Have you heard of the flipped classroom? Imagine inverting the way instruction and homework is assigned. Instead of students passively learning during class time, students learn at home receiving instruction at their own pace. Class time is then open for an active learning approach where students get access to valuable time with the instructor. The instructor’s role changes from presenter of content to learning coach.
Jon Bergmann and Jerry Overmyer discovered this solution when students were frequently missing class for school activities. They began by recording and annotating their lectures and posted them on-line for absent students. Not only did the absent students use these materials, but, many students who did not miss class used the on-line materials to reinforce the classroom lessons.
There is no one exact model, but a flipped classroom typically includes:
- Resources like videos and PowerPoint presentations that take place of direct instruction
- Time outside of school where students watch videos, follow lecture slides, take notes, and create questions.
- Class time for working on group projects, homework where they can have the teacher’s immediate assistance.
Providing students with videos of instruction and PowerPoint presentations to be reviewed outside of school allows them to learn at their own pace. They may pause the video, take notes, write questions, re-wind the video, review for clearer understanding, or perhaps fast-forward. The lecture material is always available for review allowing students to return and use these powerful resources to study and prepare for exams.
While in class, the once "home" work assignments become much more meaningful and have a greater potential of sticking in their memory. Flipping the classroom gives students the chance to first study at home and then use class time to really learn and understand through doing. Think of the science class. Instead of spending 3/4 of class time lecturing and only 1/4 conducting lab experiments, students can spend nearly all of class time in the lab!
If you would like to provide more in-class learning experiences give the flipped classroom a try. There are many on-line resources available.
Read More:
Keep Up with the Latest Trends in Educational Technology
Follow LectureTools on Twitter and join the latest conversations about best practices for teaching with technology, new technology trends that could affect your classroom, and connect with educators around the world.
At Duke University. 95% of its students bring computers to campus, with 95% of those being laptops. Laptops are changing the ways students learn in class, as well as the way (and the places) students study.
Many students and professors alike agree that laptops can serve as distractions during class. So much so, in fact, that about a third of the sociology department faculty at Duke has banned laptops from their classrooms.
And not only are students who spend class surfing the web, emailing, and uploading photos to Facebook distracted, but these activities can also be distracting to other students sitting beside or behind them. But is banning laptops the solution to the problem?
Engaging laptops to improve student attentiveness
A laissez faire approach to laptops in the classroom will often lead to distraction. Lecturing at students is a technique that has been used for hundreds of years – its effectiveness can perhaps best be represented by the age-old image of students sleeping in class.
But despite their potential to distract, instructors who change their style of teaching to reflect the new ways students are thinking and engaging with the world outside of the classroom are more successful at getting students to stay away from social networking sites and getting them to pay attention in class.
"I often ask people to look things up, confirm a date, find an image, etc.," said Lee Baker, dean of academic affairs at Duke’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.
Such strategies may require some planning before class, but can go a long way in making students more engaged in class. This is in no small part because having students interact with the class breaks up the monotony. Michael Munger, professor of political science and economics at Duke explains:
"The problem is not the distraction offered by the laptop," Munger said. "It’s the need of the human mind to have things broken up into pieces where concentration is possible, for focused attention is interesting and enjoyable. If the students weren’t looking at their laptop, they would be dozing or doodling."
If you ignore laptops, students will pay more attention to the Internet than they do to your course material. But, if you ban laptops, students can still easily find ways to distract themselves, like texting, doodling, or simply staring off into space. Next time you plan out a lecture, think about how you might be able to use the devices students are bringing to class for the powers of learning.
What role does the professor have in the benefits (or disadvantages) of laptops in the classroom?
Simply put, if students are asked to learn passively, i.e. through hours of dull lecturing, laptops in the classroom can only serve to distract. A handful of students will use them for note-taking, but many will be unable to resist the siren song of the latest emails and tweets.
Even taking laptops out of the equation means students will simply doodle on their notes, “secretly” text their friends, or simply stare off into space.
According to Munger, bluntly, "the fact is that laptops don’t waste students’ time; professors do."
Professors who engage devices in the classroom can get their students to pay more attention in class. More importantly, they can get students to engage and interact with the material. This will encourage students to research and think critically about the material, something that cannot be achieved if students are simply passively listening to lecture.
Thus, it not only matters what material is covered, but also how that material is covered. And in that capacity, laptops offer an excellent opportunity to challenge the status quo of lectures by interacting more with students, and asking them to interact with materials.
"Laptops can help achieve learning outcomes or they can distract from learning outcomes," Baker said. "The professor is in the best position to evaluate the use of laptops in his or her classroom."
Before dismissing the value of laptops in your classroom, think about how you might be able to engage laptops to improve learning outcomes. Simply giving some thought to how you might be able to encourage beneficial use of technology in your classroom can be a huge first step towards improving engagement, attentiveness, and learning outcomes.
Making the Switch: How 4 Professors at Michigan Embraced Laptops and Made Class Interactive
Download our free ebook to learn how professors at the University of Michigan are using LectureTools, an interactive presentation tool, to provide an in-class learning platform for student laptops.
Get the eBook
When thinking of iPads in education, typically the first thought that comes to mind is an iPad for every student. But, iPads and their Android-based counterparts have plenty to offer the college classroom in the hands of instructors, too.
The tech savvy professor can finally teach without the need to spend the first ten minutes of class locating a working dry erase marker or achieving the seemingly impossible feat of configuring an overhead projector to project both large enough for students in the back to see, as well as in focus.
In many cases, the iPad enables you to interact more with large groups of students and facilitates more engaging means of instruction. Here are 5 ways to use the iPad as an instructor in higher education:
1. Control your laptop remotely
Some of the primary criticisms of the iPad are that it does not offer the same level of functionality as a laptop running either Windows or OSX. The iPad does not allow you to multitask, nor does it offer an SD card slot or a USB port.
But, while teaching your class, you can control your laptop wirelessly using an iPad. This means you have access to the same applications that you do on your Mac or PC, and by controlling a laptop that is connected to the classroom projector, you can thus navigate and project your class PowerPoint slides using your iPad.
2. Present interactive activities to your students
Admittedly there isn’t too much advantage to simply using a remote desktop app like Splashtop or LogMeIn if all you are doing is advancing PowerPoint slides – remotes for this already exist, and they are substantially cheaper (and smaller) than iPads.
Take the opportunity to stop lecturing at your students and start engaging them. Present interactive activities, like free response questions, using your tablet, so that your students can engage with the material you are presenting to them. They’ll pay more attention, too.
3. Open a backchannel and reply to questions
One of the worst things about teaching a large lecture course is that oftentimes it is difficult to know if students understand anything you say. Additionally, students can be too intimidated to raise hands in front of their peers, or simply don’t have a chance to ask a question without interrupting.
There are many methods to open a backchannel for your classroom using your iPad, some more elegant than others. Browse forums or a chat room built into your LMS with your iPad while continuing to present lecture slides using the podium PC and a presentation remote. Or, adopt a more seamless interactive presentation tool.
4. Draw or annotate your slides
It’s tough to draw diagrams or graphs using a mouse. Use your electronic slate to draw on your slides using your finger or, better yet, a stylus.
When remotely controlling your PC using your tablet, you should have no trouble drawing graphs or sketching out important points. No more need to bring a package of wet erase markers and a box of overhead transparencies!
5. Catch off-task students by roaming the aisles
At times it can be tough to engage students when you stand guard next to the lectern for the entire class session to access a mouse and keyboard. But, when you have a remote connection configured using your iPad, you can easily walk up and down the aisles of the lecture hall.
This will inevitably wake up students who thought the distance between you and the seating area represented an impenetrable fortress of safe space for an early-morning nap, and lets you see which students are actually typing comments on their friends’ Facebook albums instead of notes on your course.
Are Your Students Bringing iPads to Class? Engage Them Using Their iPads!
The LectureTools Student iPad App will allow your students to respond to interactive questions, take notes, and notify you of comprehension difficulties during lecture. Keep students awayfrom email and Facebook by deliberately engaging their devices.
Get Early Access to the iPad App
The year 2012 holds a lot of promise for the field of education technology—but before we take the leap into the future, we should take a moment to reflect on the outstanding accomplishments of the past. It's equally important to emphasize why improvements in education are notable in the first place. Increasing the public's accessibility to educational resources, be they classroom-based or otherwise, is the most effective way to improve the quality of education in the U.S. and lead to a more productive society as a result.
The reign of the iPad
According to the New York Times, 2011 saw a growing number of schools begin to integrate use of the iPad into curriculum as a means of improving student understanding and engagement in the classroom. The devices are used for various academic pursuits, including analyzing literature through multimedia, playing trivia-based games in history class, and walking through complex math problems with step-by-step animation. Interactive platforms allow students to take a more hands-on approach to the problems that confront them at school.
Adult learning through mobile devices
Even more accessible and convenient than the iPad, mobile devices were also a notable medium for educational breakthroughs in 2011. Many colleges and universities across the country began encouraging adult learning through mobile devices last year taking advantage of the potential of podcasts as a means of broadcasting online lectures and videos through mobile technology
Shift in opinion regarding online education
Though the public may not be quick to catch on, over half of college presidents surveyed by the Pew Research Center reported a positive opinion of the value of online education (pdf link). This is compared to just 29 percent of the general public mentioned. Despite a less positive opinion toward the value of online education, its popularity has continued to grow in the past ten years, with 46 percent of graduates reporting to have taken at least one online class during their time spent in college.
Remembering Steve Jobs
No article discussing the breakthroughs in education technology would be complete without referencing the contributions of Steve Jobs. Although his life was cut short in October of last year, he left an enduring legacy. Jobs was one of the first innovators to advocate the use of computers in the classroom, and his devotion to integrating technology into educational environments was clear with each new device Apple manufactured. The use of laptops, iPads, mobile devices and other technological devices in the classroom can be traced back to the convictions of one man.
The Year of Ed Tech
2012 promises to be a year of digital dominance as well, with products like ultrabooks and tablets taking center stage this month. But 2011 was a year that created a platform for bigger and better educational technology to come.
Photo credit: Fancy Jantzi
Jesse Langley specializes in writing about education, professional and personal development, and career building. He writes on behalf of Colorado Technical University.
Yesterday, Apple made a series of education announcements at the Guggenheim Museum. Perhaps the largest news of the day was the unveiling of the iBooks 2 eTextbook format, designed to harness the 1.5 million iPads currently used for education (and to make it even more appealing to get more iPads into the hands of students).
There are plenty of companies vying for eTextbook dollars, but none with as much weight and digital delivery infrastructure already in place as Apple. Here’s why iBooks 2 are a wave capable of making a huge splash in higher education:
1. iBooks are significantly cheaper than physical textbooks
While the catalog is currently limited, Apple has a price cap of $14.99 on books selling in its store. Despite not having the ability to resell an eTextbook, the difference in price between iBooks and traditional paper copies is large enough to draw in more students who are looking to save on books, particularly those who either already own an iPad, or those who attend institutions with iPad initiatives.
2. Anyone can create and distribute materials through iTunes
Along with the iBooks 2 format, Apple also revealed the iBook Author application. Anyone can import existing Keynote or Word files, and it is simple to drag and drop multimedia into your iBook. For instructors who offer a great deal of material in either a coursepack or in a custom textbook, the iBook Author application will allow them to publish their book to the iTunes Store in no time, with the ability to price materials from $14.99 and under.
3. Designed for the iPad, iBooks are more engaging and interactive
Most eTextbooks to date are identical to their physical counterparts, the only difference being that the former is accessible only through laptops or other mobile devices. iBooks by nature are intended to be optimized experiences for the iPad. This means that beyond standard fare – text and still photos – videos, interactive quizzes, and other elements can supplement static material.
4. No need to worry about writing in your book
When students read an iBook, they are able to add “sticky notes” to particular pages with notes for later. They can also highlight important passages using an array of different virtual “ink” colors. This could have the effect of getting more students to “mark up” their class reading, since there is no need to worry about ink bleeding through pages, or reduced resale value from taking notes in the book.
5. A single location for all course materials
With web browsing, office suites, and a full range of apps already available for the iPad, the addition of proper textbooks provides a single location for students’ study materials. There is need to tote around multiple books, notebooks, and highlighters when everyone is contained within a single device. To this effect, Apple has updated iTunes U to also allow instructors to deliver syllabi, assignments, and information like office hours through a dedicated app.
Improve In-Class Engagement and Attentiveness Using Students’ iPads
While iBooks and iTunes U provide great platforms for after class, did you know that by engaging iPads during class, students can become more attentive and engaged? Using the LectureTools iPad App, students can take notes associated with lecture slides, respond to interactive activities, and relay comprehension difficulties to you in real-time.
Get Early Access to the LectureTools Student iPad App
Hello,
It's LectureTool's first visit to Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES 2012) and so far so good! Higher education reps and corporations were excited to see the education offerings of our presentation, student response, and note-taking tool. It's also the first time we've publicly displayed our LectureBook etextbook product and our upcoming iPad application.
(From left to right, Rich Boys (Director of Customer Experience), Zach Wick (Software Engineer), Bret Squite (Software Engineer), and Jason Aubrey (Director of Sales of Marketing).
Our team knows the competitive nature of CES and what's being presented, so we thought we'd play along and show the world how cool education can be, too.
We took this opportunity to show a sneak peak of the first student response and note-taking iPad application. The app allows students to use the Apple iPad to respond to activities, swipe through lecture slides, ask questions, and the other things students can do on LectureTools. The plan is to allow for online and offline access to LectureTool's materials for students. As long as they have their iPads, they have their course materials.
Stay tuned as we'll be officially launching our iPad application in the near future, available for all students with LectureTool's subscriptions.
From Las Vegas,
The LectureTools CES Team!
Booth 73305 in the Venetian Ballroom
Recent research has revealed that, despite each person having unique thinking patterns, our brains are much more similar than we originally believed. Still, the concept of distinct learning styles persists: many educators subscribe to the idea that each student has a distinct learning style that should be approached in an equally distinct way.
An alternative to learning-style-based teaching
Scientists are still debating the existence of learning styles, but combining both audio and visual learning tools in the classroom has proven to increase student engagement because it adds variety to the learning environment. Using a variety of technological teaching and learning tools like videos, message boards and learning games can keep students engaged and offer them a way to have fun with their lessons.
In addition to variety, interaction is also an important learning tool because it allows students to look at the concepts they are learning from multiple angles. For example: a student may think he understands the Pythagorean Theorem, but another student may approach it with a question that he had not thought of before. By bringing distinct minds together and allowing them to work through a problem together from different approaches, learning can become more engaging and effective.
The role of technology in teaching and learning
Technology has made it much easier for students and teachers to reach goals, regardless of location or distance. Many online degree programs are able to keep students engaged while allowing them to interact with one another through digital platforms. In many cases, students can choose from several teaching mediums, such as images, graphs, audio recordings, and interactive reading materials. By stimulating the mind through each of these approaches, students are more likely to comprehend and retain the information more effectively than they would if they were sitting in a full lecture hall with little or no interaction with the material, the instructor, or their classmates.
Although learning tools like these can be used to engage students enrolled in online learning programs, they can also be used effectively in physical settings. Large lecture halls and classrooms can benefit dramatically from the use of digital learning tools, which can allow students to submit questions to the instructor and their classmates, while also using hands-on software to put their knowledge to the test.
For example: a group of 300 students is taking a statistics class with one instructor. It would be impossible for an instructor to accommodate the learning preferences of each individual student without the help of digital tools. However, with interactive graphing tools on their laptops, access to lecture notes, and a comprehensive messaging system that enhances communication with their peers and the instructor, students can effectively engage themselves in the lessons get a firm mental grasp on the new information.
Students may have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to academics, and some students may have to work harder at learning a mathematical concept than a language concept—or vice-versa. However, these strengths do not necessarily indicate that a student with exceptional skills in language would benefit best from strictly reviewing word math problems without a focus on numerical or graphic alternatives. Instead, learning should be achieved by utilizing a variety of different teaching methods to slowly piece the concept together in the brain.
Photo: jisc_infonet
About the Author
Jesse Langley lives near Chicago. He divides his time among work, writing and family life. He has a keen interest in blogging and social media. He also writes for www.professionalintern.com.
Want to contribute?
If you would like to contribute to the LectureTools Blog or have any story suggestions, please contact our bloggers at blog@lecturetools.com.
You probably already know that polling students during class makes lecture more interactive, while improving student learning. Asking students to work through problems in class increases engagement and attentiveness while providing an opportunity to practice with the material.
Timing can turn a good "clicker" question into a great one. Strategically placing in-class activities can be a great student engagement strategy.
Here are 3 of our favorite times to ask for student responses:
1. Before covering a new topic
At the beginning of lecture, or between key ideas, ask your students an ungraded question. This gives them a low-stakes opportunity to share their pre-existing conceptions or beliefs, and also will keep their attention as they follow along with your lecture to discover whether they were correct or not. For example, before beginning a discussion about tornadoes, ask students where they think the most tornadoes typically occur.
For more open-ended discussions, your opinion poll might not have a correct answer. Rather, students can share their opinions. Show the results to launch a discussion about why some students answered the way they did. For example, a political science instructor once asked his students when they felt the United States became a democracy. Some students answered key dates in US history (women's suffrage, the Civil Rights Act), while others indicated they still believed there was work to be done. While the question had no "right" answer, it certainly provided ample opportunity for discussion.
2. After a multiple choice or image quiz question
A well-written multiple choice question can assess student comprehension, but cannot reveal why students chose the answer they submitted. This means that some students may have submitted the correct choice by chance. Additionally, there might not be much insight as to why other students missed the question. For image quizzes, it can be easy to miss nuances that caused students to select the wrong region.
To help solve these pitfalls, pose a free response question that asks students to defend their answer to the previous question. Your students will think critically through articulation while giving you insight into their logic. As an added bonus, some students may discover the flaw in their logic on their own when pressed to defend their answer.
3. After letting students discuss a question
Sometimes, you might ask a question that many students will answer incorrectly. In this case, consider using peer instruction. Ask your students to turn to a neighbor and give them a few minutes discuss the question. Once student discussions begin to wrap-up, pose the same question again. When you show the results to the class, the answers will have shifted. If most students have answered correctly, move on to the next topic. Otherwise, have students discuss in small groups or as a class.
Photo: velkr0
Learn More About Teaching with Technology
Follow LectureTools on Twitter and join the latest conversations about best practices for teaching with technology, new technology trends that could affect your classroom, and connect with educators around the world.
Sometimes getting technology adoption to happen more quickly in education can be a frustrating experience. When you factor in an institutional resistance to change with the fact that some school systems are struggling to find funding for things like building maintenance, it's understandable. The exciting thing about Skype for school systems is that it doesn't present the higher costs associated with some other technologies. Skype's recent move into the education arena may prove a game-changer for educators and students as well.
Even though Skype's been around for so long that we've really begun to take it for granted, it has the potential to effect change in classrooms. Most of us likely use it in personal and professional contexts all the time. But Skype never really found a foothold in public education. Skype has been extremely effective in online education but that never translated into a presence in a traditional classroom setting. Teachers always used it informally, but really only as an instant messaging platform. That may be about to change dramatically with the new "Skype in the Classroom" initiative.
What Skype Integration Means for Teachers
"Skype in the Classroom" left beta testing in March with about 4,000 teachers signed up. That's fairly respectable, but in the meantime that number has swollen to more than 16,000 teachers. That's not just exciting news for Skype; it also spells good news for teachers and students alike. And the interesting phenomenon is watching how teachers are tending to use it in its initial stages. As I suspected, Skype's potential for supercharging collaborative efforts is how teachers must intuitively view it as well. They're using it to share really effective lesson plans and post projects primarily.
When I taught high school English, I sometimes felt constrained by the classroom. Out of necessity, I was confined to the classroom for large segments of the day and that can impact the ability to collaborate. Exchanging ideas in the teacher's lounge about effective lesson plans just isn't the same as real time collaboration. That seems to be the way many teachers are using Skype now; exchanging tips about being more effective and finding what works without waiting for another education conference.
How Skype May Benefit Students
Everything Skype does to help teachers become more effective in the classroom is going to benefit students. But in addition to those trickle-down things like better lesson plans, Skype offers some real potential for positive student interactions that just haven't been possible previously. The video conferencing ability that Skype offers may have more applications than initially meet the eye. Students in foreign language classes may be able to incorporate Skype into practicing foreign language skills with native speakers in classrooms separated by enormous geographic boundaries. The impact this could have on foreign language acquisition could be very interesting to examine. Introducing a conversational dimension as well as the social element to language learning could be a useful complement to the dull litany of verb conjugation and repetitive workbook exercises. And grade school pen pal projects could take on a whole new level of immediacy and excitement via Skype video chat in a classroom. Because of the rapid rate at which teachers are signing on to the "Skype in the Classroom" program and the lack of high costs, Skype may have a good chance of catching on quickly.
About the Author
Jesse Langley lives near Chicago. He divides his time among work, writing and family life. He has a keen interest in blogging and social media. He also writes for www.professionalintern.com.
Want to contribute?
If you would like to contribute to the LectureTools Blog or have any story suggestions, please contact our bloggers at blog@lecturetools.com.
A recent article about wireless devices, distraction, and engagement in the classroom noted that the University of Chicago Law School has eliminated Internet access in most of its classrooms.
On the surface, this move makes sense: most professors know that bored students with laptops tend to drift off onto email and social networking sites. But, when used properly, Internet access can improve engagement, and, perhaps most importantly, keep students on-task and off social networking sites.
Students are not dependent on Wi-Fi for connectivity or distractions
Disabling wireless Internet in the classroom will certainly hinder the ability for many students to access the web. But the number of smartphones and bundled data plans is on the rise. At Ball State, nearly half of students reported owning a smartphone.
This means students can still access Facebook, Twitter, and the web. Additionally, even students without data plans can use their traditional “dumbphones” to text friends. Plainly, students are always connected, with or without campus Wi-Fi.
There was a time when doing newspaper crossword puzzles and whispering to neighbors were the only source of distraction. Even without the Internet, there is still no guarantee students will find a passive lecture more engaging than these unplugged sources of distraction.
The Internet has legitimate educational applications, even during class
At the very least, taking Internet access away from students punishes each of them, even those who were using their connectivity responsibly. Engaged students can find many on-task uses for the Internet during lecture.
The most obvious application for students in class is using one of many online note-taking tools to build review materials during class. In an increasingly online world, some students may opt for Google Docs over its desktop counterparts. Others might use a more specialized tool such as Evernote or Ubernote.
Curious or resourceful students might utilize Google to quickly brush up on or discover more information about topics that pass by quickly during lecture. Such curiosity could range from simple recollection to active learning and exploration.
Internet access is not the root cause of student inattentiveness
With so many websites full of games, instant messaging, and other tempting distractions, many see the Internet as an easy scapegoat for student inattentiveness. It is always important, however, to ask whether students would pay attention even without Internet access.
Engaging students and making class more interactive can make students more attentive, regardless of whether there is Internet access in the classroom or not. “Rather than seeing distraction as a challenge,” the Educause article concludes, “educators can see it as an opportunity to reflect upon and change the design of their entire instructional approach.”
Passive lectures result in worse learning outcomes than more interactive pedagogical styles. In those classes, it’s difficult to blame students for wandering off onto distracting websites and sending emails. Between ubiquitous access, legitimate uses, and passive lectures, turning off the Wi-Fi simply won’t solve problems with attentiveness during class.
Photos: noli's, Johan Larsson, rofltosh
Learn How to Improve Student Attentiveness with an Online Lecture Engagement System
Sign-up for an upcoming webinar to learn more about how making class more interactive with LectureTools can keep students off of Facebook while improving engagement and attentiveness.
Sign-up for a Webinar