Flipping Professional Development

The flipped classroom has been a hot topic in education for the past five years. More recently, the idea of flipping professional development has been experimented with at schools and in corporate training. The idea is to rethink what we want to spend our time with in face to face (F2F) sessions and how we can change the training that occurs before and after those sessions to be more  self-directed.

Face-to-face training time, especially with technology integration, is used most efficiently when the lower level portions are done online and offline outside those encounters.

It was only this year that the Flipped Learning Network adopted and released a formal definition for flipped learning, and their Four Pillars of F-L-I-P™ and a checklist of eleven indicators that educators must incorporate into their practice. (see the definition, pillars and indicators) They also draw a distinction between flipped learning and a flipped classroom.

“Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter.”

Prior to this, there was no consensus definition for flipped learning, flipped classrooms, flipped anything. This definition still allows for a great deal of instructor-specific style, design and delivery.

I will be doing a presentation on flipped professional development at the at the NJEDge.Net Annual Conference on November 20, 2014. This approach to professional development is a way to maximize instructor and learner's time for professional learning.

It is certainly a result of our increased use of technology and the growth in education and business of online learning and the hybrid or blended learning model. That model combines personalized and on-demand digital resources with face-to-face teaching, coaching, practice and support. This is especially true for technology integration.

I would say that the growth of the Professional Learning Network or Environment (PLN or PLE - both terms are still being used) is also a factor in the flipped approach. I see more articles about flipped professional development for teachers, especially in K-12.

Some of the points that are stressed in this type of learning are:
Documentation - maintaining consistency and accountability through record keeping
Ongoing – creating time for teachers on a regular schedule
Coached – providing teachers access to an instructional technology coach
Personalized Content - providing relevant digital resources to support learning
Collaborative – personalizing learning by creating small collaborative groups

Yes, I still see examples of the recorded "lecture" that students watch based the slide or screen capture with voice-over. That is something we have been trying to decrease the use of in regular online classes with limited success.

I do see success with having any lecture much shorter than in-class sessions (10-25 minutes) and focusing on a single concept, or a small number of concepts.

In flipped settings, some of the content delivery occurs before the F2F session and some of the followup may occur on/offline too.

Many of the issues of online learning still exist in flipped learning. Besides issues like knowing the true identity of the online student and monitoring progress online, the biggest question people always have about this approach is "What if they don't do the work they are supposed to do before the F2F sessions?" 

That problem goes back a few hundred years in education. We have always called it "homework" and teachers and trainers still need to deal with monitoring and assessing prior learning and making judgments about the competency, readiness and mastery of a learner.

I'll be looking at some ways that corporations and schools are dealing with those issues in my presentation and I will post some followup here with additional information.

Summer Faculty Institute on Learning Technologies at NJCU

Fresh from the Faculty Institute at NJIT, I will be participating in another similar event at New Jersey City University. Their Academic Computing group and the Center for Teaching and Learning, in collaboration with the Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs, is hosting their first Summer Faculty Institute on Learning Technologies. The three-day institute is a time to connect with colleagues, guest speakers, and to get hands-on practice with new technologies.

I will be one of the keynote speakers (on June 3). My talk - "I Have A Theory About Learning" - will hopefully give the faculty a number of ways to think about learning theory that is emerging from current technologies. I know that some of those will be developed further in sessions offered during the three days. My take on some of these topics may be a bit unexpected. For example, rather than talk about flipping the classroom, I am more interested in flipping the teacher and flipping professional development.

Craig Kapp is another keynote. He is  an interactive developer that I have seen before demonstrating some really interesting tech he has developed. I first met him when he was in Instructional Technology at TCNJ.  Now, he's at New York University as a Researcher in Residence at the Interactive Telecommunications Program. His company is ZooBurst, a web-based startup that focuses on bringing augmented reality digital storytelling tools into classrooms around the world.

Eric Sheninger is the third keynote. I have not met him before but know of him and follow him on social media. Eric is a  Principal at New Milford High School in NJ, but he is known for his work on leading and learning in the digital age. "Pillars of Digital Leadership" is a framework for educators to initiate sustainable change to transform school cultures. His book is Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times.

I will also be doing a workshop session on bringing Open Educational Resources (OER) into courses. The good thing about having two hours in a workshop setting is that rather than just try to sell faculty on using something like open textbooks or open courseware, we can actually look at sites that offer them and try to find some resources that work for their classes.

Too often professional development sessions give faculty good ideas to use, but then they have to leave and do the work of designing to implement those ideas. And that's where the model breaks down.

One idea in my opening talk is that with all the talk about "flipping the classroom" I would like to hear more about flipping the teacher and flipping professional development/learning.   I think that professional development would be more effective if some of it was done online and on-your-own prior to going to any face-to-face session. Get the theory out of the way and use the synchronous time to do the work and application.

The other NJCU sessions will be looking at how to use Personal Learning Networks, flipping the classroom, lecture capture, augmented reality, data visualization and mobile devices, assistive technology for faculty and students, clickers for class and online polling, social media technologies as tools to engage college student, and robots in education for STEM and NAO.

Faculty Learning, NJIT and Rubrics

It's the season for professional development (though I am told the preferred term now is professional learning) in higher education. Grades submitted, graduation over, but early enough that faculty have not escaped to vacation or research projects.

I started these institutes at NJIT with my Instructional Technology group back in 2001 and they have continued ever since. The 14th Institute is this week.

Sessions are always about educational technology - new features in Moodle, Camtasia Relay and editing, WebEx, network security, Khan Academy, convergence models, clicker, Adobe Acrobat X, BYOD and more.

I'll be doing attending sessions in my faculty role and doing one session on rubrics.

A rubric started out as a word or section of text traditionally written or printed in red ink to highlight it. The word derives from the Latin: rubrica, meaning red ochre or red chalk. It originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts where red letters were used to highlight initial capitals. It later became notes at the edges or margins and probably led to the practice of teachers making notes to students - often in red - in the margins.

I find rubrics to be a great tool for grading and assessment that can make the grading process more efficient and more objective. I actually use them as much as formative assessment and for students to use while working on projects as I use them for "grading."

In this session, I will go through many rubric types, discuss rubric creation, best practices for students and faculty use and talk about using the Moodle rubric tool.

I have collected some information and links on rubric use on my NJIT website.