the same time in a shared Google Doc), so this has really helped me refine my theory on writing instruction.  We have written numerous guest posts (including one next week for the 12 Days of Dreaming project over at Educational Dreamer) and what we have found is that our first drafts suck.  Sure, they say what we think we want to say, but they never say what we NEED to say.  It takes a lot of refining (and often starting over altogether) to find the version we think represents us best.  If our first draft was published, it would be far less than mediocre, and not even a glimmer of what the final product ends up being.

I apply that principal to my students - some drafts are worth refining, and others aren't.  That's why the three assignments I am actually grading are:

1. The essay they chose to have a writing conference on.  Their task was to revise it after their conference, given the feedback and discussion we had.  I only graded it on the things I asked them to work on.  Most of the time, that was a bit of structure, a bit of organisation, and a bit of concept.  
2. The final essay, which is a synthesis of about 50% of the writing they did over the entire course.  It included short descriptive vignettes, which Andrew and I call an "Exploded Image."  It included making an argument and supporting it with evidence.  It included a narrative structure that used elements of a narrative toolkit we developed.  So in effect, I'm grading their ability to perform all those various tasks successfully, as well as their ability to synthesise the information.
3. Their analysis of their own voice and how it has developed in this class.  The assignment is here if you're interested.  It yielded some interesting results.  The reason I'm grading this one is that I want to see their analytical ability, as well as their ability to find patterns (another of the course mega-themes).

Those are the only assignments graded in a more traditional way.  The rest is credit/no credit.  My students told me that it was liberating to be able to write without worrying about points being deducted for a misspelled word, or an incomplete transition.  They also said it allowed them to try on different styles and experiment with ideas that aren't typically found in an "academic" writing assignment.  Some of those yielded the most successful pieces of the semester for my students.

As to helping them find their voice and develop their ideas, the way I did that was through a lot of discussion and feedback.  We wrote every essay in class.  During that time, I would work with individual students on how to best get across their idea and how to make it sound like their authentic voice.  We also had collaborative partnerships, where students would help each other by reading and making comments on ideas only - not on grammar or spelling or other mechanics.  Sometimes they would comment on structure and organisation, but mostly it was about helping the writer develop ideas.  We had discussions about purpose and audience, and how style influenced and was influenced by both the purpose and audience.  I showed them my writing, and they took it apart.  We did the same with some of theirs.

Here's what I didn't teach:

1. That writing should be a single draft activity, where we write something then move on to something else
2. That structure is more important than content
3. That the five-paragraph essay is valuable
4. That all genres of writing are the same, and use the same structures
5. That there are strict rules that all writers follow
6. That the most important thing is completion
7. That writing is an individual activity
8. That we should never experiment or try new ideas
9. That there are "right answers" in writing
10. That the teacher is the audience for all of their writing

I have the great privilege of teaching students who have a lot of training in basic essay structure, who have great vocabularies, and who have great academic behaviours.  Their struggles are more with anything that is different from what they are used to - they haven't been asked to be creative or collaborative much, unless it's in structured ways.

I know that this is probably more freedom than many teachers have, and that my students' academic background is much stronger than most.  But I also see that their writing at the beginning of the semester has improved dramatically.  They went from writing five-paragraph-style essays, and now have much more complex systems of organisation that will serve them well in college.  Their descriptive and observational writing is so much stronger, and vivid.  

And they feel something I never felt in high school: that their voice, what make them unique, is valued by a teacher.  That they can be themselves - even if that is something still in the process of being developed and refined.  That they don't have to worry about a grade and can take risks.  That they have peers who understand and support them, and will help them become better writers.

That their writing is, like them, a work in progress.

A lot of people, much smarter than I am, have been writing what it means to be flipped, and some other people (also smarter than me) have questioned whether or not what we're doing can even be called flipped.

Naming something, defining it, is a way of understanding.  We give things names so we can catagorise, analyse, interpret.  It's natural, and it's helpful.  

But what happens when something changes, expands, grows, and the definition no longer is quite right?  Do we come up with a new term?  Do we become more strict with the definition so as to be more clear?  

Or do we expand that term so that, rather than constricting our understanding, it widens it and allows for more people to come inside and be included.

That, more than anything, defines flipped learning for me: inclusive.

When I happened upon flipped learning at this time last year, I didn't see how I could fit in.  My students were poor, they lacked internet at home, and I had no way of recording video.  Oh yeah, and all the models out there were for math and science, and I taught English.

But there was something about flipped learning that caught my attention.  In a school where direct instruction was mandated and commonplace - almost part of the DNA - it seemed like something that would both please my administrators AND help my students learn.  I could do direct instruction but I could also spend more time helping my students get better at reading, writing, listening and speaking.

It seemed like the perfect solution in many ways.  

So I went looking for a way to make it work.  My district Ed Tech director got me an iPad so I could make my own videos.  I polled my students, and only three of them didn't have a smartphone or a computer with internet access at home (this was in a 90% SED school).  I arranged for those three students to use my devices during break, lunch or before/after school.  So I made some videos with the week's etymology lesson, assigned them as homework, and used the time we would have spent copying the notes practicing with the content, doing real-life examples, and playing memory games.  Test scores on the weekly quizzes went up, and I was confident I was on to something.

Then that same Ed Tech director pitched Twitter to us.  And I was Not Interested.  At all.

For a few days.  Finally, I just asked my students to teach me Twitter and help me get started.  They were happy to oblige.

Very quickly, I was hooked.  And that's also when I discovered that there was so much more to flipped learning than I had ever expected.  

I joined the #flipclass Monday chats (which now I help moderate semi-regularly).

I started blogging and sharing my posts on Twitter (which may be where you found this post).

I had conversations with some of the people I had read about - Brian Bennett, Crystal Kirch, Troy Cockrum, Jon Bergmann, Aaron Sams - and they all helped to push my thinking on various issues.  Many have now become my close friends.

That's how, within six weeks of flipping, I transitioned from "Flip 101" (assigning videos as HW and former homework as classwork) to something that I still saw as flipped, but wasn't the same as how many of my colleagues flipped their class.

My classroom quickly became mastery-based, paperless, self-paced and homework free.  I still made videos, I still used many of the same tools as my Flip 101 colleagues...

...and I still tweeted to the same hashtag.

Flipping my class no longer was my goal.  I was flipped.  Instead, my goal was to make my flipped class the best possible place for MY students, in MY context.  I started to view flipped learning as a place where students had ownership (responsibility was flipped to them from me) and where I used technology to help them learn best.   Later, I moved to defining flipped learning by the Flipped Mindset - a definition developed by several collaborators on Twitter.

Now, a year into my flipped journey, my classroom looks different than it did last fall, last spring, or even at the beginning of this school year.  

I have what I like to call my CoLab partner, Andrew Thomasson.  He helps me plan all of my instruction, prepares for and films video lessons with me, and encourages me to be a reflective practitioner, a good flipped teacher, and a better friend.  I'm at a new school and operate with a BYOD policy and open wifi network.  My students are much higher skilled, and require far less direct instruction (almost none).  I don't assign homework, and don't always use video.  I've stepped away from self-pacing and paperless (without 1:1 netbooks, that's a lot harder) and embraced a far more student-centred pedagogy that focuses on higher-order thinking skills and real-life application of concepts.

There are many people who would say I'm not flipped.

And I would argue, just as vehemently, that I am.

**

When Romeo asked himself, "what's in a name?" I doubt he was thinking about its application to the flipped class community.  Nevertheless, it's a good question.

So, flipped class community, what's in a name?

For me, this is what's in a name:

• a method by which I started to listen more to my students, and work to meet their individual needs.  I learned most of those things from my community on Twitter and Edmodo.
• a move to a more reflective practice - one I never imagined.  I didn't know that to be reflective, you need someone who will help you process.  That is what happens in the flipclass community on a daily basis.
• a return to my writing - something I had always thought of, but never had inspiration to sustain.  This blog is the most meaningful writing I've done since I graduated from college.  And I am now writing more than just blog entries, which has helped me work through a lot, personally and professionally.
• a transformational experience - one that not only changed me, but changed how my students experience me as their teacher.  That was only possible by moving over the bridge that flipclass built.
• a group of people - my Cheesebuckets - who listen to me, protect me, question me, challenge me, and keep insisting that I should not stay where I am, but keep moving forward, getting better.  These people would not be in my life without flipclass.  And my life would be far less rich without them.
• and most importantly: a collaborative partner, a new BFF, someone to listen to me, help me channel my crazy ideas (and sometimes, add more craziness until they actually start to make sense), doesn't let me stay frustrated or resentful, but insists that we work things out, and most importantly, someone I can trust and who I know cares about me, both as a teacher and as a person, and about my work in the classroom.

So what's in a name?  A change that has given my students a better teacher and a better education.  A community where I am inspired, engaged in conversation, and often, challenged so that I don't grow stagnant.  

And most importantly, I now have friends.  Friends who share the family name - flipped class - and unites us around a common goal: making our classroom the best possible place for our individual and corporate student body, and for us as teachers.  

And even though some of us may start to grow into more distant cousins, if we give up the family name, it would mean denying where we came from.  This is the kind of family that doesn't disown a brother who shies away from family gatherings; it's the kind of family that expands, becomes more inclusive as more and more distant relations show up on our doorstep, needing our help, our acceptance, our love.  It's also the kind of family that still welcomes you, even when you don't need it anymore.

This family name is where our roots are.  

This family name is who our people are.  

This family name - flipped class - is who WE are.  Together.

That is what's in THIS name.  

And I'm proud to be in this family.  No Matter What.

I have (along with every educator on Twitter) been thinking about homework.  Its role in my classroom and in school in general.  Its function and purpose.  Its value, especially in how it fits into flipped learning.

Here is what I have observed in the eight years I spent teaching before Redwood:

• The only kids who do homework are the ones who are A) scared their grade will drop or B) have parents pushing them (and usually both are true).
• Homework is generally worksheet-y, even in English and Social Studies. 
• Teachers are frustrated that students don't do homework.  They continue to assign it and deal with non-completers in disciplinary ways.
• Students hate homework.  No matter the value or purpose or length or subject.
• Many students give up on a course when their zeros keep mounting from incomplete homework assignments.
• Teachers assign homework if students fail to complete the assignment in class.  Teachers assign homework to cover concepts they don't have time to cover in class but are in the standards.  

This last one is more controversial:

•  Teachers assign homework because they are more concerned about teaching Responsibility than teaching the student.  

Some teachers assign homework as an exercise in values.  They argue that in The Real World, we all have deadlines and we all need to learn how to manage our time.  We compare it to chores - something no one wants to do, but just as it is necessary to maintain order in your physical world, it's necessary to maintain order in your academic world.

At Redwood, most of those answers are still true.  The only one that's different is the first bullet point.  At Redwood, 90% of students do homework.  That's in a general class, not an AP or Honours level class.  They expect to get between 2-5 hours of homework a night.

But everything else is the same.  They hate homework, teachers assign it, and it's primarily about teaching Responsibility.  There is an added element of You Need To Be Ready For College (and I can't fit everything into our face-to-face time).

I stopped giving homework when I started working at San Lorenzo.  They wouldn't do it, and I started doing research on the effectiveness of homework as a pedagogical tool.

So when I went to Redwood, I spent some time reconsidering that perspective for one major reason:
        Students would do it, and all teachers expected it to be assigned.

I didn't stop believing the research that said homework was not helpful for learning retention, and often was more harmful than it was beneficial.  I didn't stop believing that students needed the evening to unwind, spend time with family and friends, and pursue hobbies or other interests.  

No.  I started to consider assigning homework because I was afraid of the consequences if I didn't.  The same reason most of my students completed their homework.

I got scared.  What if my colleagues thought my class was "too easy" without homework?  What if my principal accused me of subverting the culture of the school?  What if my students thought my class wasn't rigorous enough?

That is the world of fear many of my colleagues inhabit, and the world of fear that my students pass though, hoping that they will escape when they get to college.  It's the world of fear that keeps them up until 3 AM doing college application because they had so much homework they couldn't start it until 1 AM...and they are so afraid that they won't get in that it makes them angry, depressed, and more afraid.

It's the world of fear that causes good teachers to go against their pedagogy and pretend that they are just "fitting into the school culture."

And it's bullshit.

A classroom built on fear is a classroom that denigrates the importance of community.  A classroom built on fear lives in the reality of reward and punishment.  A classroom built on fear cannot produce students who are responsible for their own learning and who pursue learning from passion and not pressure.

And it's not the kind of classroom I want.

**

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about how flipped classrooms without homework can't really call themselves flipped. 

Now, I have written about our definition of the Flipped Mindset before.  So you know that I'm not a Flip 101 adherent - instead of flipping lecture onto video and off-loading it from class time, I don't lecture.  Instead of using class time to do the kinds of practice (let's be honest: worksheets) many of the English teachers I know assign, I try to build interesting discussions, engaging projects, and close reading of texts.

So when you ask me if homework is required for a flipped classroom, my answer is an Emphatic No.  The REAL flip in my class is that I have flipped the responsibility for learning to my students, and made the place where my students seek knowledge much more broad and no longer confined to my ten pound inadequate dyslexic brain.

I used to spend a tremendous amount of time rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour.  I had charts and systems.  I had Good Students and Bad Students, and that was largely down to who could most closely match the definition of "good" I had in my head and tried to superimpose on them.  

But why were the Good Students doing the homework?  Did they see the relevance to their lives?  Did they genuinely want the knowledge?  Were they doing it because they liked me and believed in me enough to do what I asked of them?  

Or were they doing it because they didn't want the consequences if they didn't?

The whole point of the flipped class Andrew and I run is to get students to the point where they pursue learning for the love of it and work towards becoming an educated person.  Where they believe in us and know that we believe in them.  Where they see the work we assign is relevant, purposeful, and not excessive.

Where assignments are about mastery, and not a number or a letter.  Where responsibility is developed over time, not as the result of turning in an assignment on time.  Where the Good Students are the ones actively engaged to the best of their ability at that time.

Where there are no Bad Students.  Only students who haven't Got It Yet.

**

So we don't give much homework.  The only major exception is that we have assigned students reading homework for the novel we're reading.  Now, we read parts in class, and often give them class time for the purpose of reading.  But many students prefer to read at home, as they have done their entire educational career.  And it's my job to be flexible and listen to my students.  If they use class time well, and want to read at home, I can deal.  After all, it is all about them.

However, I work really hard to make the reading "homework" not be about Teaching Responsibility or about reward and punishment. 

I work on igniting their passion for the story by creating engaging activities that draw them in, rather than punish them with zeros on reading quiz after reading quiz.  We're reading Indian Country by Philip Caputo right now, and this is what seems to be working:

• I give them assignments that make meaning from the text in a way that gives every student a way of completing it, regardless of where they are in the novel.  
• Every day, I spend a little bit of time talking about something in the section they read or the section they will soon read.  Today, I told my kids that there were two...disturbing...scenes with a woman and a bear.  And it doesn't end well...for either of them.  The one kid in class who had read ahead laughed knowingly.  And ten kids tried to read the book instead of watching the video about the Vietnam War.  
• At the start of class, I ask who made progress in the reading the night before, regardless of where they are in the novel.
• I gave them the power to control when the reading is due.  They named the Final Deadline, which is when we take that section's quiz.
• The quizzes I give are revisable and low stakes.  On the last one, I asked students to trade with someone who was roughly in the same place they were in the novel (so if they were on page 100, they shouldn't pair up with someone on page 3).  Then I had them add to or correct their partner's answer.  That gave them the time to critically think about each question, figure out if their partner answered correctly, and then add to their thoughts.  Many of the questions were opinion questions, so I had them add a personal note to their partner to encourage community.  
• The grade they get on the quiz isn't really important, because it's all formative assessment.  So there's nothing punitive - in fact, the only score they get is a point in the gradebook for completion. They will have to have read to complete the essay and project, and they will need to know enough to participate in discussions.
• The quizzes I give are often verbal.  That way, they can actually hear their classmates answer the questions, and they get to clarify misconceptions.  More repetitions=more practice.  

That list is how I justify asking students to do reading at home.

Because if I can't make a list like that, I shouldn't be assigning homework.  Here are my questions for you to consider in relation to your homework policy:

1. Is this something they absolutely must do or they will not be able to pass my course?  If it is, isn't it important enough to make sure they have the time, space, and assistance in class that they need to complete it?
2. Is this something that I value so much that I would complete it myself? If it isn't, do I really need to assign it?  If it is, am I willing to do it on the same schedule as my students?
3. Am I giving this assignment because I'm afraid?  Am I afraid of what people will think if I don't give homework?  Am I afraid that my students won't take me seriously if I don't?  
4. Am I giving this assignment because I failed to teach something adequately?  Is it fair to punish my students for my failure?
5. Am I giving this assignment to teach something other than the content?  Is it fair to be teaching values rather than content?

**

So that's a really convoluted way of saying that I think carefully about any assignment I give students that requires work outside of class.  I think about what my goals are, what my students need, how to make the work relevant for them, and how to show them what being responsible for their learning looks like.

And if, once in a blue moon, homework is required, I give it.  

I urge you to have the same conversation with your colleagues, your students, and with yourself.  Don't let the culture of fear push you to do something that is not good for your classroom community.

And if you have more suggestions for how to make reading homework (or any homework really) work in a flipped class, or other thoughts about the Great Homework Debate, please comment.  I love the dialogue that has already come from this subject.  And it's good for all of us to examine our practice, be reflective, and adjust when necessary.

And yes, leaving a comment is your homework assignment.  Don't make me put you on the Bad Blog Reader list.