Two rounds into summative oral assessments now, and something’s changed: fewer of my students are telling me “I didn’t prepare.” A few weeks ago, that was the most common answer. This week, it’s becoming the exception.
This one’s a solo update — no guest, just what’s actually happening in my classroom, plus a piece of news I’m genuinely excited about.
On the vivas side: students are showing up rehearsed, some of them using an AI practice tool to run through questions ahead of time. And a pro-tip. Asking a kid to diagram something live, on the spot, tells me more about what they actually understand than almost anything else I do.
And on the other side of the equator: ten years ago, I helped run one of the first large-scale flipped-classroom pilots in Misiones, Argentina. That relationship never really ended — and this month, the first unit of a fully Spanish-language, Argentina-contextualized Mastery Flip course went live. If you’re Spanish-speaking, or know someone who is, I’d love for you to check it out.
Jon’s Upcoming Appearances
October 15th - Online in Argentina
November 14th (In Person) - Teaching Motivated Minds Conference (Austin, Texas)
Key Moments
0:00 – Cold open: “They showed up prepared”
0:32 – Round 2 vivas: how students are using FlintK12 to practice ahead of time
2:20 – The real shift: “I didn’t prepare” is becoming the exception, not the norm
2:31 – The whiteboard trick that’s changing how physics vivas go
5:41 – Pivot: the Misiones, Argentina backstory
6:56 – The first Spanish-language Mastery Flip course goes live
11:08 – Closing thought: pressure-testing the framework in real time, in public
