Well, here goes nothing! Last year was my very first year teaching AP Calculus. There were a lot of ups and downs, and I mean a lot! Trying to learn the content myself, teaching myself how to teach the content, helping students understand things that I was still trying to master myself, prepping them for an exam I had never seen, and nervously awaiting the test results in July. It was a roller coaster!
I know a lot more now, but do I have more to learn? ABSOLUTELY! It was near the end of the course last year that I discovered the beauty of Khan Academy and I knew my life this year would be easier, which leads into my course outline for this project! The timing couldn’t be more perfect and I am excited to really try out my ideas with different types of blended learning, using flipped lessons which my calculus students already showed an interest in last semester! I’m looking forward to documenting everything that works and doesn’t work and really giving this course another shot, being a little more confident, and a lot more knowledgeable than last year! I know lots of you are not going to understand one lick of this, but I’m hoping you can bear with me and my journey through my project.
To see my course outline, check it out here and wish me luck! 🙂
The Secret Life Of a High School Teacher 
Ok, cool! I like Khan Academy as well!
Are you planning on using an LMS for your flipped classrooms?
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Hi Joe! I am going to use some of it for my flipped classroom, but I want to try making my own videos as well! It just depends on the content we are covering that day!
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Shelby, I love this idea! I’m doing something similar for my Pre-AP ELA 20! What are the good things about use goFormative? Is it tricky? I am planning to use Classmarker to set up multiple choice tests (multiple choice is a huge component of the English Literature and Composition exam).
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Multilpe choice is a huge part of the AP Calc exam too. There are lots of tools and applications for goFormative! I haven’t tried to use it in math before but you can use diagrams and see student progress break downs which can be super helpful for visualizing difficulties. What’s Classmaker like? I might need to try that one out too!
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I am very interested in seeing how this will end up for you – I once attempted a flipped learning model for Physics 30 (I wanted to give more work time for me to work with students on problems, plus free up some time for some hands-on labs). It was an all-out failure.
I blame me for not adequately preparing the students for the change in instruction (they were very much the ‘sit-listen-practice-take a test’ type students (or at least that is how they were trained)…
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Hi Michael! Yes, I am completely prepared to have the whole thing crash and burn on me but I’m hoping my students are disciplined enough that they will buy in! Like you said, it totally depends on the group of students you have!
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I think a flipped classroom works PERFECTLY for math class and hopefully will give you more time to do the deeper problem solving with your students when they are in class. Are you planning on using mainly Kahn academy for your flipped teaching or are you planning on developing your own videos/lessons?
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Hi Kristina! I’m hoping to use a bit of both depending on the content! I’m not a total expert on this stuff yet so in some cases, it might be better to find a video that can really explain the concepts but I’m hoping to start creating my own. I just need to figure out how I want to do that!
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