Flipping my AP Govt class, Part 3

Here's a few notes on how I design my vodcasts for my flipped AP Govt class.
Keep it under 10 minutes. (Think attention span.) Have a little fun with the video, include pictures on your slides, make fun of stuff, etc. If you can come up with a story to hook the kids, they’ll be eating out of your hand. Include your face, like I do in the corner of the frame, which is easy to do with screen cast-o-matic. From what I researched, kids respond better to their own teacher than to someone else. My dog is in the videos (at the end of the video) because after the first video, my kids asked for it. Don't be afraid to try things out. I didn't know if pulling in a brief segment from CSPAN would work, so I just tried it. (The video worked fine, but the audio from CSPAN is pretty low, so to solve this, I plugged in an external speaker and cranked up the audio for that part of the video.) Good luck!

Flipping my AP Govt class, Part 2

Before I started to flip my AP Govt class, I did a bunch of research so I understood what flip teaching meant and how different teachers implement flip teaching. What I found was that there is no one "right" way to flip a class. A flipped class does not have to place all lectures online and have all homework done in class, but if that works for your class, then great. What I did find is that this model seems to work best for math and science classes.

I plan to place as many instruction delivered/lectures online as possible. In class activities posea different situation for social studies teachers. Instead of doing homework in class, I plan on trying to work on skills, such as having students practice writing FRQ prompts. I would also like to spend time using the vodcasts as a jumping off point to go more in-depth on some topics. An example of this would be what I did today with my class.

Students watched the 25th amendment vodcast outside of class and then I had a discussion with the kids about what they wrote in their "I'm still confused about..." responses, which I had them sumbit using a Google form. After that, I set the stage for the Reagan assassination attempt as a case study. I showed the video of the shooting, which generated a lot of questions from the students. Students then read an excerpt from "Rawhide Down," which is a fascinating book on the assassination attempt. This generated more discussion, then I showed the Al Haig, "I'm in charge" excerpt, which generated more good in depth discussion. My purpose was to use the Reagan assassination as a good example where the 25th Amendment should have been implemented, but it wasn't and why it wasn't implemented.

My next post will discuss my thoughts on putting together vodcasts.

Flipping my AP Govt class

After about a week of in-depth research, I started to flip my AP Govt class this past week. I'm now posting videos (screencasts) of content that I would usually deliver at the front of the classroom and having students watch and respond to the videos before they come to class. Once in class, we can go over any confusion students may have encountered when watching the videos, then delve deeper into the topic or apply the topic to new situations.

I'll have more on my progress in the coming weeks, but the equipment/software I'm using are

Screencast-o-matic (hat tip to Ken), an external camera/mic by Logitech ($40), and Google Forms.

For more information, go to:

http://www.flipteaching.com/

On Twitter: #flipclass or #flippedclass

http://jmhsapgovt.wikispaces.com/