Monthly Archives: November 2019

Professional Learning, social emotional learning, Speaking & Listening, student choice

Doing Student Led Conferences with Flipgrid

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Since the Saddleridge Fire caused my school to cancel Parent Conferences in October, I offered students 100 points to record a conversation with a parent about their grade on Flipgrid. I gave them this prompt: Lead a conversation with your parent(s) about your 15 week grades. How many graded assignments did you complete? How many were missing? How many were late? Which assignments did you struggle with? Which did you learn the most from? Describe your work/study habits and explain how you are going to balance assignments in the future with all of your other responsibilities. Share an assignment from this class that you are proud of & describe how you created it.
Stu Led Confs Flipgrid.pngOverall, 49 students (33%) completed a video and 23 of them (15%) improved by a full letter grade in time for the 15 week marking period. Since I have a total student load of 154 students, this means that five students (3%) went from a B to an A, nine students (6%) went from a C to a B, eight students (5%) went from a D to a C, and one student (.6%) went from an F to a D. All of the videos demonstrated students improving their self-awareness and taking responsibility for their learning with the added bonus of parents figuring out how to better support them. These videos warmed my heart. I will definitely do this again in the Spring before the parents come in for Back to School night. Now I just need to start recording my responses. I’m going to try and do five per day so that I get to them all. Please be patient life outside of work is very hectic right now.
15 Week Grade Dist F19-20
In short, this assignment improved grades for one-third of my students. Fifteen percent of students moved up by a whole letter grade. Further, this assignment reduced my D/F percentages from to 24% to 18%. I need to give more thought as to how I can motivate this group of struggling students to engage and learn how to ask for help. More importantly these videos showed me that even in secondary school where engaging families is difficult, most parents are working hard to help their children succeed academically. Thanks Flipgrid for bridging this communication gap and giving me valuable insight into the families I serve.

https://flipgrid.com/+petri/ce927ddf?embed=true

One of my favorite videos came from a 10th grade softball player Jazmin and her mother Ana. I loved it because this mother asked her daughter questions about her life in school, i.e., What do you like about this class? & What’s your favorite type of assignment? Plus, at about the 3 minute mark, the Mom actually DABS because she is so proud of her daughter. Jazmin’s reaction made me laugh out loud. The two of them seem more like friends than mother & daughter. I doubt I would have seen this sweet side to their relationship had this been a traditional parent meeting in my classroom. Educators new to Flipgrid can read their blog and check out their Discovery Library for ideas to get them started.