A lot of students go to class to hear a lecture about the topic for that day. But what do you think would happen if the students had to watch a lecture online before going to class, and then they spent class time on learning activities?

Please check out this video or continue reading for more information on flipped classrooms.

In traditional classes, students sit and listen to their instructors lecture about the topic of the day for nearly the entire class period. After the class period ends, students are then expected to work individually on homework assignments outside the class period. However, more often than not, students only retain a minimal amount of the lecture material, with students then having to “teach themselves” through their assigned homework. In traditional classrooms, technology is often seen as a distraction, with students on their phones texting and checking Facebook or playing games on their laptops, as students find other activities more appealing than listening to a lecture for over an hour.

Enter the flipped classroom, where technology is seen as a resource rather than as a distraction. Instead of spending hours completing homework assignments without any assistance or direction, students can read or watch online lectures at their own pace. Students can skip through what they already know, or revisit what they did not understand the first time. Students can formulate their own questions and take them to the classroom, which is now a collaborative learning environment.

In the classroom, students can apply what they learned from viewing online lectures, and can collaborate with other students on learning activities. With classroom time freed up, instructors can then use classroom time to assist students with questions and work individually with students at risk of falling behind. Course progress is then measured by active participation rather than static attendance. Students who miss a class period do not miss out on class lectures.

Please also visit the following links for more information on the flipped classroom.
http://bit.ly/qj7BBu
http://tgr.ph/9uSZa7
http://bit.ly/nwLEcE

Please share your experiences with flipped classrooms. Do you feel it is an effective teaching model or is just a passing fad? How would incorporating elements of the flipped classroom improve your teaching methods or encourage student learning? Please add your comments below or contact utlv@utoledo.edu if you are interested in using aspects of the flipped classroom in your classroom.

Over the past 20 years, technology has transformed the learning environment, and educational technology is a trend that is here to stay.  Whether teaching fully online or in a blended or web-assisted environment, there are many technological tools that can greatly facilitate teaching, learning and student engagement.

Each session of TechBlast will detail one particular tool that instructors can use to improve their teaching methods.  Instructors are then welcome to share their comments and experiences in using technology in teaching.  Our eventual plan is to combine all of our articles and user feedback into a book that can serve as a single reference point for using technological tools in education.

As we go through each session, we welcome your comments and feedback.  Also if you have a specific tool or method you would like us to feature, please let us know.

A little holiday reminder that online learning (whether fully online or in a “blended” mode) is about engagement. This entry from “Online Universities Dot Com” is a nice list of some of the ways “social media” might be used to create a learning environment, to help students and faculty connect, and to prepare students for a networked working environment.

Learning Ventures supports multiple approaches to online learning and will help you select and use the tools you need. From UT’s investments in Echo 360 (Lecture Capture), Wimba (video chat and screen-sharing), Blackboard, (our Learning Management System), the Virtual Lab and Office Communicator, to free and publicly accessible tools online (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), LV’s outstanding instructional designers are ready to help you succeed in the online, blended, and face-to-face learning environments.

If you would like to be nominated or if you would like support for a nomination you intend to make, please contact Learning Ventures:

Nominations Sought for Third Year of Faculty Innovator Awards
Awards Given to Faculty Using Digital Learning Materials to Lower Student Costs, Advance Learning

COLUMBUS – Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut today announced the University System of Ohio is seeking nominations from students, faculty, and administrators for its 2011 “Faculty Innovator Awards.” These awards will recognize 10 faculty members and/or teams from Ohio’s public universities, regional campuses, community colleges, and adult career centers (see map) for work they have done to introduce digital course materials in the classroom that enrich learning and make college textbooks more affordable for their students.

“Every year, these awards provide the opportunity for us to not just recognize those faculty who have gone the extra mile in using technology to lower costs for students,” said Chancellor Fingerhut, “but to also educate and inspire other faculty to follow their lead and to take those innovations and bring them into more classrooms across the state.”

Created in 2009, the Faculty Innovator Awards are part of Ohio’s effort to stimulate the creation of affordable, innovative instructional materials for students throughout the University System of Ohio. Winning faculty have used digital content (video, simulations, e-texts and journals, visualizations, etc.) into their courses in a wide array of ways, all while lowering the out-of-pocket cost of course materials for students and enriching the classroom experience. The 2010 awardees were congratulated in Columbus by First Lady Frances Strickland and the Chancellor, recognized on the floor of the Ohio Senate, and also by House Speaker Armond Budish.

This year’s nomination form, as well as information about the winners and innovations from 2009 and 2010, are showcased at Ohio Textbook HQ, an open forum for textbook solutions and discussion.

Nominations for Ohio’s 2011 Faculty Innovator Awards must be received by the University System of Ohio no later than 12:00 p.m. on November 23, 2010.

For more information, visit http://OhioTextbookHQ.ning.com.

All faculty will soon receive a notice via email about the “Student Observer Program.” This program is designed to give faculty valuable feedback about the learning environment from a trained student observer. This year, we are expanding the program in some important ways. First, we are offering at the instructors’ request video observation in which the student and faculty member will be able to discuss classroom management and presence. And second, we are involving students in the observation of online instruction (exclusively online and web-assisted), with observations reflecting different approaches to pedagogy and engagement required online. More will arrive soon, but here is the text of the description of the program that will be in your mailbox accompanied by a form for requesting observation. Finally, if you know a student who would make an ideal candidate for participation in our program, please forward the students’ name and a brief recommendation to Jeff Jablonski (jeffrey.jablonski(at)utoledo.edu), the SOP Coordinator.

How the Student Observer Program Works

• Instructors elect to participate by filling out a request form and returning it to Christine Keller, “Learning Ventures,” MS #129, FH 3005C.
• All faculty (tenure-track, part-time, visiting faculty, lecturers) are eligible to participate in the Student Observer Program. Observers can work with any undergraduate course regardless of the mode of delivery (face-to-face, blended, exclusively online). For part-time faculty, the request for observation must be submitted and approved by the chair of the department.
• A student observer is assigned according to the class schedule and the observer’s availability.
• The student observer is given the name, campus office, campus telephone number, and e-mail address of the instructor and arranges for an initial visit. The instructor is also given the name, telephone number, and e-mail address of the student observer.
• The instructor and student observer meet to get acquainted and clarify expectations. The instructor should provide a course syllabus and any login information for online resources. The observer should be enrolled in all course-related web services.
• The student observer visits the instructor’s class, gathers the requested information and prepares feedback for the instructor. A minimum of 3 classroom visits is recommended (or three hours of online contact). All information gathered by the student observer is confidential. No information is provided to anyone else unless the instructor specifically authorizes it. (Please note, however, that all reports are reviewed by the Student Observer Program Coordinator to ensure quality control.)
• The student observer meets with the instructor and discusses the observation. He/she also prepares a report of typically 2-3 pages for the professor. This report may be included in a dossier, but it is not required to be shared.

Blackboard got you down? Been staring at your screen for two hours hoping the solution to your problem will suddenly appear? Want to use new technologies to make life easier? Join LV’s outstanding instructional designers for an informal lunchtime gathering for discussion of Blackboard and other technologies that can help promote learning.

When: Wednesday, September 29, 12-1:20
Where: Memorial Field House, Rm. 3070

Brown-bag lunch. Beverages provided. ALL faculty are welcome. Online faculty or faculty at a distance will be invited to join via web. Instructions will be posted on this site a day before the meeting. Search “support group” on this site to find instructions.

From Inside Higher Ed, this is one way in which UT faculty might pursue the “scholarship of teaching.” Sociologists can earn credit toward tenure–DPC’s willing–through engaged research and publication on teaching in the sociology classroom. Is there a similar publication in your discipline? Interested in starting one? Leave replies in comments.

The course known as “BAJ” or “Beginning the Academic Journey” is required for all incoming, direct from high-school students at the University of Toledo. This year, Jennifer Rockwood, director of the First Year Experience in the UT Learning Collaborative, and Learning Ventures are working on a project that will help clarify and emphasize learning objectives, increase in-class engagement and increase retention as we prepare our first-year students for their academic journey. Regular updates and working documents are available on the Epsilen site for the development team. The site is open to all UT faculty.

The project that will “hybridize” the BAJ course beginning in the fall of 2010. This project will focus on establishing and helping students meet a set of shared learning outcomes essential to first-year success and retention while allowing for the best possible use of in-class time for engagement, discussion, and mentorship. At the heart of the project is an online environment (for now, the “BAJ Connection”) accessible to all incoming students and all UT faculty and staff. This environment will be built over the summer and available on August 1. The architects of the site will be faculty/staff working in collaboration with Instructional Designers from Learning Ventures, with the construction site open to anyone who wishes to contribute. During the semester, the site will account for half of the contact hours in the BAJ course with the other half remaining classroom-based.

The site will consist of a number of “modules” each mapped to a set of learning outcomes. Each student will have an opportunity to select from a number of projects, assignments, and activities that will be designed to help them adjust to challenges, learn how to learn, better understand the university environment, and to connect early and often to faculty inside and outside the BAJ course. In addition, the site will include areas for a learning community, courses designed for first-year students, and discussion/engagement among students and faculty/staff interested in similar things.

FAQ’s:
Does this online environment replace my own web site?
No. Each BAJ section can still have its own web site (on blackboard, Epsilon, or any other web site) with its own assignments, instructions, course materials, etc. This site can be linked to the BAJC, or it can be separate. Each BAJ instructor will have control over what is taught in the in-class, section-specific portion of the course and each BAJ instructor will have input into the design and content of the BAJC.

Will there be a textbook?
All materials on the BAJC site will be “open source” and free to the students. If it is available in time, we may use the Flat world Knowledge text as the main text for the online environment, and this text is free.

Will I be asked to manage the online environment?
No. The online environment will be jointly managed by LV, UTLC, and any faculty/staff who wish to participate. It will be a site for collaboration and dialogue, and a place where students and faculty/staff can meet and share interests, research, and information. Each BAJ instructor will have access to the site in order to monitor participation and to check to see that the students in a section have completed the work for the BAJC.

Will students be required to complete online components?
Yes. In order to pass the BAJ course, students must satisfy the requirements in the online environment. These requirements will be “low-stakes,” designed to introduce students to university-level learning and expectations. It is possible that a faculty member from the college BAJ course will assign a module as mandatory. It is also possible for someone teaching a course for first-year students to use a module for credit toward another course. But the minimal requirement will involve completion of a to-be-determined number of modules online.

If you have any additional questions not answered above, please contact UTLV@utoledo.edu

Are you currently using Turning Technologies response devices (or “clickers”)? Are you interested in using clickers in your online, face-to-face, or blended course but want more information about the technology and its capabilities? Then we have great news…

Turning Technologies has an intern right here at the University of Toledo to answer all your questions, solve your problems, and help you use clickers to help promote responsive, active learning in all your courses. Matt Misener is a graduate student in the Judith Herb College of Education and works directly with Turning Technologies to assist you with your existing clicker assisted courses or to help you turn a course into a clicker-assisted course.

Located in the Memorial Field House office 3060A, Matt is available to assist you Mondays and Wednesdays from 8:30 am until 5:00 pm and Fridays from 8:30 am until 12:30 pm. Stop in, call 419-530-2149, or email mmisene@rockets.utoledo.edu for immediate assistance.  If you would like to discuss clickers and their use, we will conduct seminars throughout the academic year and will have a discussion board available on the LV Epsilen group site (http://www.epsilen.com/grp/UTLearningVenturesGroup).

From Technology and Grading Experiments/Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed, for your consideration:

An innovative grading scheme embedded in a course with strong pedagogical design will have a much better chance of succeeding. Your grading experiment can then be scaled to other courses, as an assessment of the process can be built in from the beginning. I estimate about 50 hours of faculty time to develop a full new course, with 50 hours of learning technologist/design time.

LV is ready and able to support this kind of innovation, and early collaboration with a team of course designers can help you save time and frustration in any course. What may be surprising is the amount of time it takes to develop a new approach from the bottom up in a redesigned course. If you’re working on a new course design for the fall, get in touch with our office as soon as possible so that you can connect with a team of designers who can help you reach your goals.