So, my time at Doha College has come to an end and I am firmly back behind my laptop at home in Wales. Mixed feelings; I'm super sad to have had to leave such a beautiful place, supportive school and inspiring children, BUT I am also looking forward to getting to work on the final few assignments of my degree and sharing my research with my peers!
First things first...let's round off my project!
At the beginning of my research, I spent time interviewing the children on their feelings about maths in general, their desire to extend themselves and how prepared they felt they were for the lesson activities once they leave 'the carpet'. It was resoundingly clear that the children all wanted to extended themselves to compete 'trickier' tasks in class, but that they either did not have the time once they had completed the standard LO, or that they did not feel they understood clearly enough the concept upon leaving the carpet.
Let's have a quick re-cap of the lovely Ananya's initial response...
Following the intervention, I interviewed them again, to establish whether they found it fun and useful and whether they would like to engage in #flipped tasks again. The general consensus was that the children enjoyed completing the #flipped content at home and that it helped them to move on to more difficult 'challenges' in class - in line with the school's High Performance Learning approach.
Ananya said, "I thought the videos at home were fun and my Mum helped me to use it the first time. After that I loved doing it by myself and I felt really happy to start work before the others an do really super spicy stuff!"
It is all very well the results speaking for themselves - as illustrated in previous posts - but for me and also DC, pupil voice about how engaging, user-friendly and useful the #flipped activities were, was key - especially when promoting high performance learners, who take ownership of their own progression and extension. Hence, ensuring that the learners were listened to and their responses reflected upon was something I felt it was as, if not more, important when assessing the success of the intervention.
They are young, so at least initial parental support was all -important...
Despite many 'adaptions' being made to the content and structure of the videos, (such as inserting audio recordings of me reading aloud the in-built questions and tasks - to accommodate less confident readers), it would be incorrect for me to not acknowledge the role of the parents in facilitating the children with the initial 'logging-in' and understanding of how to complete the tasks. Once logged in, children were mostly able to independently 'tap the app' and complete their learning without parental support.
However, at times, children may have needed marginal support to have details re-explained in another way to that included in the video. This could be seen as a drawback of the process, however, once this issue was raised (via the below parental survey), the parents were informed that they should leave their child to re-watch as many times as possible and to make mistakes if unavoidable - as this will actually allow me to note gaps in their understanding and facilitate this in class.
Requesting parental feedback early on, provided encouragement, but also food for thought when ironing out misconceptions and preparing the class teacher to 'roll-out' the #flipped approach. One parent had, understandably, become concerned that her not being able to always facilitate home-learning may be a detriment to her child's progress. however, once we had a chat about this (via Class Dojo system), she understood that if necessary upon reviewing his responses to the video content, I would provide targeted support in class. Furthermore, that the #flipped content did not replace in-class support in way but actually enhanced it and her commitment to supporting such activities in future would be happily provided. Her super supportive attitude was echoed by others in the survey (results below) and also on the Dojo private message facility.
Overall, the response from parents was positive and to know that they fully trust and are engaged in supporting their children through the process - to ultimately enhance their engagement and achievement in class, in itself, acted as a motivator for class teachers at DC to 'stick with' the #flipped approach and to adopt it in their own classrooms going forward. Moreover, my original class teacher-mentor has now taken a role in leading the training on how to use the Edpuzzle programme!
Reflecting on such feedback...
Having this open dialogue between parents, learners and teachers is a recommendation I would make to those looking to facilitate this approach in their classrooms. This not only involves parents in their child's learning journey and fosters positive home-school relationships, but also gains an insight into learners' experiences at home - ultimately allowing teachers to 'iron-out' any concerns and make adjustments as necessary, to move learning forward. Reflection for teachers is always key, however, there is no 'one size fits all' approach to #flippedlearning and communication and critical reflection on the experiences of all involved is pivotal, when looking to truly enhance T&L through this strategy - rather than it being a vehicle through which simple 'lip-service' is potentially paid to innovative strategies in the classroom.
Moving forward in my journey...
The experience at Doha College was second to none and has provided me with so many unique opportunities to refine my pedagogy, experiment with new techniques and to share my research to hopefully inspire others at the school and beyond - both through in-school presentations and also this blog!
The momentum which sharing my findings and journey with you all has created, has had such positive impacts on my future practice and also has provided me with a diverse and robust network of peers - without whom, the twists and turns I have encountered during this process would potentially have been much more challenging. So I thank you all for your support and continued encouragement and I am super excited to have been invited to share my findings with a number of schools both in the UK and internationally, as a result of this wonderful little community of ours. Of course, I will share the outcomes of said meetings as they arise - paying particular attention to how I would recommend this approach to be implemented in much less 'ideal' educational settings that those at DC. Please feel free to subscribe to follow my next steps...
Thanks guys and gals!
