The Chronicle reviewed a recent conference on student learning, sponsored by the Teagle Foundation,  What Works in Student Learning, and What Gets in the Way – Teaching – The Chronicle of Higher Education.  Attendants considered the state of student learning in higher education.

Among their suggestions: Students should be active in constructing their own learning, and activities should stimulate not just their intellects but their emotions.

As often happens, the comments are as interesting as the article.  Among the comments are questions serving students with disabilities as well as a bit of debate about “learning” versus “teaching.”  A large amount of comments point out that what was said at the conference has been well-established and said before.

This is true.  However, we who are currently teaching in higher education are at different stages–and with different training to support our skills at teaching.  New assistant professors may or may not have had graduate training in teaching and learning theories and in pedagogical practice.  There is some interesting research (and hopefully there will be more) that shows the more professors know teaching and learning principles and understand student learning, the more successful they are at evaluating and improving their courses (Milton & Lyons, 2003).

For new professors, the amount of teacher preparation is changing as more universities establish graduate teaching certification programs.  These programs allow those students who are not in departments that traditionally provide a lot of support (graduate students in Language and English programs, for instance, teach a lot and usually are provided with a lot of training by their home departments).  For others, though, they may start their first job with no training or experience in teaching! For the rest of us, most midsize and large institutions have teaching and learning centers to provide ongoing support.

We in academia are slow to change (are you shocked by this statement?)  We honor traditions, yet the traditional lecture is slowly being replaced by “active lecturing” in which students get involved or by active learning in the classroom, in which the lecture is minimized or moved out of the in-class session entirely (as in the flipped classroom).   This movement to change our pedagogical practice is slow but follows decades of research on promoting student learning, as the conference participants noted.

Finally, our students have changed (again, not a shock to point this out).  They have changed in response to our culture and cultural priorities, our uses of technology, our economy, and other changes in the West (I want to be careful to distinguish between a U.S. university and those in developing countries).

Much of our professional lives have remained the same–we balance research and teaching and service, in proportions dependent on our type of school.  For some of us, our teaching in and of itself has not changed.  However, job security has lessened, demands on our time have increased, student expectations have changed, and public expectations have increased.  However we address these issues, we must remind our stakeholders that we are teaching always the new generation.  What will our culture do to support our mission in higher ed?

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Thank you, TENNESSEE TEACHING AND LEARNING CENTER at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for teaching us how to teach better!

Doc Meek, Sat, Oct 27, 2012, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

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“What if you are smarter than you think?”

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC. 

CANADA: Dr. Meek (587) 400-4707, Edmonton, AB

TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 81, Nuku’alofa

USA: Dr. Meek (801) 738-3763, South Jordan, Utah

For optimum brain health, ensure your heart health:  

More on heart health: http://www.themeekteam.info

USA: Jeannette (801) 971-1812; South Jordan, Utah

CANADA: Jeannette (587) 333-6923, Calgary, Alberta

CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1

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Monday, Oct 22, 2012.  “Today I am grateful for people who innovate for the students & teachers & parents sake!” – Doc Meek

Image & story from: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865564582/The-flipped-classroom-turning-learning-on-its-head.html

The flipped classroom: turning learning on its head

Compiled by Celia Baker, Deseret News

Published: Tuesday, Oct. 16 2012 1:49 p.m. MDT

Students in a flipped classroom watch videotaped lectures at home and work through assignments at school.

Summary

Students in a flipped classroom watch videotaped lectures at home and work through assignments at school. There, the teacher is present to keep students on task, answer questions, and create interactive learning activities.

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Classroom flipping is an education strategy that is catching on at schools around the country. The traditional learning model — in which a teacher lectures during class time, and students do assignments at home — is reversed in a flipped classroom.

Students in a flipped classroom watch videotaped lectures at home and work through assignments at school. There, the teacher is present to keep students on task, answer questions, and create interactive learning activities between pairs or groups of students.

The model is gaining popularity at K-12 schools and college campuses around the United States, wrote University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s Teaching and Learning Center blogger Karen Brinkley.

The model lets students go through lectures at their own pace, repeating tricky concepts as needed. It also lets the instructor maximize time with students.

“Instead of students listening passively to a lecture, they are engaged in hands on or active learning; they might tackle problems together with help from the instructor,” Brinkley wrote. “With the lecture already out of the way, there is time for discussion, labs, team projects, and more.”

Flipped classrooms work for many subjects, but are especially popular in science, math and history classrooms. The reasons for flipping the classroom instruction model are based on research showing that engaging students in active, collaborative work increases learning.

Gregory Green, a principal at Michigan’s Clintondale High School, created a pilot program in classroom flipping for his school’s ninth-graders during the 2009-10 academic year. Teachers used educational software to create videos that showed problems being worked as teachers talked, and share the best videos with others in their teaching areas.

Student failure rates plummeted from 30 percent to 10.8 percent during the first year of the pilot program, according to Fast Company magazine’s Co.EXIST blog about innovation. English failures among Clintondale ninth-graders declined from 52 percent to 19 percent; social studies from 28 percent to 9 percent; math from 44 percent to 13 percent; and science from 41 percent to 19 percent.

Clintondale High School has since expanded the flipping model to other grade levels and now shares its videos with schools around the country that are adopting flipped classroom models.

A possible downside to classroom-flipping is that disadvantaged students might be further left behind by the trend, wrote Sarah Butrymowicz of The Hechinger Report.

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Summary

Students in a flipped classroom watch videotaped lectures at home and work through assignments at school. There, the teacher is present to keep students on task, answer questions, and create interactive learning activities.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Classroom-flipping has been shown to increase learning among at-risk students, but its success relies on students having internet connections and computers at home. That has raised concerns that the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers could be widened by the flipping trend.

“It’s an obstacle,” said Karen Cator, director of the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education, as quoted by Butrymowicz. “We do need to figure out ways that students, regardless of Zip code, regardless of their parents’ income level, have access to technology inside and outside of schools.”

Westside High School in Macon, Ga., which serves a high proportion of disadvantaged students, was able to provide netbooks to students through a federal grant. Student assessments have begun showing modest gains in achievement, and other benefits are evident.

Karen, Douglass, a teacher at Westside High, told Butrymowicz the results of flipping her classroom have been “nothing short of revolutionary.”

Giving students control over their learning pace improved their desire to learn and improved behavior in class, she said.

“They were getting to choose to push the play button,” Douglass told Butrymowicz. “They were very, very excited about accepting that responsibility. They actually like having the power to make decisions. That’s the biggest impact I’ve seen in my classroom — the ownership has gone from teacher to student.”

As the flipping trend spreads, online networks that allow teachers to share classroom videos are springing up. EduVision’s Flipped Learning Network is one of those. It includes a searchable online library of videos that lets teachers upload and download videos, get information about classroom flipping, and share ideas.

EMAIL: cbaker@deseretnews.com

Thank you, Celia Baker, for bringing us this story of the flipped classroom!

Doc Meek, Oct 22, 2012,  Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

P.S. Here’s a TED video on the start of the flipped classroom:

http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

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“What if you are smarter than you think?”

https://docmeek.com

THE LEARNING CLINIC WORLDWIDE, INC. 

CANADA: Dr. Meek (587) 400-4707, Edmonton, AB

TONGA: Mele Taumoepeau, P.O. Box 81, Nuku’alofa

USA: Dr. Meek (801) 738-3763, South Jordan, Utah

For optimum brain health, get optimum heart health:  

More on heart health: http://www.themeekteam.info

USA: Jeannette (801) 971-1812; South Jordan, Utah

CANADA: Jeannette (587) 333-6923, Calgary, Alberta

CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1

=========================================

More on heart health: http://www.themeekteam.info

USA: Jeannette (801) 971-1812; South Jordan, Utah

CANADA: Jeannette (587) 333-6923, Calgary, Alberta

CANADA: P.O. Box 3105, Sherwood Park, AB T8H 2T1

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