Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching, but actually thrive. So, as promised, I
have this episode that's taken me a while to put together because there's so much
that I need to say about my past semester with the Modern Classroom Project.
And for those of you that are new and have no idea what that is,
I'm going to link in the show notes my previous episodes about the Modern
Classroom Project so that you can know what it's all about, or you can
just listen right now to this and you can learn about how I run this
model. Really wanted to give you guys an update on this because I have
a lot to say, and it's been definitely a work in progress, and
the fact that I'm still doing it should say a lot. Ever, face
the frustration of planning a crucial lesson and having to deliver it on a specific
day, only to find out that a significant number of students are absent or
worse, despite a seemingly successful class, a significant portion of your students fail
the assessment. Yeah, of course that's happened to me. As educators navigating
these challenges can be really daunting. Reteaching risks boring the rest of the class,
after school tutoring or lunch tutoring encroaches on our personal time, and relying
on students to just figure it out independently really is a gamble. In this
episode, I delve into a solution that many teachers, including myself, have
found to be transformative. By eliminating traditional lectures. Not only have I revolutionized,
and I really mean that, how my students learn, but more importantly,
I've positively impacted my own mental well being. So today I'm going to
share the six phases that transform my teaching from stress to success, including insights
into my lesson planning strategies, how I manage the classroom, and more importantly,
the results stemming from this really remarkable technique. As I've mentioned in three
previous episodes, this year, I transitioned to what is called the Modern Classroom
Project, and I'll go ahead and link that so that you guys can catch
up on those episodes. So basically, it's like a flipped model where students
are getting the information the learning via video and they're also practicing in class with
extra help from me, And it's just very much self pace. When I
decided to adopt this model, it actually took me a long time, so
I had to reframe the way that I saw teaching and how I saw the
curriculum in general. So after learning about this model, I actually spent a
couple of weeks just thinking and staring at past classes in Google Classroom, looking
through all of my teaching materials that I regularly use, and trying to get
an idea of how this was going to work because my students wouldn't have me
carrying them along and teaching them in real time the lessons, and that was
just a really huge paradigm shift for me because I'm just used to doing that
whole stage on the stage thing that a lot of have learned and probably a
lot of us still use. And also, as I was learning about this
model through actual free courses through the Modern Classroom project, I had to let
go of my pessimism and skepticism and just that nagging feeling in my mind that
was like, well, this isn't going to work, well, how is
that going to work? And coming up with all these reasons why it would
be a bad idea to do this because I've always wanted to do something like
this, and so I had to think about pacing from a different way.
But I had to structure the units and the lessons so that it could still
be self paced for the students and ensure that they were still learning. And
it doesn't seem obvious that that would work, because maybe students are getting the
videos but they're not actually absorbing the information. But at the same time,
that could also be happening when you're giving lecture. One of the nice aspects
of this model is that if students didn't understand it the first time, or
maybe they spaced out in the middle of your lecture, they can actually rewind
and go back and listen to it again. I had to let go of
that need for control by standing in the front of the room and making sure
that we are all moving at the same pace at the same time, and
really allowing myself to trust the students to progress as they see fit. So
that was just the first phase. The next phase was also thinking about assessment
and what that would look like in a self paced model. As I was
learning more through their amazing Facebook group, and of course as I mentioned the
free courses that they have, I had to think about how am I going
to find out if students are actually learning, because it's one thing to just
play a video, and it's another to actually see if they absorbed or learned
anything from that video. Traditionally, I would have them just do a worksheet
or work in groups or answer out loud in class, but they can't do
that if they're all moving at a different pace, So I had to rethink
formative and even summative assessments. In this model. I adopted what they call
mastery checks, which are basically a fancy word for formative assessments, but it's
just a checkpoint along the way to make sure or that not only did the
student watch the video and try to absorb it, but they also did the
practice associated with it and they actually somewhat mastered it. Sometimes students wouldn't quite
completely master it, but I could tell that they knew enough to at least
progress, and I knew that they would have more practice later on, so
I let them move on. But it really serves two purposes, not only
for me to know that they did the lesson and did the practice, but
also it's some accountability on part of the students. So if they didn't actually
pay attention to the video, then they wouldn't pass the mastery check, and
then they wouldn't be able to move on to the next part. In the
beginning, I was creating so many mastery checks because I just wanted to make
sure that they really were doing what they were supposed to do, but I
was creating more work for myself. So around the second or third unit,
I was a lot more thoughtful about the mastery checks because I wanted to make
sure that they really showed whether or not students mastered even like a portion of
the standard or skill that they needed to learn by the end of the unit.
So it's just kind of like when you do have a concept that you
want students to learn, you can break those up into parts, but they
really need to know all of the parts combined in order to show mastery.
So that's where I had to think about what type of formative assessments were really
useful and also how I wanted to check these. I didn't necessarily want students
to hand in work or submit work online. I wanted something that was maybe
a little bit easier and more manageable for me. So a lot of times
that would be in the form of short multiple choice quizzes that they could redo
if they didn't pass, and it wasn't really that big of a deal if
they didn't pass it right away because they could just maybe rewatch a previous lesson
and then retake the mastery check. I also explored opportunities for meaningful practice and
definitely embedding group work, because I feel that my students work best and learn
the best when they can struggle through a concept or idea with their group members.
This would mean that I would have to create stopping points in the lesson
where students had to wait until everybody else did catch up, and that was
frustrating at times for the students, but I wanted to make sure that they
all had the prerequisite information before they did the group work. Or sometimes with
my units, I would start out with some kind of group activity where they
would struggle together, and then they would proceed with the rest of the unit
and all of the videos. So the third phase was actually putting all of
these ideas together and creating a streamline planning process. It did take a couple
of units for me to get over the struggle of just like, what should
a unit look like? But it started to flow better because I did what
most of us do, which is work backwards. We think about the skill
or the standard that we want them to learn. So let's say that I
want them to learn how to write a race paragraph, and then I think
about all of the little mini skills that they need to be able to do
in order to successfully write that. Independently, I would work backwards, and
that's how I would plan those units, which is pretty typical. But the
hard part is making sure that there are enough practice opportunities and that the practice
that they do complete is meaningful. What they also advocate is to have different
types of learning opportunities based on what the students need. So we have three
categories, must does, should do, and aspire to do. The must
do is are self explanatory. These are activities that students have to do.
The should dos are additional learning opportunities or additional lectures or additional lessons for students
that didn't quite understand it. For example, with the first lesson on how
to write a race paragraph, I demonstrated for the students how they are supposed
to write it, and then they had to follow along and complete that for
students who didn't quite understand it the first time around, I had an additional
practice where I wrote a different race paragraph so that they could see the format
again without feeling like they were just sort of repeating the video because sometimes that
first time maybe they didn't quite grasp it. Maybe the second time I explained
it a little better, or just the extra practice really solidifies it for them.
And then the last category is aspire to dos, and these are extension
activities. I've only done a few of these, so the students who did
forge ahead, I didn't necessarily want to create more work for them. I
could have probably created something like other learning opportunities or just some interesting videos that
they could watch, But this being my first year using this model, I
decided to just stick with the mustus and the should dos. And a lot
of times most of the lessons are mustus if I'm being honest, and I'll
probably embed more should dos in the future, but this just really helps in
terms of personalizing content for the students. But if they get to a mastery
check and they realize that they didn't really understand it, they can go back
to the should does. They can also rewatch the must us. But you
eventually trained students to know what it is that they need and to progress as
they see fits in the next phase. After all this planning is creating the
videos, and I'll be honest, it's kind of a tie in terms of
which took up the most time, because planning does take a lot of time,
and creating videos it can't take a lot of time. If you were
not technologically savvy. You can use videos that you find online, and I
have used some of those, depending on why I needed them. A lot
of times it was just a screen recording of me teaching them the concept,
or I would just use something like an app on my iPad or a screen
share on my computer and teach them that way. I didn't put my face
on any of these videos. I don't think it's necessary if you're teaching a
concept and you want to try to keep the videos fairly short. They recommend
no more than eight or nine minutes, and I did my best to stay
within that limit in terms of my workflow. After creating a video, there's
a couple of different ways to do this. Post it to YouTube publicly and
save it in the playlist that you send to your students. I personally save
it as unlisted, and then I upload it to an online software called ed
puzzle, and you may have heard of this, And what's great about ed
puzzle is that you can embed questions within your video just to make sure that
they are paying attention and not just pressing play and letting the video run.
It's really great and yes I had to pay some of my own money.
It's about thirteen fourteen dollars a month for that, and it's not necessary to
use it. I just found it to be really useful in terms of making
sure and keeping track of who is watching the videos. I know that a
lot of teachers like this option, so again it's not necessary. And from
there I sign it through Google Classroom. And one thing about Google Classroom that
I just found out about is that they are working on a function where you
can upload videos to Google Classroom from YouTube and within that you can embed questions.
Now at the time of this video, if it's working, then that
could completely bypass the need for the ED Puzzle, So that could be really
cool if you want to explore that route. So I use Google Classroom as
my learning management system and that's how I disseminate all of the units and all
of the lessons, and of course I let them know about the videos and
an effort for me to not have to recreate all of these units in Google
Classroom year after year. I did create a master course that just kind of
stays there, and I just copy and paste from that master course into the
different class periods that I have. So here's what this looks like in terms
of disseminating the units. I'll create the units in Google Classroom, and what's
great is that you can categorize it by units, and then I will post
all of the lessons in there. Let's say that there's seven lessons less than
one point one, one point two, one point three, something like that.
I will schedule that to go out all at once so that students can
move along as necessary. If there's a worksheet that's associated with that particular lesson,
I will upload it as well, so everything just comes out all at
once, so that students can access the materials that they need as they are
progressing through the unit. So Google Classroom is where students will get that information,
and then they'll have to go to ed Puzzle to get the lessons.
And this is really important because for me, they're going to two different places,
so I do leave instructions for them in terms of where they're supposed to
get the lesson or what it is that they're supposed to do next. So
let's say that they're absent, they can go into Google classroom and see what
the next part of the unit is, and then they can just keep moving
along if they want to try to keep up or catch up later on.
One of the ways that the modern classroom project ensures that students stay organized and
on track is to have some kind of a personal tracker. So I create
this where all of the lessons are laid out, and then also for me,
I also put instructions on what it is that they're supposed to do.
So it'll say, go to Google classroom and download one point three and open
it in Notability, which is the app that they use to annotate on their
iPads. And then the next point will say, go to ed Puzzle and
open up the video one point three and watch it while you're completing the worksheet
something like that. So it's very detailed in terms of what it is that
they're supposed to do and where they're supposed to go. And again this makes
it so that as they're moving through the lessons, they can just look on
that tracker and see what it is that they're supposed to do next. And
this tracker goes out when I disseminate all of the other lessons within a unit.
So the next phase was figuring out how my classroom was going to run
with this model, because that was really important. It was going to look
very different than before. It's not going to be me teaching the same lesson
for five periods in a row. It was going to be the students getting
the lessons on video. Then I had to think about what am I doing
during this time and how am I ensuring that they are progressing, especially for
the students who are highly unmotivated. I had no clue what this was going
to look like. So after some trial and error, this is how it
does look like. At the beginning of class, I still do a warm
up with the students, and this is when I do something like grammar.
I don't have just a unit for grammar, because for me, grammar is
ongoing. It's something that you have to kind of like chip away a little
bit at a time if you really want it to stick. So we do
some kind of grammar or sentence correction or what are kind of warm up that
you like to do. We still do that at the beginning of the class,
and that still allows me to engage with the students and they get to
know me and I get to build that rapport and those relationships with them.
When we start a new unit, I have them first download the unit tracker
and we go through the entire unit and discuss all the different parts of it.
The students definitely want to know what are the lessons that are in there,
but they also want to know what are the masteret checks, what are
they going to be responsible for needing to demonstrate to me in terms of they're
learning, because that's what goes in the grade book. I also don't tell
them where they need to finish for the day, but we do set some
goals in terms of how far we think we should go, and I might
say, Okay, by the end of this class period, it would be
a really good goal would be to get to thirteen point two, or a
really good goal it would be to get to fourteen point five. It just
depends on where we left off. And I had them sort of make a
realistic goal in terms of where it is that they want to be by the
end of the class period and then they get to work. In the beginning
of the year, I had students bring earbuds so that they could watch the
videos, or they could bring headphones, and not all of them bring those
consistently, as you can imagine, but I do have a set of earbuds
that I got from the school, and I loan them out to students.
I'll give them a sanitizing white to clean before and after they use them.
The students are working on the lesson, they're watching the video, they're doing
the practice, and I'm circulating, and it's really a amazing to be able
to walk around and watch them work. It's something that when you are lecturing,
you don't have the privilege of being able to do that. If you
were walking around while you're lecturing, that could also be a little bit confusing
for the students because they're trying to figure out where they're supposed to look.
So here they're really focusing on the lesson, and I get to look over
their shoulder, and I get to catch the students who are doing nothing,
or I get to catch the students who are stuck and just staring, or
the students who seem to have skipped too far ahead and they're not really doing
the practice correctly. I just really get to clear up a lot of misconceptions,
and I get to know my students and get to know their level of
preparedness, and it's just been really eye opening. So you walk around the
classroom and if you see a bunch of students making the same mistakes or they're
confused or stuck on the same spot, you can pull those students aside and
then you can have a group lesson with them, or you can just sort
of reiterate or clarify things for them. It works out really well. The
modern classroom project model really advocates for having a public facing tracker where you display
it on the board, like who's on what lesson? And I'm not at
that point. I really just prefer to walk around and just see who's doing
what and help them as I see fit. I don't really want to keep
track of them that way, although a lot of teachers have had a lot
of success with that. One of the benefits of having that kind of a
tracker is that if students are on the same lesson, then they can go
and sit by that person and work with them if they want to. But
I'm just not quite there yet, Maybe we'll try that next school year.
One thing that doesn't work with this model is sitting at your desk of well
students work. I learned this the hard way because what happens is some of
the students will just do something else because they think that you're not paying attention
to them, or they'll get distracted, or they'll become unmotivated. It's just
as if they were doing regular work and you were just sitting at your desk.
They just there's something about circulating around the room and talking to them about
what they wrote down, saying good job, asking them questions about what they
did, and maybe not the entire time that you're walking around. I will
just sit sometimes and just watch them and look for confused looks on their faces,
or look for someone who decides to sauch in their seat, and it's
obvious that they're not paying attention, and I'll go and work with them.
But I highly suggest that you don't see this as a replacement for engaging with
your students. It's more a way of allowing them to move at a pace
that works best for them. So the sixth phase of this was thinking about
how all of these parts move together, especially when it comes to classroom management.
Because here's a thing. Just because students are allowed to be self paced,
it doesn't mean that they're working. In fact, there are a lot
of times when students aren't working. If a student is already unmotivated in every
single class, it doesn't mean they're going to be more motivated in yours.
This does increase the chances of them at least learning some of the material,
because if they decide that they're going to check out for ten minutes, it's
not ten minutes during your lecture, it's just ten minutes of class time,
and then you can redirect them and then you can have them still get the
lessons. So it's beautiful that way. And are students going to talk when
they're not supposed to? Yes, it doesn't solve all classroom management problems.
However, it does mean that when one student is being disruptive, you don't
have to stop the lesson to deal with them. The other students who aren't
being disruptive get to keep learning and it's great. And as I mentioned with
the worm up, it doesn't mean that you never get to have class discussions
or that you can't have things like socratic seminars or group work. You can
absolutely still do that, but again, the learning part, the part where
you were teaching them the new concept or reviewing the concept, it gets to
happen on their own time, and it gets to happen whether or not they're
in school or at home or out of town. So rethinking your role while
the learning is happening while you're not lecturing it really does have an effect on
classroom management because again, you can really be present, you are walking around,
You are catching all the little things that maybe you wouldn't be able to
catch, or that the students would more likely get away with or try to
attempt because of proximity to them, because you're at the front of the room
and they're over to the side or the back. You being able to circulate
around just really has a huge effect on the number of off task behaviors that
happen. So let's discuss the results from all of this happening, because yes,
it's a great model, but is it actually effective To determine this,
I decided to look at my students writing from last year as well as test
scores, and here's something that kind of surprised me. Nothing changed the scores
weren't better, The scoolors weren't worse. The writing wasn't better or worse either.
Now does that mean that it didn't work. Absolutely not. That actually
shows me that it does work. I'm still delivering the same quality of lesson,
it's just via video. And if anything, I had fewer missing assignments
with this model because the students were able to go back and learn the material
and complete the assignment compared to being absent and me somehow figuring out how to
catch them up with a concept that I spent all class teaching them. So
their scores didn't go up, but they also didn't go down, which I
think is really significant considering that I am not standing at the front of the
room lecturing them. And this was really huge. Now, as you can
imagine, this model is amazing for catching up students. I've had students who
just miss all kinds of school for whatever reason, and they can work on
this when they're gone, and some of them do. They know that they
just have to follow along the tracker. We'll ask me what are we doing
when we're gone, which is really silly to me, and I'll just tell
them we are progressing through the unit and they can just work on it if
they want to, and some of them do. And for those who don't
work on it when they're gone, that's fine too. They can catch up
when they're in class. But one thing that has been great is that when
I have to teach them a major concept, something that we're going to use
all the time, like the race paragraph, and they happen to be absent
that day, or just having a bad day and not focusing, or they're
distracted or whatever, they can still get that crucial lesson, and if they
didn't understand the first time, they can watch it again. And in fact,
I had a student who was gone all last week while we were writing
a major essay. I was talking to his group members and I was like,
wow, he's been gone all week, And one of his group members
said, yeah, But it's a good thing that all the lessons are on
video. So even my students recognize the power and the value in having these
lessons be online so that they don't fall behind. I would say that some
of the frustrations that I have with this model is that some students will deviate
because they aren't following the lesson. They'll deviate because they're not following the tracker,
they won't know what to do next, even though by now we're on
thirteen units and they still ask me what should I do next? Just because
you have it all laid out, it doesn't mean that students are going to
be inherently organized. Also, some students just want to fast forward through the
lesson and skip it because they're like, oh, I already know how to
do this, And you can set that functionality in ed puzzle so that they
can't skip ahead. But then it can be frustrating if ED puzzle is glitching
and it sends them to the beginning and they were almost done with the lesson
and now they have to watch it again. That's a technology issue, but
it has been frustrating for my students at times. Also, we don't do
as much group work as we have in the past, and I'm someone who
really believes on the power of collaborative work. It's been a little bit harder
to embed that. But I just have to be a lot more intentional than
I have before, and it can get a little bit overwhelming at times.
When you have your students all over the place in a unit, they tend
to move together at a similar pace. But you'll have a few outliers,
and sometimes it can get a little bit overwhelming and frustrating to keep track of
all of those students. But I still find that it's valuable and worth it
because the students that need to catch up or the students that are falling behind,
it benefits them so much I can't reiterate it enough. Now, let's
also talk about how this has been on me. So it's a mixed bag.
Number one, it's a lot of work to have to create those videos.
Not going to sugarcoat it, but I only have to create the videos
this year and reuse them from now on. Yes, I will tweak a
couple of videos that didn't quite work out. I had a video where I
did a screen recording and apparently it stopped recording all of my movements and just
kept recording the audio. And I don't rewatch. Every single one of my
video is not going to lie, And so the students caught it, which
is pretty comical because all of a sudden, thirty hands shot up in the
air saying you say that you're highlighting, but there's not actually any highlighting on
the screen. So there are some glitches and some videos that I'm going to
have to record, but for the most part these lessons are done. It's
pretty awesome, but there's more work in that aspect, and then also the
planning part and the disseminating everything, creating the tracker. All of that a
lot of work, but I'm only doing that work this year. However,
in terms of my mental well being, I can tell you that during actual
class time, I have so much more relaxed. I am really loving getting
to know my students, working with them one on one, walking around the
room, helping those students that struggle, and giving them so much more individualized
time. It's just been so amazing for the students, and I've had discussions
with them and they love it. There are a couple of students who do
prefer the old school lecture style, and that's fine, and we do have
some moments like that, like when we're doing grammar, but for the most
part, the vast majority of my students really wish that there are other teachers
were doing this model. It's just been great for me. I don't have
the Sunday scaries anymore because everything is planned out. I don't have to worry
about what we're doing on Monday. What are we doing Monday? We're picking
up where we left off on Friday. And that's just how it goes.
So do I recommend that you do this sure with one caveat if you are
someone who is a newer teacher, maybe not, only because you don't know
yet what it is that you want to do or that you need to do
and you're still learning. And I do see value in actually lecturing in front
of the class when you're just starting out, so that you can really learn
about pacing and what works. I'm worried that if you aren't used to teaching
yet, then your lessons might go by a little too fast or a little
too slow, and until you kind of get used to how to pace your
lessons for students to truly grasp it, I feel like you might want to
hold off on this. I also would take it slowly if you are not
someone who has a curriculum. So I know that a lot of you have
a curriculum that you have to use, that you're forced to use, and
you have to say certain things and do certain things on certain days. And
this model will actually work really well with that because it's already planned out for
you and you just have to go along and create the videos and the lessons
for it. But if you're someone who's still creating your own curriculum because you
were just told to teach, maybe you were given a textbook and you just
have to kind of wing it, then you might want to take some time
first to figure out your curriculum and then the following year create the lessons.
That's just my recommendation. I know that with the Modern Classroom Project, they
think that anyone can do this at any time, and just from my experience
and the struggles that I went through, I would definitely hold off if you
fall into those two categories. However, you can also go in the Facebook
group for the Modern Classroom Project, and so many people are just willing to
just give you their materials, to give you their pacing guides and their trackers,
and it's just so supportive of a community that if you just want to
kind of poke around and lurk and see what other people are doing and maybe
try it for like one or two classes or two subjects. If you teach
elementary, then you can do that. And I can tell you there are
elementary teachers that are doing this. So if you're skeptical as an elementary teacher.
You just need to go to the Modern Classroom Project website and they have
a course for how those teachers do that, and also go into the Facebook
group to get additional help. So I hope that all made sense. If
it didn't, then you might want to actually head over to the YouTube video
of this because I do have screenshots of things like my personal tracker and what
my Google classroom looks like in terms of how this is uploaded, and that
way you can get more of a visual in terms of how this works.
That might help you if you just want to try it out and just you
know, even though at the time of the recording it's March, it doesn't
mean that it's too late to try it out. You could try it out
for just one upcoming unit and just see how it goes. You can just
play around with it, and that way you know how to tweak it.
And if you want to play with it more this summer and develop it,
then you have the time to do that because you've had a chance to experience
it. So let me know if you're going to try this and if you
have any questions or if you just want to brainstorm with me. You can
email me at kimat teachersnewteachers dot com and if you have any episode suggestions,
I would love to hear those because I am starting to get a little bit
of writer's block and I don't necessarily know what it is that would be valuable
to you, so please let me know, and so be sure to email
me and let me know any topics that you'd like me to cover. Thanks
for hanging out with me today, you guys, and I will see you
next time.