When preparing for a lesson or unit of study, it is important to think about how to organize the content so that students are able to engage deeply with it. Though there are a variety of instructional methods (Inquiry, Project-based Learning, Mastery, etc.) that we could employ, if we only use one, our students will quickly become bored and disengage. The method loses its flavor. It is important to begin to view our instructional methods as though we are preparing a meal. We need to think about the ingredients we select, as well as what would happen if we combined instructional methods to create new flavors. Dinner can become monotonous. The same old dishes being served in the same old ways. The old adage “everything tastes like chicken” becomes relevant because basic ingredients used in basic ways makes everything start to taste the same. Recently, my wife decided to try a new recipe that sounded really fancy and complicated. Coq Au Vin, though it seemed daunting to create initially, has become one of my favorite meals: chicken marinated in white wine, thick cut bacon, mushroom caps (cooked in the bacon drippings), and carrots paired with onions. Sorry, if I’ve made your mouth water… This meal is exactly what our classrooms should look like. A variety of instructional methods expertly combined with just the right ingredients to meet the educational palettes of our students. Approaching classroom instruction in a similar manner means that we should be able to create our recipe for the most enriching education possible. When I began teaching, I used basic ingredients to make up my instructional practices. The main ingredient in my dish was lecture. I would season that lecture with an activity or the occasional project, but there wasn’t anything fancy or innovative in my practices. No matter what unit I was teaching, or what the students were learning, it all tasted like chicken. After eight years in the classroom, I began to flip my class. It was similar to discovering how to marinate meat. The raw material was the same, but by presenting the instruction in the individual space, the information that I presented had a chance to marinate with the kids. According to the article, 6 Advantages of The Flipped Classroom for the Learner, students have a chance “to think critically and truly absorb the information.” When the students come to class, everything has a richer flavor. As I saw the benefits of marinating the content, I began to see that the way content is delivered can move an ordinary lesson to an extraordinary lesson in which students desperately want to indulge their appetite for learning. Instructional strategies are the ingredients that make up our unique recipes for delivering the best education. One of the things that I love about teaching is that I get to try out different recipes to see which ones resonate with my students and which recipes produce the greatest outcomes. It is even more exciting to tinker with and optimize recipes and eventually design something that is unlike anything you had ever tried before. According to MIT, using a variety of instructional methods will give students the opportunities to express their talents and learn in unique and meaningful ways1. Educators have known that using a variety of instructional practices will help meet the varying needs of their students. Combining instructional methods brings a completely new experience to the classroom. This idea is so cutting edge that there is little research available on it. Flipped practitioners from around the globe have weighed in on this strategy. I surveyed flipped educators in Australia, Italy, Spain, Hong Kong, and the USA about combining instructional methods. Their extensive experience with this type of innovation indicates that there are central pillars for its implementation. Students are more engaged and excel to new levels when instructional methods are combined. Now, in my fifth year of flipping my classroom, I have been able to season my instruction with different methods, and I have finally developed my own recipe to produce some of the greatest outcomes. Here is my instructional recipe for what I do in class. I call this my Gamified Project Based Learning with a Dash of Mastery. Project-based learning engages students in higher order thinking skills and 21st-century skills. I noticed, though, that on its own, some of the more concrete learning was falling by the wayside. To develop a stronger balance, I began to integrate more mastery learning into the curriculum by combining PBL with mastery. My students were developing a solid understanding of content while also engaging higher order thinking strategies. Motivation is a difficult factor to infuse into the learning process. It was at this point that I determined that gamifying my PBL classroom would season the instruction in such a way that my students would develop an internal, self-motivated drive to engage with the learning environment differently. I begin with my marinade. My students research an essential question before the unit of study has actually begun. This information prepares the students for what they will be learning throughout the course of the unit. By letting this information marinate, the students are able to process it and develop higher order thinking questions (How and Why). I plan out my unit as a PBL unit, and the project drives the learning. With so many variations of PBL and confusing definitions, I created my own definition for Project-based Learning. PBL is the act of using a project as a learning tool for students to gain understanding as well as express their mastery of the curriculum. Using PBL as the main ingredient in my instruction, I create the time and temperature for the unit of study. I lay the unit out on a game board. Seasoning PBL with gamification allows me to integrate a pacing chart in which my students gain points towards their teams (Houses). These points do not affect their grades. Rather, the points drive the students to engage in every aspect of the unit of study. The game board helps students to manage their time by providing them with a visual cue of what needs to be completed each day. The game board design that I use came from a flipped teacher known as Secondary Sara. I build my game boards using a free program called Lucidchart.com. The final ingredient that I use in my instructional dish is Mastery. I only use a dash of Mastery checks. The mastery checks are lightly sprinkled daily to ensure that students have a complete understanding of the content that was covered in the video the night before. These mastery checks are in the form of a Google Form. The form is set up as a quiz that gives students immediate feedback, and on any missed questions, students are directed to a link that allows them to revisit the misunderstood content. Students must demonstrate an 80% mastery before moving onto the next section of the unit. This recipe takes a variety of ingredients, but due to the variety of educational palettes, it is essential that educators understand the needs of their students so that they can use the right combination to produce mouth-watering and differentiated instructional delicacies.
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Mr. Dan JonesMaster Flip Educator with 13 years experience in the classroom. FLGI Faculty Trainer who trains based on the Gold Standard of Flipped Learning 3.0. Expertise in project based learning. Archives
October 2018
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