Episode 024: Crystal Kirch and the W-S-Q

Show Notes

This week Matthew Moore talks with veteran flipped educator, and now learning specialist Crystal Kirch. Crystal is the author of the book Flipping With Kirch, as well as serving as a Flipped Learning Network board member. I had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with Crystal…twice as you will hear in the podcast. Although her book has been out for a few years now, this was my first reading and acquaintance with the W-S-Q method. Join us as we talk to a pioneer and voice of experience in the flipped community.

Enjoy the show and we welcome feedback via comments, tweets to hosts and/or the AskTheFLN Twitter account or as a comment via iTunes.

If you would like to support The Flipped Learning Network, please visit our page where you can consider how to support your not-for-profit community.

Guest Bio

Crystal Kirch has been an educator since 2007 and involved with flipped learning since 2011.  After several years teaching high school math in a traditional, teacher-centered model, she stumbled across the flipped classroom idea and began transforming her classroom into a more student-centered, active learning, higher order thinking learning space where students were supported more effectively and challenged in ways that were not possible before. After three years of flipping her class, she transitioned out of the classroom to be a Digital Learning Coach, where she had the opportunity to work with teachers of all subject areas on enhancing the learning environment by utilizing the power of different technologies.  She currently works as a Secondary Math Curriculum Specialist, supporting math teachers from grades 6-12 on curriculum and instruction. Crystal is well-known as a reflective practitioner through her blog Flipping with Kirch, which she began in January of 2012, as a way to reflect and share her journey with the flipped classroom.  The blog documents her weekly successes and failures, as well as lessons learned along the way, that helped her build a successful flipped learning environment structured around a model called the WSQ (Watch – Summarize – Question). She enjoys sharing her experiences through blogging, Twitter (@crystalkirch), and by presenting at conferences such as CUE, FlipCon, and ISTE. She is the author of Flipping with Kirch: The Ups and Downs from Inside my Flipped Classroom (2016) and contributing author in the book Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement (2014). Crystal is well-known as a reflective practitioner through her blog Flipping with Kirch, which she began in January, of 2012, as a way to reflect and share her journey with the flipped classroom. 

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Episode 023: Research, Digital Natives, Flipped Learning & Two Pints PLC

Show Notes

This week Matthew Moore had the opportunity to sit down with Michael Ralph and Laurence Woodruff via Skype to join them on their podcast Two Pint PLC at twopintplc.com and be available from their site in the near future. Two Pint PLC is a podcast focused heavily on education research and informed opinions over a pint of a favorite beverage.  I only hope they find my research more impressive than my unsweetened iced tea.

This episode of AskTheFLN is actually the audioblog version to a companion piece on our main site flippedlearning.org.  Why post this as an ATFLN episode or why do audioblog components at all?  I don’t always have time to sit and read blogs, let alone research, but I do have quite a bit of windshield time and would love to spend more of it listening to others in the flipped community.  It literally takes only a few extra minutes of recording and Audacity work to add the audio element to any blog and if it strikes a chord with readers and listeners then the time is well spent.  While maybe not as riveting as our interviews we do here at ATFLN, I hope you find this 15 minute listen worth your time as well.

 

Enjoy the show and we welcome feedback via comments, tweets to hosts and/or the AskTheFLN Twitter account or as a comment via iTunes.

If you would like to support The Flipped Learning Network, please visit our page where you can consider how to support your not-for-profit community.

Guest Bio

No guest this week, you are just stuck listening to me.

Matthew is the author of the book DIBs: Using Digital Instruction Blocks, available on Amazon.com. He is also a board member for the Flipped Learning Network and a Co-founder of the Illinois Flipped & Blended Learning Network . Matthew is a mathematics teacher with seventeen years of experience at the high school level and has also served as an adjunct instructor at the local community college for the since 2004. He can be followed at @matthew_t_moore and maintains a web site at matthewtmoore.wordpress.com

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Episode 020 Talking Teacher Tool Making with @MrDeltaMath, Zach Korzyk

Show Notes

This week Matthew Moore talks with education tool creator Zach Korzyk This podcast focuses on Zach Korzyk, the creator of an amazing free learning tool called DeltaMath, but the focus is NOT math but the story and philosophy of an educator trying to meet the needs of his students. DeltaMath is a great tool but what I found most engaging is the educational philosophies of the educator that have shaped this tool.  We talk about what it takes to make a top shelf education tool and provided to students and teachers for free.  We talk about how his students have helped shape a tool that is actively being used by 25000 student right now.  Finally, we talk about the impact that one teacher in New York can have from his classroom and his apartment on so many teachers and student.  This is a great tool for flipped classrooms, but is an even more powerful story of making a better tool because it is good for students.  Enjoy the show and we welcome feedback via comments, tweets to hosts and/or the AskTheFLN Twitter account or as a comment via iTunes. If you would like to support The Flipped Learning Network, please visit our page where you can consider how to support your not-for-profit community.

Guest Bio

Zach Korzyk is the creator of DeltaMath, a free online resource used by thousands of teachers and nearly a million students. He is in his 12th year as a public school math teacher at Manhattan Village Academy and also a Math for America Master Teacher.  Continue reading