<p>KMC, I am old school and don’t like the idea of a flipped classroom. Our school district is thinking of going this route, and the superintendent is using it as a selling point for their one to one laptop initiative. I don’t want my kids learning from a video! They are at school to interact with their teacher and peers during direct instruction.</p>
<p>I’m all for teachers and schools thinking “outside the box” and coming up with new and interesting ways to teach various subjects, but this “flipped classroom” idea sounds like a cop-out to me.</p>
<p>Both of my parents and both of Mrs Wolverine’s parents were teachers, and they’re stunned that a school system would allow this…and that the school’s teachers would go along with it. I agree completely with Felicita…a large portion of the learning process occurs during interaction between the teacher and fellow students WHILE THE MATERIAL IS BEING PRESENTED. That’s completely lost with this system.</p>
<p>keepmecruisin…I hope you have a lot more patience than I do, because I doubt I’d be able to keep my cool for very long if our school adopted this type of “learning” (can’t call it teaching…because it isn’t).</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m right with everyone else here on this flipped classroom business. I would be highly perturbed. </p>
<p>On a totally unrelated topic, I’ve started thinking about spring break and I hate to “waste it” (I know, I know) on college visits. I’m trying to wrap visits in with the trip, but it’s just not the same as a week long lazy beach vacation with my girls. We have so few opportunities left for those kinds of trips that I’m feeling grumpy about this college business interfering. That, and it’s Monday. :P</p>
<p>Flipped classroom. Sigh. In education we seem to have to all jump on the bandwagon when some expert comes up the latest and greatest way to do something. Hey look over here…this is great! Oh no the ship is listing…everybody run the to the other side! And back and forth we go. Most of these great ideas can work, in some limited capacity, in some situations. I can see a place for a flipped classroom, but not for the majority of students…just like online classes…don’t get me started.</p>
<p>Suzy- go to the beach!! As we are rapidly approaching an empty nest we are so thankful we have all those memories of spring break at the beach.</p>
<p>I’ve only heard of flipped classrooms at the college level. When I first heard of it, I thought it was great - but again, that was on the college level. Putting this concept at the high school or worse, the middle school, level is insane. I would complain to the principal, and if necessary, the superintendent of curriculum.</p>
<p>My local public school system recently changed up the middle school curriculum, taking the three levels of math down to TWO, so I guess students are assigned to either remedial math or honors math. That move alone has convinced me to keep S in private Montessori through 8th grade.</p>
<p>Suzy100, I have the same thoughts - I’m totally wasting Thanksgiving week (D has the whole week off). I (stupidly) asked her if she would like to visit colleges in Florida or go to Nags Head with her friend’s family. I hate to just drag S (who’s only 10) to college visits on spring break. Maybe the Florida colleges wouldn’t be bad for spring break.</p>
<p>Argh, Keepmecruisin, that sounds dreadful. The middle school my older girls attended did this with the advanced math classes and it was, as the kids say, an epic fail. I was really astonished that the department put this out as a viable form of teaching. I sat at the meeting, thinking I wasn’t hearing right or was misunderstanding. What? They weren’t actually going to teach the kids? Worse yet they were using University of Chicago math while they used this flipped classroom approach. It went out the window after a few years. I hope you and other parents are able to get this back on track. It’s ridiculous. If the goal is to get the kids to be more comfortable working through unfamiliar problems on their own, a problem or two in advance is sufficient! </p>
<p>Suzy, I asked my D if she wouldn’t like to consider visiting University of Hawaii at Manoa this spring. I know exactly how you feel. There is a short fall break next month and we are trying to figure out where to visit then.</p>
<p>on a separate note, I no longer have 3 girls and 3 cats. My old lady cat started suffering from heart failure about a month ago, at the ripe old age of 19. She started to labor to breathe and built up fluid in her chest cavity. After making some heroic efforts to save her, we stopped her meds and made the decision to euthanize her. The vet who came to our home to do this was wonderfully compassionate and it helped to have her last minutes here with us rather than on an unfamiliar cold metal table. But I am very sad today and missing my friend of nearly 2 decades.</p>
<p>3girls, sorry to hear about your cat.</p>
<p>3girls, so sorry about your cat.</p>
<p>The “flipped classroom” approach isn’t really a new thing. When I was in middle school (back in the dark ages – we wrote on parchment with quills) our math class was self-paced. We were given the math book at the beginning of the year, and the teacher assigned certain problems for each chapter. If we had trouble with the problems, we would go to the teacher and he would work with us one on one. At the end of each chapter, we took a chapter test. Some chapters went fast and some slow. We progressed pretty quickly, since there was some friendly competition between kids in the class (though we weren’t supposed to know where anyone else in the class was).</p>
<p>This was the highest level math class, and it was taught in the same room at the same time (by the same teacher) as the remedial class, who had the teacher for more direct instruction and hands-on work. We were really independent. It worked really well for us.</p>
<p>3girls, I am so sorry to hear about your cat. It is so sweet that the vet would come to your house.</p>
<p>The children might as well be homeschooled rather than be in a “flipped” classroom. At least the parent can cobble together resources and tutors to make sure the child understands the subject matter. Heck, these kids are homeschooling themselves in that math class. </p>
<p>Khan Academy videos are good. We also use products by Chalk Dust Math ower, Dana Mosely. He does the DVTs for several levels of mathematics. Margaret Lial is a popular textbook writer with DVTs to accompany her textbooks. You can get the DVTs without purchasing textbooks. We just align the topics from BHG’s textbook to that of the DVT. Both begin with basic math through college calculus. Dana Mosely does not write textbooks, though.</p>
<p>Here’s a Dana Mosely Amazon search for the DVTs:
[Amazon.com:</a> dana mosely dvd](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dana%20mosely%20dvd&sprefix=dana+mosely%2Caps%2C405]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dana%20mosely%20dvd&sprefix=dana+mosely%2Caps%2C405)</p>
<p>Here’s a Margaret Lial textbook & DVT Amazon search:
[Amazon.com:</a> Margaret Lial DVT](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=+Margaret+Lial+DVT&sprefix=margaret+lia%2Caps%2C297&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A+Margaret+Lial+DVT]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=+Margaret+Lial+DVT&sprefix=margaret+lia%2Caps%2C297&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A+Margaret+Lial+DVT)</p>
<p>3Girls, ((hugs)). I do not know what I will do when my cat child passes away. He’s 13.</p>
<p>3girls, I’m sorry about your cat too. It’s so hard to have to do that with a beloved pet, but it’s great that you were able to have her home for it. </p>
<p>Also, I’m thinking a spring break trip to visit schools in Hawaii isn’t a bad idea either. ;)</p>
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<p>Here is the timer I purchased for BunHeadGirl.
[Testing</a> Timers TT-A1 ACT aTest Timer Watch: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Testing-Timers-TT-A1-aTest-Timer/dp/B009O08AW2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379955637&sr=8-1&keywords=act+timer]Testing”>http://www.amazon.com/Testing-Timers-TT-A1-aTest-Timer/dp/B009O08AW2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379955637&sr=8-1&keywords=act+timer)</p>
<p>There is one specifically for the ACT, and another for the SAT.</p>
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<p>No, it’s a coeducational, independent, day school that started out with just k-8, and then added high school grades 5 years ago. They modeled the upper school off of UK independent schools and some of the best privates an east coast boarding schools. And, with only 2 high school classes graduated, the school is getting a lot of notice from the East coast schools like Amherst, Columbia, Wellesley, Harvard, and etc. The school has an extremely long waiting list at every grade. </p>
<p>I’m just happy we lucked out and Bunheadgirl got off the waiting list when they added slots for 5 students for each middle school grade.</p>
<p>3girls, so sorry for your loss!
My D’s clarinet teacher lost 3 of her cats within one month! What’s worse - two of the three she lost within the same week! 
</p>
<p>Has anyone taken SAT subject U.S. history? D. is taking it early October. She felt it’s somewhat different from APUSH.</p>
<p>@3girls, I’m so sorry about your cat. It’s so hard to say goodbye. My dog, muf, is getting very old with some complications. I just spent $700 at the vet last week. Both kids are away at school, S15 at boarding school and D13 at college, so I’m holding off to burden them with worry.</p>
<p>IJustDrive, my 9th grade math class was like yours. It had about 15 kids who asked to be put into the self-pace math class. On the first day, we all started on page one of Algebra I and the teacher said “go”. I went through Algebra I and then Algebra II. I have to say, I stopped for a good month or two, just waiting for some classmates to catch up. But this was a limited experiment to this one subject in this one classroom in this school.</p>
<p>While it had started about four years previous on a very limited basis (about 3-5 students a year), it ended on the larger scale that year. I wasn’t the only student who dawdled; and, I think the teacher realized this approach could only be used on an adhoc basis.</p>
<p>3girls I am sorry for the loss of your cat.
BunHead thanks for the info I will do a little research.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, I emailed the math chair and the Superintendent for Curriculum. I’d like to stay away from the Principal as long as possible since I don’t really like talking to him. No response yet. Our town has a facebook page and lots of 8th grade parents are grumbling there so hopefully some emails and phone calls have been made. S told me he got the first math exam back and he got a 90 and the rest of the class failed. Hopefully they will see this is not working.</p>
<p>3girls…I’m so sorry about your cat. Are you going to get a kitten?</p>
<p>I convinced D to do some SAT work yesterday and she was rewarded with driving to my in-laws for dinner last night. My MIL rewarded me with a drink when I walked in the door. I do not like this driving thing!!!</p>