Macy Jackson 

Fairmont State 

EDUC 6812

Spring 2013

Technology Integration Initiative

Flipped Accounting Classroom

Needs Assessment:

When considering technology integration at the Randolph Technical Center, a school I am very familiar with, I chose to talk to Christina Waybright, the accounting teacher, because there seemed to be the least amount of technology used in her accounting classes.  She is not currently using an accounting software and was interested in completing training in Quick Books but that was not her main concern.  She had recently started taking videos of her lectures for students who were absent to view in class.  When they were back in class, she would have them watch the video in class then delete it due to it’s large file size.  She expressed an interest in regularly recording and posting these videos online for students to view at home.

When teaching accounting, a student must master each lesson before moving on to the next.  When a classroom is ‘flipped’, the student has the opportunity to take their time watching an accounting lecture and getting started on assignments before they get to class.  This helps a variety of learners understand the concept at their own pace.   flipping the class is especially important when students have absences or snow days.  This helps all the students in the class be able to meet progress goals for the class despite interruptions.

The best part of flipped classes is the students know exactly what is going to be covered in class that day making them more prepared for discussions, group work, assignments and quizzes.  This advantage allows for the teacher to help the students fine tune their understanding instead of starting from scratch on a concept.  Duke Intro to Biology teacher, Mohamed Noor, says of flipped teaching, “I like it a lot because I spend more time talking with the students than talking at the students.”

This is not an entirely new concept and the model is also in use- to rave reviews- at the Duke- NUS Graduate Medical School campus in Sigapore.  This will prepare students for the use of technology that may likely be incorporated into their college curriculum.

Cost-Benefit Analysis:

Fortunately for everyone, the implementation of a flipped class requires little to no financial cost because the videos can be posted to the wiki of the class.  This teacher is already trained on how to easily manage a wiki as the instructor and the students are often required to use a wiki in many other business education classes.

The cost will be of the teacher’s time in redesigning her program.  This instructor has already begun video recording lessons for students who were absent but is not using them on a regular basis prior to the start of the lesson.  She will need to allot time in her planning to record her lessons for posting.  She will do this for each accounting section within the chapter, which will create about a 15-20 minute video, and will cover approximately two sections per week.  She can choose to do this in the very early stages of the semester or spread it out so she is preparing once a week.  

Laura Lieber, religion professor at Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology says about starting flipped classes, “It was a lot of work leading up to the class, but by two weeks in, it was effortless.”

I believe the initial investment in time for the professor will pay off in the long run and she and her principal agree.

An insignificant cost will be for DVDs/flash drives for students who may have difficulty accessing a computer or the internet to view videos, if needed.  This is important to consider because these students are primarily minor children dependent on their parents for the use of internet or transportation to a library with some of them potentially living in very rural areas of West Virginia.  Some online website tools and applications may require a small initial or monthly fee and provide added ease-of-use or enhancements.  For example, for additional storage and bandwidth (if needed) on screencast.com would be a monthly rate of $9.95 or a yearly rate of $99.95 but is not necessary if using wikispaces.com.

Technology Implementation Plan:

The first step in starting a flipped classroom would be to decide instructional goals for the class.  Depending on the accounting class, instructional goals may be to cover more of the concepts or to provide students with a better understanding of more difficult concepts.  Regardless of the goal, the teacher will set a higher goal than in un-flipped classes due to the extra opportunity the students will have by having their lectures on hand and available anytime.

The instructor already has access to a computer that takes her videos and has internet access.  She also has training in using and teaching students wikispaces.com.  She will need to set all students up on the class wiki then post her videos.  It would be helpful for her in communicating with class to also post the syllabus and class updates throughout the semester.  

The next step would be to find out if there were any students who are unable to get access to the internet on a regular basis.  If not, the teacher would need to create the videos on DVD or a flash drive for the student to sign out on a regular basis.

Lastly, to continually improve the flipped class, the teacher should continually study resources and websites in flipped teaching such as screencast.com (who has a free version and can ‘Give your high quality videos, images, and documents the perfect online home’), snagit.com (has a free download to help you enhance videos and images, i.e. helps with a variety of screenshots, etc.) and flippedlearning.org (features a variety of resources such as webinars, podcasts, book suggestions, ect.) and periodically add new strategies to lessons that help instruction.

Professional Development Plan:

Although there is only one accounting teacher, I believe accounting is an important subject for future business and accounting majors and aspiring entrepreneurs.  Additionally, this makes professional development something she can do individually and on her own schedule or one-on-one with my support. 

If she is simply putting her recorded videos on the wiki, this will not require a lot of professional development to begin a simple, yet successful flipped class considering she already video records lectures for absent students and is proficient in using a wiki.  Videos will be approximately 15-20 minutes long per section.  The best file format will be the MPEG to make this size manageable for downloading and uploading.  Continual improvement will adding in images, ie from the book or Microsoft Excel, or adding a ‘second iteration’ may require some research, practice, reflection and guidance and the information here can be a guide.

Second iteration of the flip can also be developed once a teacher becomes more comfortable switching to a more flipped class.  Teachers can personalize what they want to do after the flip.  For example, Troy Faulkner a high school math teacher added a ‘peer instruction flip’ strategy.  He believes when peers recently understand a concept they are better at pointing out certain parts of a problem where the students suddenly has the ‘ah-ha!’ moment than he is because it has become such old knowledge for him given his over 20 year career.  In his interview with Troy Cockrum, they discuss other second iterations such as ‘explore, flip, apply’.

Professional development is most successful when reflection and reevaluation happens often.  I have provided a link to a participant evaluation for the teacher to use to document progress or lack there of through surveymonkey.com here.

I will present my multi-media presentation, ‘Flipped Prezi’, to the teacher and director to introduce them how the flipped concept can be implemented and successful.  This Prezi can also be edited to be suited to share with students and parents to also introduce them to flipped teaching and learning.  I also started my own free Screencast.com library that I will use in professional development to demonstrate how this popular site is used for flipped teaching.  In my Screencast library you will find a video of me as well as some helpful training materials using Snagit.com’s screenshot tools.

http://flippedlearning.org/cms/lib07/VA01923112/Centricity/Domain/4/ClassroomWindowInfographic.jpg

Research and Resources Archive:

"NETS For Students." NETS For Students. International Society for Technology in Education, 2012. Web. 23 Jan. 2013. <http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.

Helps guide teachers in how to continually teach students in digital age.

Ferreri, Eric. "Duke Today." Duke Today. Duke University Office of News and Communications, 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 01 May 2013 <https://today.duke.edu/2013/02/flippedclassroom.

Great article about how Duke University has had success with Flipped teaching.

Arfstrom, Kari M. "Turning Learning on Its Head." Flipped Learning Network / Homepage. Schoolwires, Inc., n.d. Web. 09 April 2013. <http://flippedlearning.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1>.

The go-to website for all things ‘flipped learning’.  This website will lead to you to a variety of resources such as podcasts, professional development, webinars, blogs and more.

Spencer, Dan. "Flipped Learning Resources - Google Drive." Flipped Learning Resources - Google Drive. Dan Spencer, Educational Technology Consultant Jackson County ISD, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2013. <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IOI5-tXZvOEVCFhoN5hlsccnRa-8_77nx3GDdB6C-tE/edit.

This document had some great quotes that beautifully described the potential it had to reach great heights in the classroom.  It also had some fun links.

"Wikispaces - Classroom." Wikispaces - Classroom. Tangient LLC, n.d. Web. 01 May 2013. <http://www.wikispaces.com/content/classroom/about>.

An introduction to wikispaces.com for education.

"Introduction to Snagit 2." TechSmith. TechSmith Corporation, n.d. Web. 01 May 2013. <http://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-snagit-mac-intro.html>.

Techsmith is a website with a variety of digital learning tools and products.  Snagit was available on the website for download.  This is where I downloaded my 30 day free trial version.  Techsmith and Snagit seem to come up a lot while researching flipped learning.

"Screencast.com." TechSmith. TechSmith Corporation, n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013. <http://www.techsmith.com/screencastcom.html>.

A product by Techsmith with the slogan, “Give your high quality videos, images and documents the perfect online home.  I used this to post a video and some screen shots taken with Snagit.

Waybright, Christina, Mrs. "Interview with the Accounting Teacher of the Randolph Technical Center." Personal interview. 8 Apr. 2013.

I spoke with Mrs. Waybright initially about introducing Quick Books into her accounting curriculum.  Then when we continued to explore other technology integration, she expressed interest in having her lectures consistently available online.  Occasional follow up communication followed via phone & text.

Johnson, Donald, Mr. "Interview with Director of the Randolph Technical Center." Personal interview. 8 Apr. 2013.

After discussing the needs assessment I established with Christina Waybright, the accounting teacher at Randolph Technical Center, Mr. Johnson suggested a “flipped classroom” 

for her and briefly explained the concept.  We both agreed it sounded like a great idea for her subject.

Cockrum, Troy. "Podcast." Flippedlearning.org. Flipped Learning Network, 30 Apr. 2013. Web. 01 May 2013.

This was an podcast interview covered a good deal of information.  It started with “flipped news” which reviewed a website called knowmia.com as a tool for posting videos in a flipped classroom so I was able to quickly familiarize myself with the site.  Then there was an interview with a science/math teacher who is successful with flipped instruction.  They then discussed how a teacher can personalize the class after the flip which they called the second iteration and gave examples.

Bergmann, Jonathan. "Flipped Mastery Student Impressions." Flippedclassroom.org. Flipped Learning Network, 28 Oct. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2013. <http://flippedclassroom.org/video/flippedmasterystudent-1>.

This is a video of a variety of high school students explaining what it is about flipped learning that makes them prefer it to traditional classes (they all prefer it).  This is important to watch to fully understand the benefits to students.  There were some positive aspects I had not realized despite extensive research.