Module 5: My Flip Project on Public Speaking

Becoming an English Education major, I never expected to be in the classroom, teaching so early.  Sure, I'm observing right now at a middle school, but when I mentioned this Flip Classroom project to my supervising teacher, she thought it was a great idea.  In discussing what I could teach about, we both decided that the most beneficial item to discuss for her 8th graders was the subject of public speaking.  In my teacher's class, they are giving research presentations at the end of the quarter.  Many of them have not given speeches before, so my teacher suggested that I talk about speech delivery.  Speech delivery would be a great and beneficial subject to discuss, but the problem was, it would be difficult to produce critical thinking questions based on speech delivery alone.

Thankfully, Eden, a classmate (and dear friend of mine) wanted to work with me.  She brought up the idea of incorporating the 4 different types of speeches to these students.  It would be important for them to know in the future as well.  I asked my teacher if this would be acceptable, and she was completely for it!

So, we created the project on Prezi, putting all the necessary information that these students will need to know for when they give their presentations and the potential they could take away for the future.  Making the Prezi took a good amount of time as well as composing an informal script.  Once we put it all together, the next day, I presented it to two of her classes.

Since I would be there for 4 class periods, I had the opportunity to teach the same lesson to 32 of her students.  My teacher actually gave me control of the classroom for the period which was scary to think about.  I was just glad that these students were already used to my presence. She instructed these students to bring their headphones and to use their Chromebooks (which the school provides) to watch the presentation.  I explained all the directions to them and let them begin.  After the presentation, I instructed them to take the quiz afterwards.  When they were finished, we actually went over the correct answers, and for the rest of the class period, my teacher and I answered their questions.  The students did well overall, meaning that they understood the concepts.  But, we basically spent the rest of the period explaining why the correct answers were right and the wrong answers were wrong.  The purpose of this was so that in leaving the class, they would feel more confident about presenting than they did before.  I definitely believe I succeeded in that.

I think that the Flip Project is very useful in the classroom, and as a future teacher, I can see myself using this.  I found it very valuable, and I truly believe that the 8th graders found it valuable as well.