Flipping the Planning 10 Classroom

Beginning at the end

By
Myles Koshman
EDDL 5151

Planning 10 is a course that could also be called Life 101. The goal of the course is to provide as
much life skill and life experience training as possible for our students to use when they leave
school. Much of the course is about trying to create situations for the students to learn from.
Getting a credit card, having a roommate, renting an apartment, buying a car, and going on a
holiday are some of the many areas the students explore.
The flipped classroom is a relatively new pedagogical approach to teaching that a number of
leading universities and educators have been adopting, where information and resources are
shared with students prior to meeting with the teacher in the classroom. This approach offers
opportunities for students to engage with lesson materials in advance and could be ideally suited
to meeting the learning outcomes for the Planning 10 course.
The British Columbia Curriculum Guide for Planning 10 lays out the rationale for the course as
follows:
The aim of Planning 10 is to enable students to develop the skills they need to become
self-directed individuals who set goals, make thoughtful decisions, and take responsibility
for pursuing their goals throughout life. Planning 10 provides opportunities
for students to:
plan for successful learning in the Graduation Program
explore a wide range of post-secondary education and career options
think critically about health issues and decisions
develop financial literacy skills related to pursuing their education and career goals, and
begin planning for their transition beyond secondary school

Planning 10 provides relevant and experiential learning opportunities, helping students relate
their learning in school to the demands of the working world, and the expectations of society. It
also provides opportunities for students to develop those skills, attitudes, and behaviours that will
allow them to manage their lives more purposefully and effectively, enhance their personal
wellbeing, and realize their full potential.
The intent of Planning 10 is to address a broad range of topics within the limited timeframe
available for the course. Planning 10 aims to provide students with foundational skills and
knowledge required to make decisions in their present and future lives.

One of the biggest challenges for the teacher in the Planning 10 Classroom is creating lessons
that effectively emulate real life problems that students could encounter when they are out in the
real world. Traditionally, teaching students meant spending an hour behind a podium, flipping
through a PowerPoint deck, while a handful of students try to follow along. In the flipped
classroom model, the teacher instead spends that hour sharing their expertise with a group of
students who are engaged in problem-solving and trying to master what they have already
learned. Within this model, the teacher becomes a personal guide for a student rather then a
presenter.
One of the challenges in a traditional classroom, when instruction is delivered through a lecture,
is that students are often sent home to apply what they have learned without any assistance. At
home students can often get stuck and cannot complete the assigned homework. At this point the
students have a number of options. They can spend hours wrestling with an assignment they are
not prepared to do, give up, call a friend, ask the teacher the next day, or in the worst case, cheat.
In a flipped classroom, the work done at home is simply to view a video, and when the student is
struggling with what was traditionally sent home as homework, the teacher is present to help
because this higher-order thinking is done in class. (Bergman 2014)
The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework
elements of a course are reversed. In essence, classes end at the beginning of a lesson. Short
video lectures or lessons are viewed by students at home before the class session, while in-class
time is devoted to exercises, projects, or discussions. The video lecture is often seen as the key
ingredient in the flipped approach, such lectures are either created by the instructor and posted
online, or selected from an online repository.
The philosophy of a flipped classroom draws on such concepts as active learning, student
engagement, web based course design, and online seminars. The value of a flipped classroom is
in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture
content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands-on
activities. During class sessions, instructors function as advisors, encouraging students in
individual inquiry and collaborative effort.
In a traditional lecture, students often try to capture what is being said at the instant the speaker
says it. They need to spend a great deal of their time writing notes rather than reflecting on said
the concepts presented. In the flipped classroom, students have seen the lesson and perform
exercises based on that lesson before they come to the classroom. Class time is then used for
expanding on students experiences and developing mastery of the lesson. Devoting class time
to the application of concepts also gives instructors a better opportunity to detect errors in
thinking, particularly those that are widespread throughout a class. Collaboration between
students is also encouraged during these lessons to help student create ways of solving problems
themselves before they engage with the instructor.
Flipped classroom teachers almost universally agree that its not the instructional videos on
their own, but how they are integrated into an overall approach, that makes the difference. In his
classes, Bergmann (2014) says, students cant just watch the video and be done with it. He
checks their notes and requires each student to come to class with a question. And, while he says

it takes a little while for students to get used to the system, as the year progresses he sees them
asking better questions and thinking more deeply about the content. After flipping his classroom,
Bergmann says he can more easily query individual students, probe for misconceptions around
scientific concepts, and clear up incorrect notions. (Tucker 2012)
The question the Planning 10 teacher then has to ask is why choose a flipped classroom model?
Does the concept work and is it quantifiable in any way?
Wieman and colleagues compared two sections of a large-enrollment physics class. The classes
were both taught via interactive lecture methods for the majority of the semester and showed no
significant differences prior to the experiment. During the twelfth week of the semester, one
section was flipped, with first exposure to new material occurring prior to class via reading
assignments and quizzes, and class time devoted to small group discussion of clicker questions
and questions that required written responses. Although class discussion was supported by
targeted instructor feedback, no formal lecture was included in the experimental group. The
control section was encouraged to read the same assignments prior to class and answered most of
the same clicker questions for summative assessment, but was not intentionally engaged in active
learning exercises during class. During the experiment, student engagement increased in the
experimental section (from 45 +/- 5% to 85 +/- 5% as assessed by four trained observers) but did
not change in the control section. At the end of the experimental week, students completed a
multiple choice test, resulting in an average score of 41 +/- 1% in the control classroom and 74
+/- 1% in the flipped classroom, with an effect size of 2.5 standard deviations. Although the
authors did not address retention of the gains over time, this dramatic increase in student learning
supports the use of the flipped classroom model. (Brame 2013)
A student sitting in a classroom, diligently listening and taking notes, will almost certainly miss
many concepts the teacher is trying to impart. And thats still an improvement over the student
who is letting his mind wander during the first 8:00 am class of the day. If theyre watching a
video at home instead, they have the power to pause the lecture while they write something
down, and rewind and re-watch a particular part they didnt fully understand the first time. If
they feel they could really use a second viewing to better understand the concept, they have that
option. They have more power over the way and process that they best study and learn.

Bergmann, (2016) gives a good progression for a flipped class:

Direct instruction: In a Flipped Mastery program this is done via flipped videos
(sometimes called micro videos) which teachers create.
Practice: Students then practice some of the rudimentary things they learned in the
video. This is generally done during the class with the teacher present.
Going Deeper: Students then take what they have learned and do higher order cognitive
tasks in the class with teacher help. This might take the form of an experiment in a
science class, a discussion in a history class, or writing a paper in an English Class

Assess: A Flipped Mastery class must have both formative and summative assessments.
Remediate: If a student does not master content, students get appropriate remediation
and are re-assessed.
To flip the Planning 10 class the first step is direct instruction. The students can access the
lesson and a video online. The students can view the video in class or at lunch or during the
evening whenever they have the time. The video will take them thru a lesson and then have the
students achieve laid out goals or milestones. The lessons should be short enough to engage the
students but not so long that they lose interest. Bergmann (2014) advises that teachers spend some
time going over the basics with students. After all, "You don't watch instructional videos in the
same manner as a popular film," he says. When Bergmann and Sams first started flipping, they gave
class tutorials, letting students take turns controlling the pause button as other students took notes.
They also used class time to work with students on how to write questions about the video as they
watched. The rule of thumb for video length is one minute to one and a half minutes per grade
level. So, a fourth grader should have videos that are around four to six minutes long and a Grade
12 would be 18 minutes.
The second step is practice. The practice can be done before class or during class with the
teachers guidance. More advanced use of concepts learned can be practiced and discussed. In
the Planning 10 classroom, this would mean applying new concepts to practical real life
applications. None of this is passive learning. Students are required to interact with the lesson
that is being presented to them. The videos are posted on a website, which now serves as our
digital textbook. Discussions and hands-on activities tend to keep students interest. While you
work with students directly as they explore the concepts theyre learning in class, you can
provide immediate feedback that helps them improve their learning as they go. The student can
see well in advance the learning outcomes expected from a provided rubric.
The third step in adopting the flipped classroom model into the Planning 10 class is one of the
more important ones, going deeper. It is at this point that the real life experiences of the
instructor or students can be brought into the lesson, and discussion about how the problems
were solved and the outcomes becomes a very valuable tool. If the students gained basic
knowledge outside of class, then they need to spend class time to promote deeper learning.
Again, the activity will depend on the learning goals of the class and the culture of the discipline.
For example, Lage, Platt, and Treglia (2000) described experiments students did in class to
illustrate economic principles. Going deeper creates an atmosphere where learning, rather than
teaching, is the goal. Students begin to take more ownership of their own learning and how they
want to learn. And if students take ownership for their own learning, they are no longer passive
learners but active learners.
Assessment is the fourth step in Bergmanns model. In the Planning Class, much of the
assessment is about self-learning and portfolio reflection. It is at this point that we can look and
get a snapshot of what the students took away from the lesson.

Bergmann (2014) lays out his 5 Steps to Check for Mastery:

One formative assessment strategy has the side benefit of not taking papers home to
grade. This strategy, called a mastery check, has five specific steps:
(1) Assignment
Assign students work to complete based on one specific objective. This often takes the
form of a paper-and-pencil set of exercises. The exercises are scaffold such that the first
is easy and the last one is more difficult.
(2) Choice
Students are told to solve either the even or the odd problems, or perhaps some other
combination.
(3) Check for Mastery
Once a student has completed his work, he asks the teacher to complete a check for
mastery. This is the critical step. The teacher looks over the completed exercises and then
asks him to verbally explain one or two of the answers. For example: "Explain to me how
you did exercise four." It is during this oral interaction where a number of things are
revealed and could be categorized in the following ways:

They get it. Students' explanations are acceptable. They understand the key concept on
this objective.

They almost get it. They generally understand the concept but have a minor
misconception or are making a common mistake. The teacher could then assign the
student one more exercise to complete in order to demonstrate mastery.

They have significant struggles. These students will need more instruction -- perhaps
going back to watch the video, or possibly relearning through alternative means if the
video was ineffective for this learner. These students are then asked to complete more
than one of the extra exercises to demonstrate mastery.

They cheated. During the check for mastery, if a student has a very well-done paper, but
can't explain a specific answer, it often reveals that she has not done her own work.
Often these students have not bothered to learn from the video. Assign students in this
situation to view the required video content and repeat all of the questions on the
assignment again.

(4) Remediation. This is where the teacher can sit down with a student and have a oneon-one conversation about what they learning and where they think the value of the
lesson was.
(5) The final step is re check for mastery after remediation. Students may be asked to go
back and develop new ideas or approaches to a problem or create a new solution.

Students dont all learn at the same pace and in the same ways. The question of how to meet
thirty or more unique students at their own levels is one that we as teachers in the current school
system have to ask. At the end of our lessons, when everything is evaluated, what can we as
teachers take away from the lesson?
As teachers, we often speak too quickly. We know our content well, and we know how to
convey itor so we think. When we are teaching a specific topic, we often try to pace our
instruction on the basis of the needs of the majority of our students. If we go too fast, then many
students get left behind; if we go too slowly, we bore many. So we typically shoot for the
middle. One thing very powerful about moving direct instruction out of the group class time and
onto a video is the fact that students have control of the pause and rewind buttons. Students can
pause the teacher who is speaking faster than they can process. Students can rewind and go over
a difficult topic as many times as necessary instead of asking the teacher to go back to the
previous PowerPoint slide. By creating instructional videos, teachers can help students learn at a
pace that is most appropriate for each of them. (Bergmann, Sams 2014)
The flipped classroom model gives teachers more opportunities to work directly with students.
They can therefore clearly see when an individual student is struggling and work with them
directly to get through it. The self direction of students in the classroom will help teachers gain a
clearer idea of the different learning styles of their students, so they can tailor their instruction to
the needs of each one. Flipped learning is just one more tool for the teachers to find a style that
can fit the many not the few. In the Planning 10 classroom, the flipped model allows the teacher
to spend more one on one time helping direct the students on a path to self discovery with a
unique path for each student.

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