Tools For My Toolbox

I have been teaching for over 25 years and I have never been to a workshop that gave me tools both professionally and personally.  But, I can now say I have because I went to OnCourse (http://www.oncourseworkshop.com/) this past week and it was a truly fabulous workshop.

The workshop guides defines it's purpose to provide educators with 1) learner-centered structures and strategies for helping students learn more deeply and 2) empowerment strategies for helping students become active, responsible and successful learners who thrive in a learner-centered environment.  The desired outcome of this approach is the improve student academic success and retention.  Jonathan, a peaceful man, was my workshop leader and he engaged participants in activities that exemplify the eight OnCourse principles:

1. accept responsibility
2. discover self-motivation
3. master self-management
4. employ interdependence
5. gain self-awareness
6. adopt lifelong learning
7. develop emotional intelligence
8. believe in themselves

So, you may be asking why does a biology professor need to teach any of the things listed above.  I sure did.  But, by the end of the workshop I could see that putting students through active learner tasks during class may not be enough to engage them fully.  I could see that they could continue to be passive learner even in a active learning lesson.  Indeed, there is a need to address the content of the course and their emotional intelligence as well.  I am not saying that every activity would incorporate the emotional intelligence but that it is important to sprinkle those sorts of self-assessment activities to help them gain awareness of there abilities to be a college student and tools to consider to grow.Once I put that together, I could begin to see both sides of the activities:  teaching content and self-assessment.

Now, along with making my 200+ videos, I will be looking at my content to determine which active learning activities, tools for my toolbox, and match these with my content and begin to build the in class teaching portion of my flipped class.  Yahoo!

Personally, the workshop guides you through these same principles and provides opportunity for personal growth.  One activity had each participant list the qualities they wanted to "mill" for the workshop and put into a sentence.  My qualities were creative, innovative and passionate and the sentence was " I am a creative, innovative and passionate person."  This become my personal affirmation to say to myself and to other in the group.  It become a powerful tool to focus on what I could do rather than listening to the inner critic telling me I could not be any of those three affirmations.  Also, there was a optional evening session using guided imagery to determine your dreams and obstacles.  Both of these were very emotional sessions for me but I found personal growth through the process.

Lastly, my "AH moment"
For many years, I have been on a journey of self-discovery.  I have gained more and better tools to engage with those in my personal life.  I found, of course, that this has spilled into my teaching.  The things I have learned personally has lead to greater confidence to try new approaches in my teaching.  I feel I have better interactions with my students but that has not necessarily lead to better performance for them.  So, that is the path I am on now.  To bring together my personal and professional "toolbox" to create a class that increases my personal-professional growth and my students success.

Stay tuned.....

Getting the Urge to Flip

Last fall, I was facilitating a department meeting to review our program review report and spring 2013 schedule.  Susan Ramones, a now former member of the department, seemed to be struggling with which set of classes would make the most sense given her varied responsibilities as the curriculum chair.  She announced that she "just wanted to teach, flip her class and do case studies."  This was the first time I had heard the words "flipped learning."  In the meeting, I asked "what was a flipped classroom." She stated it was a model in which the lecture was given online prior to classtime and during class students complete homework or case studies to learn and apply the information.

I was intrigued.  I started teaching the non-majors biology class about 5 years ago and at this point I feel pretty good about the materials I have developed:  lectures, labs, homework, exams and such.  Additionally, I split the 140 person class into two 75 person sections.  I think ultimately, for a flipped class, it will need to be 50 students.    Anyway, most of these students are just out of high school and coming to community college and not UC or CSU.  Even if they are not 18 years old, they all tend to struggle to understand what they need to learn, to have confidence that they can learn and to have a set strategies to apply to their learning.  I can put all the resources up on  a website, provide tutors and review sessions but I have come to think that time spent lecturing cannot ever address these three things.  So, how can I still teach biology and all they need to know and give them the best chance to learn?  My answer is the flipped classroom.

Thus, this year I will break-up my lecture material into 8-10 minute videos using Camtasia ( i think).  That means I will make about 10+ videos per chapter and an approximate total of 200 videos over the course of the next year.  Ya!

Next, I will research case studies, group work and other activities to complete during the class time.  Also, I need to think a great deal about how to get the students to buy into this type of teaching model, how to grade them....lots of stuff.

So, I have a basic model to start this process.....stay tuned

flipping out, L

I have spent the last two day at the Flipped Learning Conference.  I did this virtually attending 6 workshops and 2 keynote address.  It was fabulous.  The conference was held in Stillwater, MN and was attended by K-12 and some higher ed folks.  This blog (journal) is a result of inspirations learned at the conference.  I was considering ways to document my journey this year and a blog fits with my expedition into new techniques, technologies and pedagogy 

One thing that was really used in the conference was Twitter.  I really had never used it but it was a prevalent method for posting impressions and other ideas throughout the conference.  

I have lists now of things to review and learn about beyond just learning camtasia studio.  Looks like Google has a lot of resources:  Drive, Forms, Blog.  Other items to review:  

• Explain Everything
• Krystal Kirch Blog - lots of resources
• Today's Meet and back channel discussions
• Videonote.es
• Doceri
• Chrombooks
• Swivel Software to Tape Class time
• MentorMob
• YuDu
• Createspace

So you can see from my list, I have lots to consider.  But mostly, I know that the most important thing to attend to this year is shifting me away from the stage in Biology 15 and finding ways to excite and engage and center my students on their learning....

Next week I attend the OnCourse Session in Menlo Park and am looking forward to that experience.

So, as a science person, I like to equate things to the scientific method and right now I am definitely in observation of  phenomena about teaching a flipped or student centered class.  I am collecting resources and gathering info.  Soon, I will need to develop that hypothesis and my class in 2014 will be the experiment.  

Take care, L