SKKN Using -App fripgrid to maximize the effectiveness of the project lessons for 10th grade students

PART A. INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

The current situation of English teaching and learning in high schools in Vietnam

mainly focuses on grammar and has the nature of dealing with exams. Therefore,

most of the students cannot communicate even if they get good marks on the school

tests. Faced with this situation, in order to teach and learn the project lessons, I

initially asked them to record videos of the talking to send privately to teachers via

channels such as email, messenger or Zalo. However, I found that this approach

doesn’t really work. Firstly, with such a large number of students, it is not possible

for teachers to review and comment on all students’ speech. Second, the videos are

sent exclusively to teachers through the above channels, so it is not systematic, and

at the same time, only the student can learn for himself after receiving feedback from

the teacher. Third, other students in the class have not yet seen the enthusiasm of

other students to be inspired, strive and learn from their classmates.

After using some methods, I discovered an app that helped improve speaking skills

for learners in project lessons and chose to use Flipgrid. I go to

https://info.flipgrid.com/ to create an account, create groups by class name, and

create unit-specific topics. I myself have experimented as a learner to return to my

presentations, thereby seeing the advantages of Flipgrid in project lessons and

guiding students to use in learning English.

For the above reasons, the writer decided to choose “using -App fripgrid to

maximize the effectiveness of the project lessons for 10th grade students” as the

teaching experience.

1. Novelty

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. Active involvement increase

Up until this point, numerous classes have been centered on teacher-centered

activities at many conventional schools, particularly in rural and mountainous areas.

During these times, either students are made to listen or they are passive listeners

who appear to ignore the learning process. Actually, a very small percentage of

students actively participate in their classes and are eager to learn. This unfortunate

reality has long existed in many colleges, universities, and schools because neither

students nor teachers are willing to adopt new, cutting-edge teaching and learning

techniques.

Flipgrid is a free platform where students can create and post short videos of

themselves responding to questions or topics. You can also choose to enable (or

disable) a feature that allows students to view and comment on their classmates’

videos.

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While fostering classroom community and student-to-student relationships can be

difficult through a screen, Flipgrid helps bridge this gap.

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. engagement and motivation increase

Flipgrid is great for blended and personalize learning and increasing student

engagement and motivation. Using English through conversation patterns as well as

traditional exercises will not interest students. Using the app “Flipgrid” will make

students more interested when they can use the tools on the app to make videos.

Students can discuss questions and topics on it without being limited in space or

time.

III. The scope of the study

With the aim of maximizing the effectiveness of project lessons for 10th grade

students at Thanh Chuong 1 high school, a survey was conducted to collect the

needed data from the learners. 88 students of 2 classes from Thanh chuong 1 high

school in Nghe An province were involved in this study.

1. The methodologies

–

The study used the pre and post tests to analyze the data, and verify the

results of using -App Fripgrid to maximize the effectiveness of the project lessons

for 10th grade students.

–

Questionaires are used to survey students’ motivation and participation before

and after using flipgrid app.

PART B. CONTENT

1. Theorical background

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. Definition of project based learning

The Project-based learning has been part of the educational practice approximately

at the beginning of the 1980s and it was greatly influenced by the communicative

approach. Nowadays, as an appropriate and effective method, it is widely used in

the teaching of English as a foreign language.

The history of PBL can be traced back to the progressive tradition advocated by John

Dewey. Dewey insisted on the idea of “learning by doing”. He argued that the

classroom should be a kind of society and the students should be encouraged to

become the center in the learning process.

Legutke and Thomas (1991) define project work as a learner and task-centered mode

of teaching and learning which results from a joint process of discussion between all

participants.

Project is an extended task which usually integrates language skills through a

number of activities (Hedge, 1993)  . It involves a number of features: the use of

authentic English language materials, an emphasis on integrity and student-centered

activities, the importance of students’ participation and the use of different skills. It

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is also defined as “an instructional approach that contextualizes learning by

presenting learners with problems to solve or products to develop” (Moss & Van

Duzer, 1998)  . Project work encourages creativity, critical thinking, collaboration,

self-study, and other study skills.

Project-based learning is a very effective approach that allows the students to throw

out opinions about the topics covering fields of interest, to ask questions, to estimate,

to develop theories, to use different tools, to use the skills acquired in the context of

a real and meaningful life and allows learner to solve problems and answer questions

in a creative way in the classroom and outside (Katz & Chard, 2000)  .

Thomas’s adopts five criteria to define PBL: 1) “Projects are central, not peripheral

to the curriculum”; 2) “projects are focused on questions or problems that ‘drive’

students to encounter (and struggle with) the central concepts and principals of the

discipline”; 3) “projects involve students in a constructive investigation”; 4)

“projects are student-driven to some significant degree”; and 5) “projects are

realistic, not school-like”. Collaboration, as a matter of fact, should also be included

as a sixth criterion of PBL (Thomas & Mergendoller, 2000)  .

Stoller (2006)  defines PBL as: 1) having a process and product; 2) giving students

(partial) ownership of the project; 3) extending over a period of time (several days,

weeks, or months); 4) integrating skills; 5) developing students’ understanding of a

topic through the integration of language and content; 6) collaborating with other

students and working on their own; 7) holding students responsible for their own

learning through the gathering, processing, and reporting of information from target

language resources; 8) assigning new roles and responsibilities to students and

teacher; 9) providing a tangible final product; and 10) reflecting on both the process

and the product. Thus, it is different from the traditional English teaching in that it

lays great emphasis on the communicative and functional aspect of language

learning and it also pays attention to the integrity of language and content learning.

It is obvious that the definition of PBL is changing from time to time. This diversity

of defining features coupled with the lack of a universally accepted model or theory

in Project-based learning has finally led to a variety of PBL researches and

development activities, which rendered great complexity to this issue. Fortunately,

there are still some overlaps in these design features.

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. Flipgrid

.1 Definition

Flipgrid  is a social learning platform that allows educators to ask a question either

through a video or voice recording, then the students can respond in a video or voice

recording. Students can write comments in Flipgrid where the teacher or students

created videos. This web of discussion creates an online community where

knowledge is shared and created.

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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of utilizing ‘Flipgrid,’ a PC and

mobile device video recording and social media application, as a means of practice

in an English communication class. The present small-scale study was conducted at

a Thanh Chuong high school in. The practical implications of this study inform on

innovative ways to improve communicative English engagement in higher learning

education. In this case, student presentation videos and online video discussion tasks

were recorded using the Flipgrid application on student smartphones. The data

collection methods consisted of teacher observations, video data and student

responses recorded via a questionnaire.

2.2. The benifits of using Flipgrid in project lessons

Ever since its launch in 2014, Flipgrid has quickly become a widely used tool by

teachers and students worldwide, and for a good reason. By integrating such a fun

and exciting platform in their classroom, teachers expose their students to new ways

of learning and interacting in class. Here are some of the benefits of using Flipgrid

in the classroom:

1. a) Enhancing students’ participation

Students interact with one another through Flipgrid by using videos as their primary

tool. The app allows students to record their responses as many times as they need,

and when they feel comfortable with one version of their response, post it. They

have more time and space to give their take on a discussion after using sufficient

time and space to record their answer. Therefore, students can interact with the class,

and while others can still see and hear them, the pressure of being there living in the

classroom is gone.

1. b) Boosting students’ creativity and motivation

Secondly, using video recordings, texts, emojis, stickers, and other features on

Flipgrid is always more than welcome for students who are growing up using

technology and social media in their everyday lives. Videos make the learning

process more attractive and give already engaged student opportunities to be more

creative and, to the more reserved ones, the opportunity to express themselves.

Ultimately students will focus all their energy and attention on learning through

participation instead of being anxious.

1. c) Creating deeper learning opportunities

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, Flipgrid eliminates the anxiety and stress

associated with participating in a class discussion and gives students a chance to be

more engaged. For example, instead of reading a textbook and becoming acquainted

with a new culture, students in one country can interact with students worldwide and

get the information they need firsthand. By constantly participating and contributing

to class discussions, they have a hands-on, more profound learning experience – thus

increasing information retention.