Question: What is one of the hardest things to monitor in a hybrid or flipped classroom?
Answer: Whether or not your students have watched the videos you posted!
At a recent conference, I spoke on my experiences with flipped learning. When I took questions at the end the number one question that was asked was “how do you know if your students watched your videos?”
Good faith, right?!
Wrong. Although we would like to think that we all teach little model students that always do their homework and complete every activity you may assign with diligence and rigor, reality tells us otherwise.
Before finding a wonderful little tool known as EdPuzzle, the way in which I would check to see if my students watched the video would be by them doing three things:
- Complete guided notes during the video.
- Answer questions via a Google Form
- Have a quick check quiz the moment the stepped into the door the next day.
Although this may sound pretty solid, the problem is that students could easily skip the video and fudge their way through the online quiz. However, almost always I would have students fail the quick check quiz because they didn’t know anything and I would be back at square one and have to teach the whole thing anyway!
Wasted time is something we can’t afford!
Now let’s get to the saving grace!
EdPuzzle is a totally free online tool that allows teachers to create and mange classrooms and provide them a way to monitor and track student progress.
There are a couple of key features that make EdPuzzle stand out against the rest:
Use your own content or any video on the web.
One of the amazing features of EdPuzzle is the ability to upload your own self-created videos or use any of the tens of millions of videos already on the web! You can choose videos from top video hosting platforms including YouTube, TeacherTube, Learnzillion, Khan Academy, and many more.
No video skipping…muahahaha! (Insert Maniacal Laughter)
The first time I used this wonderful feature of EdPuzzle I did not inform my students on their inability to skip ahead in the video clip. I just sat back and watched them as they began to realize what I had done.
One by one the frustration of not being able to fast forward the video became apparent. Once that initial phase past, they got over it and began to watch the video the way I wanted them to originally.
In addition to the inability to fast forward, they are also unable to minimize the page or open a new one without pausing the video! Props to EdPuzzle for thinking of everything!
Questions please!
One of the most powerful parts of this saving grace is the ability to place quick check questions throughout the video to check for student understanding. When it is time for a question, EdPuzzle will pause the video and a question will pop up that the students must answer to continue the video. This forces students to be actively engaged in the lesson instead of being passive learners.
Those are just three of the many ways in which EdPuzzle is a great and effective tool to use with your digital learners.
If you would like to learn more about how to get started using EdPuzzle, click on the links below to be taken to my YouTube Channel.
Tech Tool: EdPuzzle (creating classes and videos)
Thanks for reading!
Mr. K Edtech Today 