Flipped Learning Review — May | June 2020
Except from one of the articles entitled, “Preparing to switch between in-class and online learning — from flr.flglobal.org by Thomas Mennella
“I claim that Flipped Learning is the perfect bridge between face-to-face, on-ground instruction, and an online format. It excels in both worlds and makes transitioning between the two seamless. I am not over-reaching. I am not extrapolating. And I claim to be no expert. I simply showed you the data.”
ECAR Study of the Technology Needs of Students with Disabilities, 2020 — from er.educause.edu by Dana Gierdowski and Joseph Galanek
Technology in higher education can be both an aid and a challenge for students with disabilities. Institutions and instructors can take steps to ensure that these students have equitable access, and those same measures can help all students, particularly during the era of emergency remote teaching.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
We asked students, “What is ONE thing you would like your instructors to do with technology to enhance your academic success?” In our analysis of their responses, we identified two overarching themes, as well as prominent patterns within those themes:
Access other materials: Executive Summary | Infographic
Also see:
From DSC:
After reading the following item from Jeremy Caplan’s most recent e-newsletter entitled, “Tiny Stuff I Love“…
Alfred = Saves me time on copying and pasting
If you copy and paste stuff frequently, get a clipboard manager. I use Alfred throughout every workday. It keeps the last 100+ things I’ve copied in a neat list so I can paste anything I’ve used recently into a browser, document, or wherever else.
This is super-handy when I’m copying and pasting things repeatedly from one place to another. Sometimes I’m moving a bunch of stuff from a document into an email. Or putting several links or notes into a Zoom chat window.
Lots of tools do something similar. I also like the Copied App, $8 on the Mac App store. It has a companion iPhone app.
…I instantly thought of how useful this type of tool would be for teachers, professors, and perhaps trainers as well — especially when grading!
From this page (emphasis DSC):
What Does a Clipboard Manager Do?
The default clipboard in Windows works well, but it’s quite basic. The biggest limitation is that it can only hold one item at a time. If you copy a piece of text, forget to use it, then copy an image later, the text will be gone. Another hassle is that you can’t view what you’ve copied without pasting it.
For anyone who copies and pastes all the time, these are big problems. Thankfully, this is where clipboard managers come in. They greatly expand the functionality of your clipboard by remembering dozens of entries, allowing you to pin frequently used snippets for easy access, and much more.
Readers of this blog might also be interested in some of the other tools that Jeremy mentions, including:
Higher Ed Needs a Long-Term Plan for Virtual Learning — from Harvard Business Review by James DeVaney, Gideon Shimshon, Matthew Rascoff, and Jeff Maggioncalda
Excerpts:
The staggering impact of Covid-19 on education systems around the world is unlike anything we have seen in the post-war era. More than 1.6 billion students have been affected, representing over 91% of all students in the world. Unsurprisingly, demand for online learning has skyrocketed. In the last 30 days, there were 10.3 million enrollments in courses on Coursera, up 644% from the same period last year.
…
As the emergency subsides but normal fails to return, higher ed institutions need to do more. There’s a good likelihood that virtual learning — in some capacity — will need to be a part of education for the foreseeable future. Higher ed institutions need a response framework that looks beyond the immediate actions. They have to prepare for an intermediate period of transition and begin future-proofing their institutions for the long term.
EDUCAUSE COVID-19 QuickPoll Results: Fall Planning for Education and Student Support — from er.educause.edu by Susan Grajek
Fall Scenario #13: A HyFlex Model — from insidehighered.com by Edward Maloney and Joshua Kim
Excerpt:
In a HyFlex course, courses are delivered both in person and online at the same time by the same faculty member. Students can then choose for each and every class meeting whether to show up for class in person or to join it online. The underlying design ethos behind the HyFlex Model is flexibility and student choice.
…
To do it well, then, a lot of things need to line up, including the technology, the course design, the focus on pedagogy and the engagement of the students. Many schools that wish to scale the HyFlex Model across the curriculum for the fall semester will likely need to make a significant investment in classroom technology.
Also see the other scenarios from Kim and Maloney at:
Problems planning for a Post-Pandemic Campus this fall — from bryanalexander.org by How will campuses try to return to face-to-face education? What does it mean now to plan for a Post-Pandemic Campus this fall?
Excerpt:
In April I published three scenarios for colleges and universities may approach the fall 2020 semester in the wake of COVID-19, based on different ways the pandemic might play out. I followed that up with real world examples of each scenario, as different institutions subsequently issued announcements about their plans. To recap, they are:
6 ways college might look different in the fall — from npr.com by Elissa Nadworny
Excerpt:
What will happen on college campuses in the fall? It’s a big question for families, students and the schools themselves.
A lot of what happens depends on factors outside the control of individual schools: Will there be more testing? Contact tracing? Enough physical space for distancing? Will the coronavirus have a second wave? Will any given state allow campuses to reopen?
For all of these questions, it’s really too early to know the answers. But one thing is clear: Life, and learning for the nation’s 20 million students in higher education, will be different.
“I don’t think there’s any scenario under which it’s business as usual on American college campuses in the fall,” says Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University.
If law schools can’t offer in-person classes this fall, what will they do instead? — from abajournal.com by Stephanie Francis Ward
From DSC:
Here’s an idea that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time now. It’s not necessarily a new idea, but the seed got planted in me by a former colleague, Quin Schultze (which I blogged about in January of 2018). I’m calling it, “My Learning Journal.” The purpose of this device is to promote your metacognition — helping you put things into your own words and helping you identify your knowledge gaps.
I realize that such a learning strategy/tool could take some time to complete. But it could pay off — big time! Give it a try for a few weeks and see what you think.
And, with a shout-out to Mr. James McGrath, the President of the WMU-Cooley Law School, the article listed below explains the benefits of taking the time for such reflection:
Reflective learning – reflection as a strategic study technique — from open.edu
Excerpts:
Rather than thinking of reflection as yet another task to be added to your ‘to do’ list or squeezed into a busy study schedule, view it as something to practice at any stage. The emphasis is on being a reflective learner rather than doing reflective learning.
Developing a habit of reflective learning will help you to:
From DSC:
Pastors, trainers, K-12 educators, student teachers, coaches, musical teachers, and others: Perhaps a slightly modified version of this tool might be beneficial to those with whom you work as well…?
And for educators and trainers, perhaps we should use such a tool to think about our own teaching and training methods — and what we are (or aren’t) learning ourselves.
Addendum on 5/14/20:
Perhaps someone will build a bot for this type of thing, which prompts us to reflect upon these things. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about or something like Woebot, which Jeremy Caplan mentioned here.
For those folks who are interested in some potential scenarios as well as other reflections re: the future of higher education, here is the recording of yesterday’s webinar from The Economist.
Per EdSurge.com
This week, presidents of a dozen historically black colleges and universities took to social media platform TikTok to participate in the “Don’t Rush” Challenge…The presidents pose in college T-shirts and caps, sorority and fraternity paraphernalia, academic regalia and professional outfits, suggesting a trajectory from joyful campus life to graduation day to success as a college alumnus.
“Our hope was that in addition to showcasing our schools, the TikTok would bring a smile to the faces of our students and showcase HBCU pride and solidarity during this unprecedented pandemic,” said Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College, in a statement.
How the research on learning can drive change — from gettingsmart.com by Chris Sturgis
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
#2 Learning results from the interplay of cognition, emotion, and motivation.
The brain does not clearly separate cognitive from emotional functioning so that optimal learning environments will engage both. It’s important that students feel safe if learning is to be optimized. When we are afraid, our amygdala becomes activated making it harder to learn. Do students feel valued? Relationships matter in creating a culture of inclusivity and belonging. Are schools designed so that teachers and professors have the opportunity to build strong relationships with students? Do students feel that the school and teachers want them to be successful? Do they have chances to receive feedback and revise or do grading practices simply judge them?
From DSC:
Two instances — plus a simmering question — instantly stand out in my mind when I read the above paragraph.
First instance:
It was years ago and I was working at a Fortune 500 company outside of Chicago. I was given the chance to learn how to program in one of the divisions of this company. I was in a conference room with my brand new boss. I had asked him a question about a piece of code, which clearly must have let him know I had some serious misunderstandings.
But instead of being patient, he grew increasingly frustrated at my lack of understanding. The madder he got, the worse my learning became. My focus shifted from processing the expected syntax of the code — and the content/instruction overall that he was trying to relay — to almost completely being concerned with his anger. My processing shut down and things deteriorated from there.
Second instance:
My mom was a classical piano teacher for decades. Though she was often loved by her students, she could be very tough, strong, and forceful. (This was true of several of my siblings’ music teachers as well.) Most of the time, she developed wonderful, strong relationships with the vast majority of her students, many of which came back to our house around Christmastime / New Year’s to visit with her (even long after “graduating”).
I mention that as background to a different context…when I observed my mom trying to teach one of my nieces how to do a math problem in the kitchen of our old house. Again, the teacher in this case kept getting increasingly frustrated, while the student kept shrinking back into their shell…trying to deflect the increasingly hot anger coming at them. The cognitive processing stopped. The amount of actual learning taking place quickly declined. I finally intervened to say that they should come back to this topic later on.
(The counselors/therapists out there would probably rightly connect these two scenarios for what was happening in my mind (i.e., not wanting to deal with the other person’s growing anger). But this applies to many more of us than just me, I’m afraid.)
A simmering question involving law schools and a common teaching method:
In law schools, one of the long-standing teaching methods is the Socratic Method.
Depending upon the professor and their teaching style, one student could be under intense pressure to address the facts, rules, the legal principles of a case, and much more. They often have to stand up in front of the class.
In those instances, I wonder how much capacity to actually process information gets instantly reduced within many of the students’ brains when they get the spotlight shown on them? Do the more introverted and/or less confident students start to sweat? Do their fear levels and heart rates increase? With the issue of having other students attempting to learn from this grilling aside, I wonder what happens to the amygdalas of the students that were called upon?
You can probably tell that I’m not a big fan of the Socratic Method IF it begins to involve too much emotion…too much anger or fear. Not good. The amount of learning taking place can be significantly impacted.
A professor, teacher, or trainer can’t know all of the underlying background, psychology, personality differences, emotional makeup, and experiences of each learner. But getting back to the article, I appreciate what the author was saying about the importance of establishing a SAFE learning environment. The more fear, anger, and a sense of being threatened or scared are involved, the less learning/processing can occur.
Setting Expectations for Remote Learning — from evoLLLution.com (where LLL stands for lifelong learning) by Robin Robinson
Excerpt:
Evo: How important is it to clearly differentiate remote learning and online education?
RR: You need to set expectations. Normally, if someone is going to produce an online course, they’re going to spend at least a semester building out the appropriate course map and alignments to their course objectives. In this situation, with remote learning, you’re trying to meet the same objective as you would in a regular face-to-face class, but online learning is completely different. Your head space needs to reflect that, and you need to consider the things in this environment that can’t be done in a face-to-face environment. We’re drawing on what people understand as good teaching and trying to emulate that experience online as much as possible.
Remote delivery requires using a lot of the synchronous tools. Online learning is about combining the best of both worlds.
Faculty who were skeptical have now adopted online learning. Many of them are amazed at how well they can get to know their students and how well they can track their performances in school.
…
What I’m concerned about is the digital divide. We want a very inclusive and diverse university, but that means recognizing that there are students at a disadvantage.
