great tool in making sure that content is really intentional and effective.
One thing to keep in mind though is that not all students will have that access to technology, so doing something like recording the tutorial and putting it on a thumb drive or a DVD so that students have some different options for watching the tutorial is a great alternative. As well as making it maybe available on a class website where they're able to access it at a public library or their school library before class or after class.
Another element of the four pillars of flipped learning that's not necessarily apparent in this particular lesson is the element of reflection and assessment for the instructor. Making it more clear in our lesson plan what we will be using for assessments would be very beneficial and maybe having something before the lesson actually begins. We do have an assignment that goes along with the homework that is part of the formative assessment process, but maybe asking the students what they already know before they begin about the Pythagorean theorem would be helpful so that we can take that information and make our tutorial even more effective.
We could even better our flexible learning environment as well by making sure that as a teacher, we are using that time, that group time, to pull students out that are having trouble and give them some one-on-one with us as the teacher. So another idea to better that flipped learning lesson plan.
One way that we can reflect as teachers on flipped learning is by using the two-by-two feedback model. And remember, this consists of giving two compliments and two suggestions for improvement. So when we use this two-by-two feedback model to reflect on our flipped learning lesson, we want to make sure that we are asking ourselves, what two things went really well? Why did they work well? Or how did we know that these things were working or were effective for us?
And on the other side, we want to ask ourselves, what two things need changing or improvement? What were the challenges that arose with those two things? Or, how might you change those things for next time you're teaching using this flipped learning lesson?
So let's apply these to our lesson that we just went over. What are two things that went well?
Well, let's say in this lesson students were really able to easily understand and follow the tutorial or homework. Making a teacher-made tutorial worked really well for this group of students. They give us good feedback. They were able to pause. They did not have many questions about the tutorial. And they all did their work, which is the most important thing.
The students were also really engaged and made connections during our hands-on activity. And as a teacher, we were able to walk around during the small group time and really observe these connections and hear about them firsthand how they were thinking and connecting.
On the other side of things, if we asked ourselves, what are two things I can improve? Maybe our advanced students were having a hard time because the homework wasn't very challenging. They could've used some more challenging problems or more options for some advanced practice on the Pythagorean theorem.
And if this were the case, we could have given our students, or our advanced students especially, some options for some websites that we specifically found that gave more advanced Pythagorean theorem practice problems. We could have also allowed for a few questions at the end of the tutorial for those students that needed a little extra challenge. Maybe some challenge or extra credit problems.
Maybe some of our students found the hands-on activity confusing. Even though there were some connections being made and the students were engaged, and that was a positive, we noticed that there were some lower-level learners that were having a hard time with the hands-on aspect of it, the abstract thinking involved. So here we could have made sure that we gave our students a bit more of a chance to practice in class by doing some problems on the board as a class before we