Where we are starting from...

Okay so we are just a bunch of teachers in Littleton Public Schools that are looking for an innovative way to increase contact time with students as our classroom populations grow. We seem to have bigger and bigger class sizes and more academic/emotional needs so there has to be a better way of teaching (math is our focus now) in order to do a better job at reaching ALL students. Flipping the classroom seems to be the right move for us. Having students watch our instructional videos at home for homework, while taking notes on the learning goal , what's most important as well as their questions, and then doing the math practice and homework in class would help ALL students b/c the quick learners can get the work done at their fast pace then move on to an extension or challenge activity while the more struggling or average learners can work at their own pace.
We, the teachers, can spend more of our time conferring and roving around the classroom, checking in with all students, instead of focusing most of our time instructing. Plus, if we divide up the Every day Math 5th grade units up and each teach one or two units on the prerecorded videos, the students are being taught by all of the 5th grade teachers, not just their one math instructor. I think this will help them b/c they will be hearing concepts taught by different teachers which have different teaching styles.
This also leaves more time for us, the teachers, to think of alternate ways to teach the concepts if students are as well as are not getting the information. I usually spend a lot of time at night preparing for instruction but if I can save that time, I can use that time instead to be more creative with my teaching, interweave videos or kinesthetic activities or reflect back on my own teaching.
We are excited to spend our summer preparing for this action research and this blog is where we will capture our thoughts, concerns, questions, frustrations and successes as we move along this journey. Please put any comments you would like here for us!