Last day I had to plan a class with my eleventh graders. These days we are studying some gramatical items of language: used to, present perfect and past perfect. I decided to do an in-class flip following a mixed configuration in oder to see the impact it could have on students' learning process, attitudes and autonomy.
Planning process
After deciding on the way I was going to carry out my in-class flip I started thinking of the possible stations I could have.
Students love having classes outside the classroom so I wanted to do it at the park, but since I needed time for doing the class arrangement, I sent a whatsapp message to my students so that they would know beforehand they had to go to another space.
Creating stations
I created six stations for students to follow. Four of them were activity stations, one station was intended to be teacher support and the last one was an independent station to which students were prompted to go in case they finished the activity earlier than the others.
I wrote the activity instructions in pieces of paper so that students would know exactly what to do.
Station 1: Students were asked to think about activities or general aspects they did in the past by using a grammar structure.
Station 2: as a way to activate creativity skills they had to reflect about their own learning process and make a drawing of something they had done so far to improve at school.
Station 3: this station asked students to work on their textbooks and to develop two specific exercises.
Station 4: this one was also a chance for creativity and a remembering prompt..They had to use the given play-dough to draw and write something they had done before they entered to the school.
Independent station: in case students finish earlier they could go to this station, take an empty comic and fill it with their own story.
Teacher support station: I sat in a place, waiting for students questions and guiding the class.
Class development
The day came. I went to the park 10 minutes before the class started and looked for the spaces to locate my stations. This is how they looked.
The students arrived and I explained them the way the class was going to be conducted. It was a little bit confusing for them because this time the process was not going to be controlled with a timer. Instead, they were free to decide the station they wanted to go and the time they would dedicate to each station (remember it was a mixed configuration).
General findings
Most of the students seemed to be higly motivated and interested in the class.
It was noticeable that working in another space was suitable in the class development because students could use the space in the way they preferred and it was more comfortable for them.
I was not able to establish a fixed teacher support station because of several doubts students were having throughout the class, so in many cases I had to walk to every single station. Anyway, it was not a problem at all.
One aspect I still need to promote on my students is the autonomous learning because sometimes they feel lazy to read instructions, doing activities properly or thinking and doing beyond.
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