The Start

My name is Velisa Anusic and I teach high-school math in the Peel Region in Ontario, Canada.  I've spoken at a few conferences about flipping the classroom, and have been featured on CTV news as well as The National.

Clip from The National - Sal Khan's Big Idea

Clip from CTV News

This blog will chronicle my journey through flipping.  I've been flipping for about a year and a half now, and I'd like to make this first post about how I got started:

There were two issues which arose while I was teaching a content heavy Calculus course:

1) I was absent quite a few days through the semester because it was my first year as department head and I had to go to many conferences and training sessions.

2) Students were watching ready made videos on their own time, but didn't fully understand the concepts so they were applying methods which I hadn't taught and doing so incorrectly.

To solve the first problem, I started making short videos of myself teaching, so that when I was absent the supply teacher would just play the video and students would benefit from a lesson even in my absence.  For the second issue, I started to make my own add-on videos which the students could watch which would explain further the concept they had learned from other videos.  I posted all the videos to my YouTube Channel.

Before I knew it, the videos I had made were being watched by students again and again.  Videos I had made for being absent were watched at home to reinforce the concepts.  Other videos which I had pushed out to only a few students were being viewed by everyone in the class.  The students were obviously letting me know that this works for them! So away I went...

That was the start, but I am far from the beginning now.  My next post will explain my evolution, and what I've discovered is the most important part of flipping.