The In-Class Flip: What It Looks Like in My Classroom

I was currently reading the super informative and inspiring book “Hacking Education” by Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez and was so excited when I came across Hack 7: The In-Class Flip because now I finally had a name for what I’ve been experimenting with in my classroom this year.  The Flipped Classroom was not something that could realistically work for me.  The traditional Flipped Classroom is the idea that you switch the act of students learning the material through lecture to now happen at home through the watching of videos before they arrive to class. And now class time can be dedicated to the review, practice, discussion, and application of the lesson.  This is awesome and would be ideal if each student is guaranteed to have a personal device and wifi to watch the videos at home.  This is not the case at my school site.

But I am very fortunate that we do have a shared laptop cart for our math department that just happens to sit in my classroom!  Wow, I realized I could have all the students watch my videos in class and that would be how I could start the class period.  Why would I want to do this?  I’ve created a list of pros and cons that I’ve encountered while implementing my In-Class Flip.

What does a typical day look like?

The students walk in, see Google Classroom agenda displayed in front of class, grab their laptops, open Google Classroom then get to work. This works for both my Algebra One Freshmen and Algebra Two classes.

This is a 34-second video of what the class looks like while watching videos. At first, it is a little “too quiet” but they start to interact with each other again once they finish watching the videos.

And here some photos that show the classroom setup and individual students working. Click on 1st photo to view in gallery.

Google Classroom Screenshot

I bought students each a set of earbuds. They keep them in the class in a box that sits on their group table. They are labeled with student names so they don’t share!

Please ask any questions you may have or add any words of advice if you have also done this in your classroom.  Thank you!