Shaping the unknowns

How to start the year off is always a question I struggle with each year?  This year is no different.  I am jumping into flipping my class.  However, I am leaning towards starting the beginning of the year traditionally especially in Spanish 1, and staring the flipped version in chapter 1.

I have been running the set up through my mind almost all summer and I am trying to get things fine tuned and set the way I want them.  I am getting a lot support from my PLN and get wonderful new ideas from them as well.  I just found out that a teacher in other high school in my district will be flipping, so we are going to collaborate as the year goes.  This will be a great support.

I am excited about what this year can be with the new changes in my class.  It will be a learning experience and I want the students to know that I am trying this and it may or may not work, but I ultimately want the students to learn that not knowing if you are going to be successful is not a reason for not trying something new.  I want my students to realize that anything is possible and not be worried if the idea works.  This idea works multiple facets in Spanish and with my use of technology.  

The beginning of the school year has many unknowns.  This year will be no different.  One large unknown for me, but exciting and interesting, will be the addition of two new administrators.  My principal and assistant principal are both new this year.  This will be an exciting, and I cannot wait to share with them my plans for flipping and incorporating technology with some PBL and SBG.  Add to that four Spanish 1 classes and there will be plenty of unknowns.  

To me, unknowns are clean slates that we are able to create what we want to make them.  Everything I do will shape how these unknowns pan out.  Having an open mind and being willing to be flexible, will  allow these unknowns to be positive ones.  LIke all journeys in life, you start somewhere with a clean slate and the start of this school year no exception.  

Have a Great Year Everyone!

The Journey Continues

At the end of last school year, I did some dabbling into flipping my classes.  I really like the premise behind flipping and feel that it is a good fit for me and my Spanish classroom.  I want to focus more of my face to face (f2f) time on meaningful activities that build the students interpersonal, interpretive and presentational skills in reading, speaking. listening and writing.  With that said, I believe that by flipping I can take the grammar instruction out of the f2f time and use videos to present them.  This will allow me work with the students communication skills.

To help prepare myself for flipping, I watched Heather Witten's webinar via Sophia on Flipped for Fluency.     She gave some great examples and had some fantastic questions on how she went about flipping her class.  This webinar gave me a focused look on how I want to go about setting up my class.

My focus is set.  I am started with what I want the students to know by the end of the year.  I then am breaking down my grammar points to use at various points in the year.  I am grouping this based on themes so that the units are focused and I can tie those into cultural related topics.  I will be giving 2 check in assessments to see how students are progressing before students create a unit proficiency assessment.  This assessment will have a focus, but students will get to choose their own way to present their proficiency.

Along with flipping, I am wanting to try some PBL and as much tech use as possible.  I even think that students will be blogging in Spanish this year to improve their writing.  For speaking formative assessments, I am going to be using google voice for students to call and leave a message that will show their comprehension of the questions and their speaking abilities.

I am excited about this journey with flipping this year and cannot wait to get started.  I know that the students will need to change their thought process for my class, but once they see how effective taking control of their own learning will be they will buy into it!

I will keep you all updated on how the journey is going once I start getting units planned and the school year begins.