Student Participation… Take Two
January 23 to January 27, 2012
In my last post I shared statistics on
student participation with regards to watching their first video lecture and taking
an online quiz. The video was a review
on cell division while the quiz was assigned to assess my student’s ability to
glean important information from the video.
Being disappointed in the initial results, I went back to reteach
students on how to watch the video while taking the quiz.
I have graphed the differences in my
results. Week one is when I first
presented my students with the video and assigned them the quiz to take as they listened to the content. When comparing the initial results with week
two, where students were given one more chance to complete the assignment or
redo their initial attempt, you’ll notice an increase in both student
participation and achievement. 
The number of students completing the
assignment increased 23% from week one to week two, while the average grade on
the assignment increased by 10.5% (7% in General Biology and 14% in
Practical Biology).
I wanted more student feedback into
this first video assignment and the flipped classroom idea so I put together a Google
form survey that my students have randomly taken. Here is what my students think about the idea so far.
The answers that my
students provided have helped me realize some important points. First, I was surprised at how many students
didn’t watch the video while taking the quiz as was directed. After some discussion I realized that many
students got hung up on the word “quiz” and felt as if they would be cheating
if they watched the video while they answered the questions. Many also stated that they were not aware of
the fact that they could watch the video while taking the quiz, even after they
had received both verbal and written instructions to do so.
Instead of a quiz for
this week, I have designed a modified
Cornell notes worksheet so students can take notes, ask questions and write a summary about what they learn from the video. On Monday, I will model how to
watch a video lecture while filling in the worksheet as students participate in rounds of “think, pair, share”.
The second thought
that came to mind as I reviewed the data is how high school teachers often assume that students come into their classrooms knowing how to “learn”
the content that's presented to them, but where would they have learned these
skills? Unless students have had a study
skills class they may have never been shown how to take notes or decipher
important information from a discussion or lecture. This week I will provide my students with detailed training on how to learn and take notes from a lecture. I was surprised to see that over 90% of my students requested this direct training. Sometimes we can learn the biggest lessons from the simplest questions!
Question: What type of strategies or training do you provide to your
students when it comes to helping them become better learners?
