Students in Lynn Schaal’s seventh-grade math class at Bonduel Middle School can pretty much be counted on to always get their homework done.
That’s because they’re doing it in the classroom with Schaal right there in front of them and available to help if they get stuck.
It’s in the evening, when the kids go home, that they get their instruction, by way of a YouTube video, for the “homework” they’ll be doing in class the next day.
The concept is called a flipped classroom — an approach growing in popularity at the higher education level, but also beginning to trickle down to the middle and high school levels, according to Bonduel School District Administrator Peter Behnke.
“It’s a novel approach, but there’s some logic to it,” he said.
Behnke said if a student gets stumped on a math problem while doing his homework at home, there’s no help available until the student goes back to school the next day.
“It’s better to watch the instruction at home and ask questions in class,” he said.
Behnke said it’s not something that would work at all grade levels or for all subjects, but appears to have been working well for Schaal’s math class.
Schaal said that’s because it’s a natural fit.
“It’s meant for a math classroom,” she said.
Schaal said she heard about the concept at a conference of the Wisconsin Mathematics Council in Wausau in December.
Though it sounded promising, she still wasn’t convinced she should try it.
“It’s a lot of work,” she said. “And I wasn’t sure if I could get the parents committed, the students committed, and the administration committed.”
It was while she was attending a Saturday basketball game with her son that a parent approached her and asked if she had heard of the flipped classroom concept and suggested giving it a try.
Schaal, who has been with the Bonduel School District for 15 years out of a 23-year career in education, started giving it a try this semester after her students returned from their Christmas break.
She generally comes to her classroom on weekends and records two to three instructional videos, about 20 minutes in length. The videos are posted to YouTube under an unlisted link that is shared only with the students.
Those who don’t have access to the Internet can have the videos downloaded to the laptops or tablets the district provides.
The videos are done in one take; there’s no editing.
“I would be too nit-picky,” Schaal said.
In one of the videos, the Smartboard briefly malfunctions and won’t scroll down, so Schaal takes a few moments to fix the problem; just as she would if she were teaching the lesson in front of her students.
“It’s real life,” she said.
One of the benefits of getting instruction from the videos is that students can watch at their own pace.
“They can rewind me if they don’t understand, or they can fast-forward if they already get it,” she said.
Schaal said there are always a couple of students who don’t watch the videos, but there used to be twice that number who refused to do their homework.
Another benefit is that some of the parents are also watching the videos.
One of the concerns about the new Common Core standards adopted in the state has been that parents have been put at a loss as to how to help their children with homework assignments, because many subjects such as math aren’t being taught the same way as when they were in school.
Even setting aside Common Core, what students are learning at the seventh-grade level has drastically changed.
“Seventh-grade math isn’t easy anymore,” Schaal said. “It’s pre-algebra.”
Having the students do their homework in the classroom allows an individualized approach to teaching, Schaal said.
“They can get answers from me in the classroom versus struggling at home,” she said.
Schaal said she was thankful for the support of district administration for allowing her to experiment with the concept.
“I’ve been very blessed at Bonduel,” she said. “They’ve allowed me to try new things and they’ve been very supportive in those things that are in the best interests of the students.”
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