Flipped Classes

I came across an article called, "Are you Flipping the Wrong Way?" It is a fair question. I had three takeaways from the article.

One. There are some best practices when it comes to flipping our classroom instruction and the early days of simply having students watch an instructional video before class is not sufficient.

Two. There is a group working on developing standards for Blended instruction, the Flipped Learning Global Initiative.

Three. There is a great illustration of the fast pace of research on Flipped Instruction. If you pick up a book on the topic from 2012, argue the authors, and model your teaching after it, you may be missing out on 90 percent of research on flipped instruction.

So keep reading, keep challenging your teaching, and keep moving forward.

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Movie: Screenagers

An EMU group, Students for Place-Based Education (PBE), hosted a showing of the film, Screenagers, on Saturday, April 7 in the Student Center. Some faculty were in attendance and chatted with undergraduates about the film after the showing.

The film came up in a recent school board meeting and sounded intriguing. It is an examination of what our digital lifestyles are doing to students. Take a peek at a preview.

These are the students you are going to have in your classes.

Alexa in the Classroom

Sometimes we get opportunities to help undergraduates examine topics in greater depth by guiding them through a research project. One of our undergraduates in Teacher Education, Zachary Wilson, wanted to figure out how teachers are using voice-activated assistants in their classrooms. You might know the Amazon Echo better as Alexa and that is what the students in Ms. Bell’s third-grade class call her.

When they talk about her, they refer to Alexa as “Miss A.” so as not to confuse her. They know she is always listening.

The following video is just a taste of how these voice assistants are being used in two classrooms in Saline Area Schools. Over the summer, Zachary and I hope to develop an interview protocol and put our survey in the field.

We love the Woo Hoo, Technology dance at the end.