Flipped Social Studies
Classroom
By Adam Schnug
What is the flipped classroom?
Credit for the beginning of the flipped
classroom began with two science
teachers at a Colorado High School
 Since that time it has evolved into
different styles and is growing at an
exponential rate.
 It is blended learning

How it began for my class…
In October of last school year I read an
article about the “flipped classroom” and
thought it was a good idea.
 After learning more about the flipped
classroom (youtube, edutopia) I decided
to give it a try

How it began in my class…

During my planning period I set up a flip
cam and recorded my lecture of the John
Adams Presidency.
– Just me in the classroom
– Gave the normal lecture
 I posted it on my I-SS webpage and told my
students to watch it at home as a test run
How it began in my class…

The following day I asked for feedback on
how the process went.
– Problems all over the place

Still I continued to make videos and post
them and kept the process going. Along
the way I learned some tricks and found
some helpful resources
Data!

Around March the class was moving along
with the flipped classroom comfortably. I
wanted to see how well the process was
working so I collected some data.
– Checked overall grades
– Checked missed assignments
– Checked exam scores
Data Results

Data revealed a huge improvement in one
area and a small improvement in another.

Missed Assignments (0’s)
– Before the flipped classroom 21 total (2
students ‘A’ and ‘B’ had above 5 each)
– After the flipped classroom I had 3 for the
remainder of the school year.
– Student ‘A’ had all three - phone call home
Data Results
Report card grades increased on average
by 2%. A small improvement related to
the lack of zeros received.
 Did not see a difference in classroom
exam scores.

What not to do…

Early in the creation of the videos, my focus was
on the homework videos.
– The classroom activity after the video is far more
important than the video.
Do not waste time checking to see if students
watched the videos.
 Don’t post your videos on one webpage for
students to access

– Use youtube (or a website like it) and don’t forget to
disable the comments!
What not to do…

Do not make videos longer than 5 to 7
minutes.
– Student attention span; downloading and
uploading takes awhile.

Never post the links to videos that are part
of a playlist.
No internet, no problem!

So what about the students who don’t
have internet at home?
– Another reality is the internet doesn’t work all
the time.

Set time aside for them at the beginning
of class to watch the videos.
Ah-Ha moments
Students will help you! The reality is they
probably know more about technology than we
do. Ask them for help if you need it.
 Uploading videos to Youtube was the best way
for all my students to see the videos we created.
 By the end of the year, most students watched
the videos on the bus on the way to school with
their smart phones.
 Most of your videos are already created for you,
you just have to find them.

Ah-Ha moments
 5th
question on our I-SS Model
– What will we do if they already know it?
– Have them evaluate the videos prior to
viewing!

The videos don’t need to be your lectures
all the time.
Example of a “Flipped” Lesson
Go home tonight and view this video on the XYZ Affair.
Write a one paragraph essay explaining the events that
took place.
 Next day we put ourselves in John Adams’ shoes and
evaluate his options as a class.
 Students then broke up into groups (each group was
assigned a specific option to evaluate)
 Then the students are regrouped so there is one option
located in each group and they share their findings
 Each group voted on the way out of class which option
was best.

Resources for creating videos

Screencast-o-matic
– Free online screen recorder that allows you to
upload to youtube

TechSmith.com/screencastcom
– Free (up to a point) similar to screencast-omatic

Screenr
– Very simple, like screencast-o-matic
Samples of Flipped Videos

Khan Academy – Ancient Rome
– Careful with Khan Academy; most videos may be
above our students understanding or too long.

TED-Ed – Teenager in Ancient Rome
– Thought provoking videos; most videos come with
questions and ways to “dig deeper”

Cosmolearning – Aral Sea
– Cosmolearning compiled a ton of videos into
categories

Knowmia
Resources to help you get started







https://flippedlearning.eduvision.tv/default.aspx
http://flippedclassroom.org/
http://flippedlearning.org/
http://flipped-learning.com/
http://www.ascd.org/professionaldevelopment/webinars/flipped-classroom-webinars.aspx
http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/the-flipped-classconversation-689.php
https://sites.google.com/a/fargoschools.org/integratingte
chnologyfargonorth/resources-tools-for-flipping-yourclassroom