Changing the Face of Instruction

I am a member of several Facebook teacher sites and am in the midst of adding to one where a teacher said his administration has banned front of the room teaching.  A number of the teachers are saying how awful that is.  Truth be known I have a few minutes in front of the room, but have mostly moved away from it.  Consider today's lesson in my economics' class

• The kids watched a flipped video on graphing perfect competition
• We started with a quiz where the kids had to draw four graphs and could use their video notes. 
• In my class I won't count the quiz unless the notes are acceptable and occasionally make them redo it - but I always let them redo it and always give full credit even if it is late and most of the work is turned in on time as the kids know I will call parents if 2 or more assignments aren't done in a two week period - and I rarely have to call!
• Then four different kids went to the board to draw the graphs.
• Next the kids worked on their problem sets.
• I walked around the room and answered questions from the previous day's work and the current ones.  
• Oh I should say that my room is set up in 8 pods of four desks so the kids can easily help each other.  Each group is set up with different levels of students.  
• Should I add that we have not opened a book this year either so it is not only cost efficient, but videos are how kids teach themselves now.  
• We took our second test of the year last week and my average score is up 10% over last year's kids. 
• I use this format (flip video, quiz, interactive, walling around the room) in all of my classes now and wish I had figured this out years ago!  

Standards Based Learning

On the 5th, one of my educational collaborators, Frank Franz, is coming to my school to discuss standards based learning.  In my county, we are slowly moving there and I want my department to start implementing parts of it, if not all of it so we aren't blindsided in 1.5 years when we have to do it.

First off I have never been told adequately what is meant by "mastery," but the video above helps. After all standard based learning says we should be working towards mastery, so best to start with a definition.

Frank's video below is excellent for explaining how his classes are run and while we're at it, he uses it for his flipped back to school night.  It is definitely worth five minutes to look at it.

Finally, here is Frank's dog (literally as he loves his three dogs) and pony show!

China Ends Its One Child Policy

These are two nice nice word filled vide descriptions (one from Time and the other from the WashPost) of the end of China's one child policy and here is the accompanying article from the WashPost.  

Highlights from the Republican Debate

Here are two summaries, the top from the NYTimes and the bottom from the British Telegraph.

30 Ways to Use Chromebooks in the Classroom

Thanks to Stacy Delaney, our school based technology specialist for finding this document titled "30 Ways to Use Chromebooks in the Classroom." Ours continue to be the best thing for my students. When you add in that they now sit in pods of four and help each other, it has been a great start to the school year.  

How Social Media is Reshaping the News

The College Board almost can't win when it comes to how people get their news as it seems to be changing continuously.    I am covering the topic with my online AP kids on Wednesday and so will be referring to this 2014 Pew Research document as part of my bent to keep current.  Never mind that that none of the items will be on the AP exam, it does seem that students need to know how people, especially in their age category, are getting the news.  

Chat with the US Secretary of Education

Living in the nation's capital has afforded me some unique opportunities.  For example the Dir of Ed Tech for the US Dept of Education spent a day in my classroom and, as a result, I got to meet (in a small group) with Arne Duncan.  My students have also had the chance to meet with him on Digital Learning Day. I even ran into him at a local track while I was running with my son and he was playing basketball with his daughter.

Now you can chat with outgoing Secretary of the US Department of Education, Arne Duncan via Twitter.  There are two hashtags you can join him which are "#ce15" and "#edtechchat."  The meeting is at 8 pm on October 26th.  

James Madison Scholarship

One of our teachers, Doug Zywiol, won a James Madison scholarship last year which funds teachers up to $24,000 for a master's degree to learn more about the US Constitution.  This means it works for both teachers of US history as well as government.  It also is fast.  Doug found out in April and started classes this past summer.  

Entire AP US and Comparative Government Course

I thought I had put this up, but perhaps not.  I have an entirely flipped class for both US and Comparative government which you can find here.   Know that this is a "live" link as I am making adjustments constantly as I find better resources.   I also have a lot of my assignments linked here as well.  

The Redistricting Game

Today when my AP Government team was meeting to discuss our next two weeks, Doug Zywiol mentioned the Redistricting Game which he likes to give to his students for an entire class period.  It is all about drawing boundaries for House seats and trying to gerrymander for your party and get it past the state legislature.  As you can see from the video above there are several different games you can play.  Your students will be frustrated and see how hard it is to draw boundaries.  You can also use it to teach the difference between reapportionment and redistricting.  

Trump super PAC

Donald Trump may not be taking donations (or not much, he has collected several million dollars), but he did allow a super PAC to be set up - Make American Great Again - and even did some appearance for it this past summer before announcing he was running (which is legal).

According this WashPost article (and this graphic) 62% of funds raised in the presidential race so far have been done by super PACs for Republicans and 12% by Democrats.

Below is a great Colbert video explaining what is meant by a super PAC.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Comedy Central,Funny Videos,Funny TV Shows

Site with All Presidential Advertisements

• Above are three very new ads put out by the presidential candidates, 
• but here is a website that has most, if not all, of the candidate advertisements as well ones from  super PACs
• Of course if you want the best ones going back to 1956, the Living Room Candidate is the best site for you. 

Economies of US and China

Thanks to Christian Voltzke for the graphic here on the economies of US and China.  Above is a great summary video from Jacob Clifford on the sam subject.

Mastery Learning - Definition and Implementation

First off this is from Jonathan Bergmann who is one of the pioneers of flipping the classroom.  But what I like about this is that in 2 minutes, he

• defines mastery learning
• gives the advantages of using it
• tells how it has opened him up for differentiation
• discusses how he integrates flipping the classroom and how that is the core of what he does

My FRQ Tutorial Video

I completely forgot that I had done this video, but one of my team members just shared it!  So this is based on my 13 of grading AP US Government exams and all the tricks I have learned.