Flipping the directions for a major project

        I haven't really been flipping the past couple weeks. The last video lesson assignment I gave was over a week ago. There are several reasons for that, including a totally messed-up calendar last week:

• Monday: normal, but I had to plan to miss 1 class for an IEP meeting
• Tuesday: 20-minute classes wedged between a poetry slam assembly and a risk behavior survey
• Wednesday: normal except for an extended homeroom that shaved 2 minutes from each period AND we don't have end-of-period bells so actually you lose 3 or 4 minutes because the classroom clocks are not synchronized
• Thursday: early-release and school-wide activities so no classes at all
• Friday: normal 47-minute classes (finally!)

        With my mastery-assessment model, I need to expect at least two consecutive days of class: one for the initial quiz and quick feedback; the next day for re-takes (and whomever was absent the first day). I wrote about this realization last Saturday, and how/why I ditched an objective and a Need2Know video lesson. So what have I been doing?!

        Students are working on an Election Scrapbook about the US Senate, House, or state governor race of their choice. Popular selections include Cruz/O'Rourke in Texas, Gillum/DeSantis and Scott/Nelson in Florida, and Bredesen/Blackburn in Tennessee. Of course, this will wrap up after Election Day when students learn who won.
        I chopped the project into separate GoogleDocs, each due every 3 or 4 days. A recent one (example below) was about watching at least part of a candidate debate. I could monitor students' progress and responses on those GoogleDocs, so I can verify completion before they place those items in the physical booklet. Yay! Frankly, that has been challenging but I've pretty much kept my head above water, and I know that will make it much easier to score the final drafts.

        Those final scrapbooks will be 12-page booklets, made by folding 3 sheets of large construction paper. I needed to standardize the format of those booklets to simplify the creation process AND for my own sake when I read through these things. As I have written here earlier, these 8th-graders have inconsistently followed directions on other tasks. How could I make sure they know my expectations for this project?? They really need to know these things.... AHA, Need2Know! That's the kind of thing I flip! Why spend 20+ minutes reviewing the directions in front of the projector?? What about the kids who are absent, in the bathroom, zoning out, etc.?
         So I made a pair of simple videos [thanks, screencast-o-matic!] and plugged them into a GoogleForm. Unlike my usual system of closed-note in-class assessment, this time students could see the video while entering their responses ... so they'd better be good! On the due date, I conferenced with a few students in each class who showed misunderstandings.

          I wish I could report that this was a perfectly effective system, but a few days after that online assessment some students have still been making significant errors in the project design. Most of those mistakes are putting the wrong items on a certain page: I require them to separate factual information from their opinionated judgments about those facts -- to symbolically and actually keep apart the subjective from the objective. FORTUNATELY though, I'm having them do all the physical booklet creation in my classroom, so I can catch these mistakes in the middle of the process. And of course that was part of my original motivation to start flipping: bring these projects out of the homework realm and into my domain where I can help as needed with resources and assistance.

          Next week looks more normal, at least in terms of the school schedule! It's too early in the season to fear snow days, so I've got that going for me too.