Señora Cummins' Reflections

I read a fantastic book about making educational videos.  I was already making them but Karen Costa's book encouraged me to take my videos to the next level.  She also showed how easy it is to use YouTube as a place to store all of these videos. I had been using screencastomatic.com and my personal subscription will expire in December.  My college provided us with a group account that I'll start using.  I decided to moved my 105+ videos to YouTube instead of within screencastomatic.com.   I've moved about 2/3 of the videos and decided to make the majority "private" and a few "public."  I linked 2 of them on my weekly announcements to my online sections yesterday.  I heard back from a student that the link wouldn't go through and said it was set as "private."  So, I reset it to "public" and then sent an announcement to the class with the link and an apology that I had it set incorrectly.  I did the same with the other section and I...

 Flipping the classroom is tricky.  I'm 5 weeks into the semester and I'm definitely learning.  I realized 2 weeks ago that I was lecturing too much and not allowing enough student practice.  So, I've dialed back the amount of time I'm teaching. My curriculum provides "autochecks" for students to do as they go.  These are in the textbook for students to utilize.  I'm taking a screen shot and asking the students to do these before we begin on that concept.  By doing this, students are truly accountable for reading the information and being prepared for class.  I'm finding that when students don't do well on these autochecks which I don't look at they are very motivated to pay attention in class.

 This semester my hybrid class was divided in half due to social distancing.  The room can only hold 12 students so instead of all 21 meeting with me on Monday and Wednesday as was originally planned, 10 come on Monday and 11 come on Wednesday. On the one hand I wouldn't have chosen this.  They wouldn't either.  On the other hand, we are all thankful we can meet face to face at all since much of the country still can't.  So, I'm leading by example to make the best of what we have.  I'm proud to report the students are working hard and we are a team as we figure this out together.   I am required to wear a mask which is difficult because my voice is quiet and they must hear how I pronounce Spanish.   I requested an amplification system and I received one that is working very well.  It's a mic on a headphone that connects to a speaker that I wear as a necklace.  It's not a fashion accessory, but it's getting the job done.  I...