Flocabulary in the Classroom

Recently in Montgomery ISD grades K-5 instructional coaches were given the task of training all teachers on how to use Flocabulary.  The coaching team met to decide what approach to take with our teachers since Flocabulary had been purchased and used by teachers the previous year.  It soon became clear that although some of the coaches had used Flocabulary before no one in the group had received any formal training on the program.  Therefore, it was decided that we would first need a webinar training from Flocabulary in order to do justice to the program.  We were spot on with that decision because it was through the webinar that we were able to see that Flocabulary was much more than showing an engaging video to students.  

After Flocabulary webinar, we were even more excited and eager to get this powerful tool out to the teachers and students.  We decided to start the trainings with a hand-out (copy available upon request) that gave some background info on the goal of using Flocabulary and provided an agenda for the session.  During the first training, it became evident that showing teachers at the end of the presentation how to set up a class and how students join that class was a mistake on our part.  The reason this was a mistake is because of the one thing we NEVER have enough of in education—time.  Therefore, we moved class set-up and students joining the class to the beginning of the presentation at all preceding trainings.   

After showing teachers how to use those two pieces in the program, we immediately moved into showing them how to find content within the program.  Searching by standard and Flocabulary Month by Month were the two most popular options with our teachers.  Once the teachers knew how to find content the coaching team showed the various parts of the lesson cycle.  Our teachers were pleasantly surprised to learn of the new features such as pause and play, read and respond, and quizzes.  Nonetheless, they were very receptive of these new features of the program and eager to get back to class to implement them.   

The final piece—the coaches’ favorite part—was ending the training session with each grade level composing and performing their very own rap using Lyric Lab. Lyric Lab allows students an opportunity to create academic rhymes using learned content.  Teachers were shown how to use key terms, rhyme boxes, highlight words that were not familiar and find different beats in Lyric Lab.  Groups of teachers were allowed to practice and then performed their raps which were posted on social media.  We even had an assistant principal compose his very own rap to dismiss his students before the Thanksgiving break.  His video was an instant hit.  Check out his and some of our teachers' creations below!