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.

This wasn't planned.

In fact, I'm still not convinced it's an amazing idea.

But this week, I handed gave the reins to my 6th period class....for content, instruction and assessment.

I realise that I may be completely insane.

It started with some collaborative brainstorming on topics, questions, methods, and texts they wanted to study.  Then each student chose a group and topic and started planning their own content to teach their peers.

I didn't even constrain it to humourous topics. But they are so invested in the course themes that the topics they chose were nearly all comedic; they ranged from writing original comedy, stand-comedy techniques, political satire, musical comedy, and improvisation workshops.  Half the class will be producing comedy films and then having the class analyse it closely.

Here were the requirements:
1. Choose a topic/question to cover and choose a group
2. Research and/or create the content/text to be shared
3. Prepare to lead a class discussion (in any format that we've used or practiced)
4. Give students a writing assignment of some kind (in any format)
5. Assess learning
6. Reflect on the effectiveness of their lesson

These units start next Friday.  I can't call them presentations.  A presentation means a bad powerpoint, nervous students, lack of engagement.  These already have a hell of a lot of passion behind them. 

Today I couldn't get the computer lab, so I just said:

This class period is yours.  If you need something from me, I'll be here.  But you guys are in charge.

I expected an argument, or at least a wasted period.  But here's what happened:
They all looked at each other, silently. Then,
Cipriana: Let's watch Workaholics!  It's an hour before Thanksgiving break.
Alexander: No, that's not the best use of our time right now. We need group time to work some stuff out.
Pierre: Wait guys, can we go around and say what we're going to be covering so there's no repeats?  Okay, Chelsea, what are you guys doing, and who is in your group?

They then went around - while the rest of the room was silent - and talked about their concept.  After every group gave their idea, other students expressed how excited they were for the ideas. There was not one group that didn't get a "wow, that sounds cool!" at some point.  The two groups that were a little similar had a quick negotiation to figure out how close their proposals were.  Then they checked in with me about it.

There was one undecided group - they came up and talked to me about their ideas, and with VERY little prompting from me, they came up with a great (slightly scary) question: When it comes to humour about race, where is the line, and why is that the line?  

We talked about how to frame it so it would make the best possible discussion.  And they left really excited.

**

I gave them the keys to the car, then I got in the backseat.  And instead of crashing into a pole, they immediately navigated hairpin turns with dexterity.

I do think they'll run into issues at some point, and will struggle to present their lesson effectively.  But they'll figure it out.  All of us need to make mistakes to learn how to be better.

**

And here's the meta part...or maybe just the uncomfortable part of all of this. 

This week has been overshadowed by a friend of mine being attacked for something she wrote on her blog.  In an entry devoted to asking for help to deal with a frustrating issue common to all of us who teach in a public school - unmotivated students - she was attacked with more logical fallacies than the cable news networks had during the election coverage.

The issue?  Her statement that her students don't know how to learn math.

They don't.  And I think the person most capable of making that judgement - their math teacher - is the one who should make that assessment.  Not some strangers on the internet.

Students DO, however, know how to learn in general, but learning academically and learning in general are different.  We are always learning.  But not everything we try to teach our students is something to which they will connect and in which they are interested.

There are lots of things that I didn't find interesting, but that I'm glad someone pushed me to learn at some point.  Here are a few of those things:

• How to solve for variables in Algebra
• Techniques for creating different effects in painting 
• French vocabulary
• Word derivations/roots/etymology
• Names and locations of every country (and its capital) in the world
• Hundreds of Bible verses 
• Medieval literature and how to analyse the sources that compose a text
• How to actively listen
• How to take notes and make note cards for an essay/presentation

And you know what?  I still know how to do those things.  Even though I wasn't passionate about any of them, because I had the academic ability to learn, I had the skills needed to transfer that knowledge into my memory.

I also have a freakish ability to find something interesting in ANYTHING I study.  My friends in college were absolutely shocked when I gave them the advice I used: Find an angle that is interesting and use that for your essay topics.  They looked at me like I was smoking crack.

That's when I realised that what I do naturally is not what everyone does naturally.

Learning is innate.  But academic learning?  That's acquired.  Some of us are lucky to have acquired it young.  I did.  And I am the exception, not the rule.

We don't go to school to learn how to love playing or eating or sleeping.  Those are things we all can find passion for or joy in.  We go to school to learn how to learn things we wouldn't normally choose to learn.

And we do that because there are some things that are valuable enough to ask everyone to learn them.  That's why the Common Core Standards movement is so important - it cannonises the knowledge we as a culture think is essential for all students to learn.

So what happens when the school system is broken?

You get students who are in 10th grade and have acquired the ability to learn in an academic context.  Students who may master video games, but struggle to write a coherent sentence.  And some people would say use the video game to teach sentence structure, or just don't teach the sentence structure and hope they'll just "get it" over time.

But is that really serving my students well to not teach sentence structure - at least holistically?  Is it a good use of my face-to-face time with my students to use video games to teach sentence structure?  Why would I spend time having them learn something with me that they could do on their own?  Why would I not give them individualised instruction that meets them where they are and them pushes them forward?  And I think that doing that kind of instruction well - where you infuse passion into subjects that aren't natural pairings - is time-consuming and rarely effective.  It just ends up being a little condescending to try and squeeze the names of Pokemon characters into paragraphs that have students practice sentence revision.

I also come from a pretty unique background.  I was homeschooled for 7 years, spanning the late 80's and early 90's, which was the Unit Study era in homeschooling.  We did one on the Pilgrims.  I remember planting a garden, making corn cakes, and creating a replica of the Mayflower.  

And that's it.  I didn't take out of that unit any more knowledge about gardening, cooking, or history than I brought into it.  And I fell years behind in math because math "never fit" with the unit studies, and I wasn't motivated to learn it on my own.  That is one of my biggest regrets.  

Am I saying that it's impossible to do that kind of curriculum well?

Obviously not.  The project my students have started would indicate otherwise.  I believe that student-driven content can be very powerful.

But there are reasons that my project will be successful.  And a lot of it has to do with what we've already learned (not all of which they found interesting), and a lot has to do with what they brought into the course from previous learning.  

This will be successful because my students:

• can research information and find reliable sources
• synthesise and analyse information with depth and clarity
• use technology to compile, organise and present information effectively
• have academic conversations that they run without my help
• can stay on task and focused on the end product

And most importantly, they:

• KNOW HOW TO LEARN

Now, because I have kids at the top of their educational game who are highly skilled and motivated, this wouldn't work with every class.  And it wouldn't even work in some of my other classes.  They don't have the skills they need.  And some of them don't want to build those skills.  They want the grade.  They want to just "get it over with" so they can move on.

So it makes me uncomfortable to, on one hand, turn over a class to a group of students capable of making it a success, and also to acknowledge that they are pretty unique.  For the past eight years, I've worked in schools where this never would have worked.  And yes, I tried.  And it's always been a massive failure.

This is what I think:

Passion + low skills = low effort and/or low quality

Passion + low skills + motivation = variable results (see: Freedom Writers Effect)

Passion + skill + motivation = high effort and high quality

The harsh reality of the state of public education is that not all students come to us prepared or motivated.  Can we help those students?  Absolutely.  That is what my friend wanted: help figuring out how.  And instead of help, she was bullied, harassed, and attacked.  So she is taking her passion and skill and hiding it so she can avoid being attacked further.

One of the meta-lessons of this issue is that passion doesn't make up for a total deficit of skill.  The people attacking her have no lack of passion.  But they also don't seem to understand how to have a respectful dialogue, nor engage in a discussion of the issues and avoid going after her personally.

I sincerely hope that, eventually, everyone will be taught the skills they need to be able to pursue their passion.  And I hope that eventually, every person could be like the students in my 6th period: skilled, motivated, self-directed, responsible, and extremely passionate.

If the world was filled with people like that, it would be a pretty amazing place to live.  It's certainly a pretty amazing place to learn.

Here's what they don't tell you when you're flipping in a highly-student centred environment:

It doesn't feel like you're teaching them anything.

For me, that's incredibly off-putting.

Even when I was doing video more often (the very short-lived Flip 101 days), I felt like I was teaching something.  But changing over to a classroom where I do very little "sit up front and talk" or even very little "watch this video and take notes" means that I often go for days without delivering information.

For the last few weeks, I've been doing the following things:

--helping students curate their work (14 writing assignments in Essay Exposition, 10 in Language of Humour) on playlists on MentorMob.  I wish we had thought of this early.

--individual writing conferences with my Essay Exposition (SAX) students, where they choose one assignment from their portfolios and we discuss what their purpose, audience, tone, and intended effect.  It's been great to work with them so individually and really talk in-depth about their writing.  I think my Language of Humour class will be next.  I just wish they didn't take quite so long...

--analysing a text (The Crucible) through a variety of lenses: psychological, historical, and thematic, through Socratic Seminar, and essay and a project (recreating the Crucible in the modern day)

--evaluating texts that are not typically thought of as narratives (like Derren Brown's amazing work) through discussion and essay

--working on a project that will not only teach my SAX students how to do research and write persuasively, but will help them take action to fix a problem in their own community.  Pretty excited about how it'll turn out.

None of that really involves direct instruction.  Other than giving tasks and having conversations, I'm not "teaching."

I guess it's time to re-define what we mean by teaching.

An exchange on Twitter with another teacher facing an impending observation reminded me that at some schools, the list of activities above is actually much more what they're looking for than the old definition of teaching. 

While I have so many amazing things happening in my classroom, my evaluation still includes a piece on direct instruction; in that, I feel like I'm taking a small step backwards.

And maybe that's why I still don't feel like I'm teaching: my school (and students) still define teaching as "what teachers do at the front of the room, talking constantly, as students take notes."

So how do we redefine teaching in the post-flipped world?

So I made a weird decision.  I decided to teach the Crucible without having students read the actual text.  Because the importance of that text is less the text and more the themes and patterns.

The core of this idea is from Andrew, Karl and me.  But we need help making it more awesome.  Please comment with any ideas or tweaks you may have.

Here's the outline of the project:

1. Watch the Crucible (streaming on Netflix!).  Generally discuss the play/plot.

2. Ask students to consider and have a Socratic Seminar on two questions:

• What motivation could you have for framing your best friend for a serious crime they didn't commit?
  
• How would you go about convincing people that your friend, a person well known for being upright and honest, had committed this crime?

Their answers were awesome, by the way.

3. Consider and Seminar about the three basic views of human nature/goodness:

• We are born basically good but can be corrupted
• We are born basically evil, but can be good
• We are a tabula rasa, and our influences are what determine our goodness

Discuss students' own view of human nature as well as the view of human nature as presented in The Crucible.  Give examples to support claims.

4. Watch documentary about Salem Witch Trials and the history/cultural influences going on in Salem.  Discuss/Seminar these questions:

• How does that view of human nature influence the judgements we make about the characters and situations?
  
• How does that affect how we perceive the entire event?  Is it an aberration or an inevitability?  Is it because of the cultural crucible presented in the documentary?

Here's the final product:
A video, essay or multi-media project that does this:
Using your assumptions about human nature and the impact that has on your view of the Salem Witch Trials, consider how the conditions could be created for this to happen again.  


Construct that scenario.  And since accusing people of witchcraft is currently out of fashion, what crime is likely to replace it (but keeps the same connotation and impact witchcraft had in Salem)?


Class context:
This is a class of mixed 11th and 12th graders, who are fairly proficient at technology and research, and can work together and collaborate extremely effectively.  They have learned how to do close reading, how to collaborate on Google Drive, how to create and upload videos to YouTube, etc.

We have access to a computer lab with brand new MacBook Pros, with both OS X (Mountain Lion) and Windows 7 on them.  I can stretch this project into next week, but I'd like it to be done by Friday, 7 November.

If you have suggestions or ideas about this, please post them here as a comment!

Andrew and I have worked incredibly hard this year to make our team-teaching a success.  We spend hours planning over G+ Hangout, or in Google Drive documents, and we are pretty proud of what we've accomplished.  None of the material in our first unit was anything we had ever taught (with the exception of one of the short texts each).

We also believe in open source, free materials for teachers.  We do not intend to ever sell our materials.  We want to give them away for free with the caveat that you give us credit for the work.  We, by no means, want to present the material as if we think it's perfect - it's not.  There are lots of changes we will make when we teach it next (since we both have new students at the semester, it will be January-February when we teach it again).

But for now, here is the unit - complete with planning documents and links to every assignment, text, grading rubric, and warm-up.  If something is listed but doesn't appear, let us know and we'll fix it right away!  Almost all of the links are through Mentor Mob, since that's where we store our student playlists.

I hope you find it useful.  It's been amazing to plan and teach, and we hope that others can use some of the ideas we have developed here.

Here is the information from the document linked above:


The Master List of Unit 1 Resources
Andrew Thomasson and Cheryl Morris

Planning Documents:
Original Unit Plan (with full assignment descriptions, although a bit different from what we ended up teaching)
Skills Map (Thomasson’s iteration)  
Morris’ iterations: 1 2 (Morris modified her maps from the main document)

Playlists:
Weeks 1-3 (Morris)   
Weeks 1-2 (Thomasson)    
Smoke in Our Lights (both)    
Weeks 3-6 (both)

Unit Goals:

1. Introducing students to the technical processes they need for the class
2. Easing them into the flipped class part - how to watch video, how asynchronous instruction works, how mastery grading works, etc.
3. Familiarise them with the patterning strategy and why we use it
4. Making inferences based on evidence
5. Constructing a definition, both in narrative and informational writing
6. Collaborate with peers on a variety of tasks, and differentiate that from doing Group Work.

Essential questions:

• What is a flipped class, and how does OUR flipped class work?
• What goes into a good definition, and how does that differ based on genre and purpose?
• What is the best way to collaborate, and how is that different from cooperative learning/group work?
• What is a pattern and how do those patterns build meaning in a text?
• How do you access meaning beyond the literal/surface level?

Since our classes are asynchronous much of the time, this is mostly a suggested pacing, and is close to our actual pacing.  It took Morris six weeks, with about 240 minutes per week (11th-12th graders), and it took Thomasson four and a half weeks, with about 450 minutes per week (10th graders).  Please use any resources freely, so long as you give us credit for our work.

Every year, I have the same anticipation leading up to the school year.  There are unlimited ideas and possibilities.

And then we hit week 4.

And I'm suddenly aware of how much less I can actually do than I wanted and planned to do.  And that silences me. 

So I stop blogging, just in case someone can read in between the lines at how much I'm failing.  

I stop going on Twitter, just in case someone asks me how things are going and I have to tell the truth.

Colleagues stop me in the hallway, and I tell them that "I'm fine" - which is a total lie.  Because I can't tell them the truth:  I'm afraid that what I'm doing isn't good enough.

I start hiding.

I ignore the evidence that learning is happening and that students are making connections between what we're doing and what I want them to learn.  I ignore the opinion of the person who knows my classroom and curriculum better than I do and believes in me far more than I believe in me.  I ignore the parents who left my room on Back to School Night telling me how "inspired" they felt and how "exciting" it was to hear about flipped class and blank white page and all the other amazing things we're doing.

I ignore all of that.  Because the voice in my head keeps telling me it's Not. Good. Enough.  And that voice turns into a chorus of every bad experience from my eight previous years in the classroom - from overbearing principals, to judgemental colleagues, to critical students.

That's The Narrative.  The voice in my head that repeats every negative thing anyone has said about me, my classroom, and my educational beliefs.  The voice of colleagues who never ran out of things to complain about.  The voice of administrators who just didn't get what I was doing.

The Narrative says that I'm failing.  And for eight years, I had no idea how to stop it.

But now I do.

****

Now, I don't think a reflective teacher can ever stop believing The Narrative entirely, because it comes with wanting to do a great job and knowing that it is impossible.  The classroom has too many variables, there is too little time, and there is always too much we want to do.  We want to change the lives of our students.  We want to make a difference.

And we do.

But life change doesn't happen overnight.  It's a series of small decisions, small actions, small words.  And when we show up every day and put our heart and effort and time into teaching our students everything we can, we change their lives...in small increments.  Trust and community are not built overnight, and no amount of wishing or planning can make them appear.  

The only thing that can build trust and community is love.  Love for our students, love for our curriculum, and love for our profession.  It is the only thing that can change anything.

Love is the only thing that can stop The Narrative.  

I know that sounds a little like I'm singing Kumbyah while holding hands with fairies and dancing around Stonehenge.  

And frankly, I don't care.  

Love is wanting your friends and colleagues to succeed so much that it's more important than your own success.  And paradoxically, having so many people to root for has made me more successful as a teacher than ever before.  And with that many people cheering for me, I can't hide.  

Having so many people on my team means that it's impossible to let The Narrative win.

I have colleagues at Redwood who check in on me to make sure I'm okay.  Before Back to School Night, I had over half the department come to see me to give me advice and see if I needed any help.

I have students who work hard and make me want to work even harder.  Who write about the tragedies that shaped them in a completely open and honest way.  Who can't quite believe that I really mean what I say about there being "no anxiety" in my classroom.

I have administrators who go out of their way to understand what I'm doing and support me so I can continue to do my job.

I have friends in the #flipclass community who give me advice, send me resources, and offer support when I need it.

And best of all, I'm team-teaching with Andrew Thomasson, and he won't let me fail.  He also knows me well enough to see when I'm letting The Narrative take over a little too much and he Won't Let The Narrative Win.  The impact Andrew has had on my classroom and my life is a little ridiculous.  It's been postulated in the #flipclass community that we may even be the same person.  

I can't help but be overwhelmed to have so much support, especially in a profession where isolation is just the accepted reality.  I have never had so many people cheering for me.  All of those things are small decisions that people make, and that adds up to a transformation in who I am as a teacher, as well as how much power The Narrative has over me.

When you have that many people who care about you, it's impossible to close your door and pray that no one notices how much you're failing.  

So it's time to Flip The Narrative:

You can't do this alone.  And when you're not alone, and you have people who love you and root for you, you can't fail.  And when it feels like you are ready to give up and shut up and admit defeat, you look at all the small decisions people have made to show how much they care.  And that's enough to keep going.

In the Flipped Narrative, we all win:
Our students get the best version of us we have.
Our colleagues get the passion and excitement we have for our classroom.
Our PLN gets more resources, more support, and more of us.
And we get people to help us recognise all the small decisions we make every day, and how those decisions are a far better measure of our success than The Narrative would like us to believe.

So flipping my classroom really has changed my life...in small increments.  

And it's Not Over Yet.

Yesterday during the #140edu conference, I began to think about the technology that plays a large role in my life.  Here is what I use primarily:

1. MacBook Pro, 17' with the apps I use the most: Camtasia, Adobe Photoshop Suite, Chrome, uTorrent, iTunes, and VLC

2. iPad 3 (Verizon) with ShowMe, Messaging, Mail, Twitter/HootSuite, DailyBible, Flipboard, Edmodo, Notability, Instagram, Facebook, Camera, Music and Paper 53

3. iPhone 4 with most of the same apps as the iPad, Socrative and Pandora as well.

4. Web-based apps: Google Docs (including shared folders and live collaboration with the #cheesebuckets), Dropbox, Weebly to maintain this site, BBC iPlayer through Expat Surfer, UKNova, Netflix, and Hulu Plus.

Now, why am I telling you all that?  Because I believe that it tells you something about who I am as a person, as a teacher, and as a learner.  Most of my news comes from Twitter.  All of my television/screen time is through my computer (I don't even have a TV).  All of my radio and music comes from what's stored between my three devices (and a really old iPod classic) and Pandora.  Most of the communication I have with friends is through Twitter, Facebook, and messaging. 

Even right now, I have all three devices open, working on different things (streaming the final of the men's gymnastic all-around competition on BBC and composing this on the MBP, Twitter on the iPad, messaging on the iPhone).  I take all three devices everywhere, because this is how I engage with the world. 

And I'm double the age of most of my students.  If technology is so important to me, then how much more is it to them, who have had it their entire lives?

But that's not the point of this post.  It is however, sort of relevant.

******

As I was thinking through my preferences for technology use, I suddenly realised that it wasn't MY preference that matter.

In a flipped class, student-centred pedagogy is one of the three pillars.  So why am I the one setting the requirements?

Now, there my plans/goals for my students:
1. I want all students to blog
2. I want an LMS, either Moodle or Edmodo or both
3. I want to use google docs
4. I want all students to use an RSS feed for SSR time
5. I want to use a backchannel for live response
6. I want to participate in the KQED Do Now curriculum
7. I want students to collaborate outside of class time
8. I want students to watch some videos outside of class time

And there are some things I know about my students:
1. They all have gmail and google docs and like them
2. Most don't have Twitter accounts
3. They use Moodle
4. Most have their own devices to use in class
5. They are not used to using technology in class. At all.

So there are a lot of pieces of information I don't know yet.  But here's what I do know:

I need to allow my students to drive the technology in my class.  Instead of teaching them all new tools, I need to help them gain proficiency in the ones they already have and know.  When it comes down to it, I need to embrace the mess and allow my students to teach me sometimes, rather than me having all the knowledge.  I need to use their passion for technology and show them how to make it relevant to my class.  I need to put aside my preferences and be willing to not be the expert in order to better meet their needs.

So I don't have a completed plan for what technology I will use.  And that has to be okay.  I have a starting place: Moodle, Google Docs, and a BYOD policy.  And I have lots of question marks: Will I require a Twitter account?  Will I use YouTube?  Will I use Google+ hangout?  Will I use Edmodo?

I don't know.

I DO know that I don't want to give my students a worksheet asking them what they use.  Here are some ideas for how I might gather this information:

1. Have students enter the names of their technology into a Google form (much as I did at the start of this post) and then create a Wordle from it.

2. Use the start of year video to show my technology, and have students write a blog post or create a video of their own showing theirs.  Yes, this is time consuming, but I can really learn a lot from this about my students and their context.

3. Ask students to put together a photo essay about their technology use.  Turn this into an essay.  It has nice thematic links to the Snapshot of a Modern Learner article.  It could even be part of the essay on that text.

4. As the first project in Blank White Page.  Again, the video I make could be the model for this to show them what BWP is all about. 

****

I'm sure there's a better idea out there of how to do this.  Feel free to comment and tell me your ideas for non-worksheet ways you collect this information from your students.

School starts, for most of us, within four weeks.  What that means is that many teachers are starting to gear up, and have begun to plan their upcoming year.  That means lots and lots of people are discovering the flipped class model for the first time.

So there have been a lot of tweets sent to me and others in the #flipclass circles asking for information about how to flip their class.  Some of the most common questions:

1. What if I don't have the technology to use in class?
2. What if my students don't do homework?
3. What if the students haven't watched the video?
4. How can I flip if I can't make videos?
5. Am I already flipped? I do everything you describe except the video?
6. How can I make this work for me in x context or y situation?

I can't answer all of those. 

And these ideas are not mine.  They were developed in conjunction with several other teachers...the usual suspects really: Andrew Thomasson, Karl Lindgren-Streicher, Crystal Kirch, and Kate Baker.  Between the five of us, and based on conversations with and presentations from hundreds of other educators on Twitter, Edmodo, and in person or in Google+ hangout, we have developed a definition of what it means to flip your class.

So I can tell you what we've discussed, and what I've told people on Twitter:

There is no one right way to flip your class.

There is no How-To binder for sale.

There is no panel of experts to tell you what to do.

However, there is the Flipped Mindset. 

We chose to use the term Flipped Mindset intentionally - we don't want to define Flipped Class as a pedagogy or an instructional method or a theory. 

We want to define it not as something you do, but something you have. 

Within this framework, you can have thousands of different iterations that are all flipped, but are equally different.  In fact, I would argue that no two flipped classes should look the same; if we are differentiating for the kids in the room, then every classroom, and even every period, HAS to be different. 

So what makes up the Flipped Mindset? 

There are three pillars:

1. Teachers make the best use of their face-to-face time with students.

2. The classroom uses student-centred pedagogy.

3. There is an intentional focus on higher-level thinking, rather than rote memorisation.

******

What do those pillars mean?

For the first pillar, what you're really talking about is being a reflective educator who uses the tools they have available to reach their students in the most effective possible way.  For me, that means using social media and video (both collaborative with Andrew Thomasson and on ShowMe, my iPad app) because technology is the language my students speak, and I think it's important to A) teach them how to use it responsibly, and B) show them that learning can happen regardless of what tools are used.  Additionally, I think there are some really cool things that can only be done through use of technology (see: collaborative videos with someone from across the country).

However, if the use of video is what is holding you back from flipping, then hear this: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT THE VIDEO!  What it IS all about is your students, and how you can best serve them in the time you get face-to-face in the classroom.  If something is less important, you can off-load it to out of class time.  If your students won't do homework, then make your class asynchronous or set up stations for different learning tasks.  I should clarify: this doesn't mean that there is never time given in class to students acquiring knowledge.  If that's the best use of your class time, then that's fine.  The key here is reflection and understanding of your students.

The other thing to consider is the tasks in your discipline that would be most difficult in terms of cognitive load.  Those are the tasks that would be most productive to have students engaged in while the teacher is present.  In English, those tasks are reading and writing.  Having students read in class and write in class, while they have access to their peers, who are working on the same thing, and access to their teacher, who can help when they get stuck, gives them the opportunities they need to build those skills, make mistakes, and catch those mistakes without becoming overwhelming.  Students learn to collaborate, but they also learn that even "experts" make mistakes and have to work through them.  And using the face-to-face time you have with students appropriately lets you guide them through those processes which they will find most challenging.

For the second pillar, the teacher is no longer the centre of the classroom.  The entire environment is geared towards the student not only being an active participant in the learning, but also helping to drive the learning.  While it's not possible for students to always create content or allow student choice determine what is taught, including students in the process is key.  Rather than the teacher being the one driving learning and dragging the students along, the students are collaborative.  Rather than being competitive with each other, students share their understanding, which leads to a deeper comprehension and increased ability to make meaning from it.

When Andrew and I started making our collaborative videos, we began at the same point that most other Flipped Class educators do: with content videos.  We wanted to make videos that would allow our students to learn the information they needed to write a research paper.  However, we quickly found that what we were teaching was not content, but rather process.  We were showing students the steps and content of what goes into an essay, but we were also showing them what it looked like to compose that essay, with all the mess and all the problems, and all the real things that happened. 

We went from being teachers with all the answers to students who were actually learning from each other, collaborating with each other, and composing an essay that was far better as a result than one we could have written alone.  That element is key in the shift we made to a more student-centred approach to video in our flipped classes.  It also pushed us to go even farther than that, and develop something we're calling the MetaFlip, or making the process we go through when we read, talk, write or think visible and transparent to students.  It takes us one more step off the stage, and shows students that we make mistakes, that we have to work to understand material, and that collaboration is the key to all the good ideas we ever have.  We'll talk more about MetaFlip later.

The third pillar, engaging in higher-order thinking, is based on Bloom's Taxonomy.  At the top of the pyramid are the higher-order thinking tasks: application, synthesis, analysis, and evaluation.  At the bottom are the rote tasks of comprehension and knowledge.  A class using the Flipped Mindset does deal with facts and basic information, but the priority is taking those facts and working with them, transforming them, and making meaning out of them. 

********

Those three pillars are the three things you need to flip your class.  And guess what: YOU DON'T NEED VIDEO!  And guess what: YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE STUDENTS DO HOMEWORK!

If you really want to know whether your class is flipped, ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I intentionally plan my face-to-face time in order to allow for the tasks that require the highest cognitive load?  Do I use that information to guide my students as they learn the content and processes?

2. Are students at the centre of my classroom?  Am I in a "guide" role, rather than a "sage on the stage" role?  Am I emphasising collaboration over competition?  Can students see me as a learner, including when I make mistakes?

3. In the assignments I create and assessments I give, is the emphasis on knowledge that is not "google-able"?  Am I asking students to analyse, apply, synthesise, evaluate, and create, rather than just know and understand?

If those questions can be answered yes, you have the Flipped Mindset.  You HAVE flipped your class!

That being said, while I believe that using technology is essential for ANY modern educator, the three things that define what it means to flip your class do not have to include technology.  There is no reason that equity, technology access (or lack thereof), or teacher familiarity and skill with technology have to be barriers to flipping your class.

I know that most of the ideas that build the three pillars returns to the constructivist pedagogy of the past.  And that's why I believe that using technology is important for all teachers.  Students "live" in the world of technology, and if we speak their language, we can help them transfer all the skills they use every day and make them work for their education as well. 

When you have the Flipped Mindset AND you embrace the technology you have available to you, your students will only benefit.  But flipping isn't and shouldn't be synonymous with video.

******

Wow.  That's a lot.

You can read Andrew's post on this subject here.  We will be making a video about this soon, because I think talking about it on screen, with multiple educators, using real examples of how it looks in their class, makes this subject much more clear and comprehensible.  We also will be covering the tools in the toolkit for each discipline and how those apply to our flipped classes.

I know that there is a lot of work to be done before the start of school in a month.  But it's exciting work - and it has helped me become a far better teacher than I was before I flipped my class.  I flipped in the middle of the year.  I wish I had started over the summer, preparing and getting things ready so that those first few months weren't so chaotic.  So if you're looking at this and wondering where to start, find us on Twitter!  Leave a comment!  Get in touch in some way.  There are loads of us willing to help you get started, because there were people before us who helped us get started, and you will in turn help others when you've on your way.  The collaboration I've found through the #flipclass community is amazing, and I am blessed to count my co-authors/originators on this post not only as collaborators, but as friends.

*****

Thanks to Jon Bergmann for the shout out/Friday Follow in this tweet a few days ago:

There are exciting things happening.  And not just on my vacation.  But I'll start with those:

1. I got to meet Karl Lindgren-Streicher!  In person!  In Seattle!  Not just on Google+ hangout!  We spent a fun day talking Flipped Class and General Life Topics of Interest.  I also got sunburned...at a beach...in Seattle.  Will wonders never cease?  And since Karl and I live, like, fifteen minutes from each other, we will certainly be doing that again....although next time, probably closer to home.

2. Andrew and I have some big, big ideas to debut soon.  None are really ready for Prime Time, but the afternoon I spent with Karl yielded some amazing things when Andrew and I debriefed.  Yes, this is totally vague and general.  But you'll all know soon enough!

3. Blank White Page has gone meta.  I'll talk more about this as we get the site built, but Andrew, Karl and I have been working on our VERY OWN BWP project.  Since Andrew has never been to the Pacific Northwest, we were talking about what the armpit of California looked like (the answer? Corning).  Then we realised that instead of describing it, I could just start texting him pictures along the way - the BWP question was "What is the West Coast of America like?  How have those places shaped who you are?".  And thus was a BWP Satellite project born.  So when I met Karl in Seattle, he gladly offered to join the cause of "Show Andrew the West Coast" and the project went from "fun distraction" to "a whole new level of awesome."  We will be cataloging and posting this project when both Karl and I get home.

4. With Andrew's encouragement, I've started writing some creative non-fiction.  It has been really rewarding and I want to (again, as always) publicly thank him for not only encouraging me, but making the first draft of what I wrote readable to someone who is not in my head.  Writing is something I gave up on years ago, and it's been fun to remember all the reasons why I loved writing so much.

Here are some NON-vacation updates:

1. The Research Paper Writing series is pretty much done!  I'm still editing the final conclusion videos (and I'm half done!), but all the prewriting, drafting, and introduction videos are posted to our YouTube channel.  We think they started getting better around video 4, but we're proud of the progress we've made.

2. Next on the agenda is the first in our flipped reading strategy collaborative video.  We will introduce a writing strategy and then walk through a text and a literary analysis essay.  That series will start soon...as soon as we can get a functional wifi connection and some time.

3. We have posted another Conversations in Flipped English video on YouTube.  This time, it's about keeping the humanity in flipped English class.  The first in the series is found here (on Content vs. Process flipped videos).  We hope you find them helpful!  Here is our ENTIRE Flipped Professional Development archive as well.

4. As we finalise our plans, we will be posting the first unit plan Andrew and I plan to teach (that we wrote together).  It covers the basics on technology, what a flipped class is (for students/parents), reading and writing basics, blogging, working in a collaborative group, using peer feedback and group evaluation to develop norms, etc.  It's in (near) final draft, so you should see it here soon.  It is our intention to post our curriculum material and videos for free, so that as many teachers as possible can see that English is flip-able, and is something they can do without throwing out everything they've ever done. 

******

That's about it for now.  I'm looking forward to a few more days on the road, then the Flipped Class workshop in San Jose on the 2nd (and meeting Crystal Kirch in person, finally!), followed by a mini-retreat to have some time in solitude, then coming back rested and throwing myself into preparing for school!

I have loved reading all the comments from people here, and I'd also love to hear any questions you have about flipping English, or topics you'd like Andrew and I to cover in our next Conversations video.  And I really hope you all are having a beautiful summer, which is at least as full of family, friends, and fun as it is of flipped class work. :-)