My Action Plan Reflection – at the 11th hour…

I am officially the queen of the 11th hour reflection post.  As usual, life has gotten in the way of my reflection, so here’s what I can muster up!

My Action Plan focused around Flipping a unit in my Grade 12 Chemistry class (Organic Chemistry). My summary Google Slide Presentation is here. 

When preparing for this unit, I considered the fact that the timing of this unit was less than optimal.  It was the first unit after their January exams and after mid-term grades had been submitted to Universities, so “senioritis” was beginning to set in.  I also took into account that Organic Chemistry is often a challenging one for students.  So this is how I organized it:

1. One master overview Google document that students had view access.  Learning goals, preparation work, and agenda for each day, including corresponding links.
2. 5-7 minute videos with embedded questions in EdPuzzle (students completed 1-3 videos before each class, depending on topic).
3. Students had a ring of cue cards and made notes (one cue-card per compound type).  We went through a sample cue-card organization at the beginning of the unit.
4. Quizzizz check-in for the beginning of each class.  I adjusted these to “homework” mode early on because not all students were ready to attempt them at the same time, and many students requested the opportunity to re-do the quizzes for review later on in the unit.
5. Various in-class activities (mini-lessons, practice problems, building molecules, demos, labs).
6. Google spreadsheet for me to track student progress on all activities.

Here is what I thought:

1. The overview Google document was a big success.  Students like having a one-stop access point, and it enabled students who were a little behind to continue working at their own pace and not feel completely lost.
2. Making the videos was a TON of work.  I felt like all I was doing was making videos for three weeks whenever I had a spare few minutes.  EdPuzzle was a great avenue to track student progress and address any misconceptions.  I would definitely use it again.  But it was time-consuming because I could only observe by video.  I would have loved an overview snapshot screen where I could quickly see class progress over all the videos simultaneously.  The students responded well to EdPuzzle, but some of the stronger students wished there was the option to speed up the videos like there is on YouTube.
3. The majority of the students had fun with the cue-card notes.  Responses ranged from “I love this and am going to do it all the time” to “it was cool to try it out and worked for this unit, but I won’t use it for other units”, to “they stress me out and I’m going to lose them, so I’ll make them on Google Slides instead”.  
4. Quizzizz worked well, especially the “homework” setting to enable a more personalized pace.  One downside was students could choose their own username, so that made it harder to track/monitor.  Next time I would explore using it through Google Classroom so their email address would be automatically collected.  I still enjoyed Quizzizz over Kahoot or Socrative for this purpose to enable students to work at their own pace.
5. I was able to use some of the demos, labs & activities that I had prepared in previous years.  The biggest advantage was the extra time to spend on activities to help deepen and consolidate learning.  We were able to use molecular models and computer-modelling software to build all kinds of molecules and work through all the different chemical reactions every day.  This was probably my favourite change.  Anecdotally, the learning was much richer on a day-to-day basis than in previous years.
6. This was essential, and helped, but the tracking-method I used (a Google Spreadsheet) could use a re-vamp.  Still thinking about how to make it more efficient…

Next steps:

1. Think about my reflections and make some improvements and changes for next year.  I will definitely flip this unit again.
2. Choose a second unit for next year and flip that unit.  
3. I liked how it added variety to the course.  I don’t think I would want to flip every single unit, but choosing two over the course of the year would keep things interesting.  
4. Cohort 21 has been such an inspiring experience and I definitely wouldn’t have tried this out without the encouragement of the Cohort 21 community!