Flipped Learning

Just come across this wonderful visual entitled "Growth in Flipped Learning" and want to share it with you as well. The visual is created by Sophia and Flipped Learning Network and features some interesting stats about the actual use of flipped learning methodology.

According to the Flipped Learning Network,  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. "

Snapshot taken from Sophia's graphic

Here are some of the highlights from this graphic :

• 78% of teachers have flipped a lesson in 2014
• 96% of teachers who have flipped a lesson or unit would recommend that method to other teachers.
• the majority of flipped teaching still occurs in high school
• 9 out of 10 teachers noticed a positive change in student engagement since flipping their class.
• 71% of teachers stated improved grades since using flipped classroom
• Close to half of teachers flip their class 1 or 2 times a week showing it doesn't need to be on everyday activity
• 93% of teachers who are flipping their classroom started as their own initiative.
• 74% of teachers said that their flipped learning efforts are supported by their school administration

Post Source : http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/05/awesome-new-flipped-learning-graphic.html

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Online STEM Learning

By Matt Vangalis

From millions in White House grants to private tech companies’ awareness programs, the push is on to engage students in the critically important fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career possibilities.

It’s a hot button issue. The demand for well-educated students, especially in the STEM fields is growing with no signs of slowing down. Still, according to the National Math & Science Initiative, 54 percent of high school graduates are not ready for college math, while an astounding 70 percent are unprepared for college-level science.

A main issue that prevents students from becoming engaged in STEM is a lack of access to the courses, the content and the right teachers they need to succeed. Many schools lack the resources to fully push STEM to all students. The good news is that students don’t need to be in a brick-and-mortar school to effectively learn STEM concepts.

Online learning is a critical tool because it gives more students access to STEM education coursesand resources that might otherwise be unavailable to them. Students who don’t have access to STEM offerings at their schools can access high-quality courses online. It also serves as an outlet for schools and districts to augment their STEM offerings, which are often only offered as electives.

A 2013 report from STEMConnector said close to 60 percent of the nation’s students who begin high school interested in STEM change their minds by graduation. Schedule flexibility and the ability to work at your own pace can take away some of the intimidation factor that many students face in a STEM curriculum – a factor that often leads to a loss of interest.

STEM Should Be Hands-On

Studies show that STEM education is most successful when there’s a multi-prong approach, including coursework, applied activities and career connections. In addition to quality courses, a good online STEM program will offer hands-on opportunities for students to apply what they learn.

Online schools with year-round enrollment have a more flexible academic calendar, so online educators can better incorporate hands-on experiences, assignments and even internships into the curriculum.

Such activities are important learning tools, but are also critical in inspiring kids to think about STEM careers. Participation in internships, job-shadowing experiences and other hands-on experiences in research labs, zoos and museums are critical in helping students determine their interest and increasing their knowledge.

Read More...

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Managed Instruction or Digital Learning?

A former governor and an ed school dean met in a bar…they discussed the seeming incompatibility of digital learning with differentiated instruction and the scripted curricula mandated by many school districts.

It’s easy to say that managed instruction is old school and digital learning is the future, but this debate is worth unpacking. The lack of alignment of instruction and assessment, as well as schedule, structure, and support services is a huge problem in education–it leads to poor student performance and frustration on the part of educators.

Charter management organizations, perhaps the most important development of the last decade in U.S. education, brought a built-from-scratch ‘no-excuses’ alignment but did so around the old model of a centralized standards-based curriculum, with a traditional age-cohort school model. Many of these CMOs serve relatively homogeneous low income communities where all the kids are behind. Talented teachers, common pacing, and a rigorous focus on execution resulted in pretty good outcomes.

School districts saw this improvement and began implementing similar ‘managed instruction’ (or ‘aligned instructional system’) schemes yielding some improvement. Even with marginal execution, these programs ensure that students are receiving grade level instruction (whether or not they are on grade level) which can improve results on standardized grade level assessments.

Scripted & Digital? To the question of whether scripted and digital are compatible, the short answer is no, the full answer if a bit more nuanced. Aligned systems and program coherence remains key to both efficacy and efficiency.

Digital tools and blended schools unlock the power of personalization, but growth on personal learning progressions is not well measured by the current crop of grade level state assessments (originally prescribed by NCLB). That’s why iNACOL and I feel so strongly about the need for better growth measures. We’ll need full competency-based systems (discussed in DLN Smart Series paper Cohorts to Competency) with ongoing assessment and a move, especially at the secondary level, to on-demand end-of-course exams.

Success For All (which came up in conversation) may be scripted but uses frequent assessments to regroup students to ensure that instruction is always delivered to small performance-level groups–it’s an adaptive systems approach to creating both personalization and alignment. Read 180 is a good example of a blended and differentiated secondary approach with lots of evidence of efficacy, but like SFA it requires high fidelity implementation to achieve great results.

More recently developed adaptive learning systems (e.g., Dreambox, i-Ready, Reasoning Mind) create individualized game-based pathways. Unfortunately, most schools that use them in conjunction with a traditional basal often creating instructional dissonance.

The power of digital is personalization, and the power of personalization is individual progress models, but competency-based systems require a whole new rule set (summarized in a free DLN eBook Navigating the Digital Shift).

What about the new tests? The good news is that PARCC and Smarter Balanced are piloting state tests that are much better assessments of writing and thinking skills. The bad news is that they were designed for the old system and remain focused on determining grade level proficiency.

While a number of districts and networks have moved to a more student-centered approach, “Their success,” according to a recent iNACOL report , “rests heavily on federal adoption of a new student-centered policy framework that will advance the growth of competency education.”

The problem, according to Digital Learning Now, is that “grade level promotion has historically been dictated by birthdays, attendance and minimum achievement. Instructional pacing, aimed at the middle of the class, may be too fast or too slow for some students who become frustrated, disengaged and unmotivated.” In contrast, “digital learning offers the potential for students to study at their own pace and advance based upon competency and mastery of the material — it is student-centered, not school-centered. In this environment, seat time requirements and the all-too-common practice of social promotion become obsolete.” As a result, DLN recommends, “Making high stakes assessments, which are used to trigger progression, available when students are ready will accelerate student learning.”

Next steps? Like project-based learning, it’s easy to create lots of low level engagement with digital learning. But to achieve sustainable results, it is necessary to create an aligned system with a high level of execution. Districts shouldn’t abandon managed instruction until they are ready to support personalized digital learning in a comprehensive and effective manner.

Digital Learning Now, DreamBox, Scholastic and Curriculum Associates are Getting Smart Advocacy Partners. Tom is a director of iNACOL.

Cross Posted From : http://gettingsmart.com/2014/03/managed-instruction-digital-learning/

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Teaching About Sustainable Technology

Having a “greener” lifestyle is becoming more and more mainstream these days.  Recycling, minimizing things like single use plastics, and simply using less are on many more people’s radar than they used to be. Not too long ago, we shared some ideas on how to have a greener classroom (inspired by our friend Jon over at Green Lifestyle Changes).

There’s also lots of green technology out there. That is, technology devoted to alternative resource use, or items being designed to use as little energy and physical pieces as possible. But what about the materials that go into our beloved technology? And what about recycling them? Technology changes so rapidly these days. Our need and desire for the latest model sometimes cause us to quickly discard our once trusted devices for the next best thing or the newer model, leaving outdated gadgets with a shelf life in some cases of a matter of months.

The handy infographic below takes a look at how our love of technology is affecting our environment and why is it important we alter our recycling habits.

Sustainable Technology

Rare Earth Elements

• Rare earth elements are key to maintaining our current lifestyle and technology
• There are 17 rare earth elements
• While more abundant than other minerals, they are not concentrated enough to make them easily exploitable economically
• The US was once self-reliant on REEs, but now imports 100%, mostly from China – due to labor cost issues
• China is facing a number of issues with its supply of REEs. 2/3 have been mined already, and the remaining are of lower quality that will be more expensive to extract

How Do We Use Rare Earth Elements?

So why do REEs matter? They are used for so many pieces of technology, such as:

• Vibration functions in mobile devices
• Amplification
• GPS
• Color display
• Rechargeable batteries
• Making items smaller and lighter
• NFC
• Hard drives
• Camera lenses
• Spindle motors
• Cinematic projections
• Magneto-optic recording
• Hybrid cars
• Hydro energy
• Water treatment
• Fuel cells
• CFL bulbs
• Catalytic converters
• Solar energy
• Wind turbines
• Fuel cells
• A huge host of military defense technologies
• Satellite communications
• Fiber optic cables
• MRI
• XRay
• Lasers
• Neutron radiotherapy
• Drug therapies

Recycling

Companies in Japan are leading the way with REE recycling programs – Honda and Hitachi are just two

• Recycling REEs poses several problems:
• It is expensive
• Very little REEs are harvested from each product
• It is difficult to retrieve the REEs from products

Despite these issues it is still hugely important to recycle your electronics, due to the very low volume of new REEs around the globe.

Post Source : http://www.edudemic.com/sustainable-technology/

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Effective Online Courses

By Jeff Bergin

It’s no secret that online learning is one of the fastest growing trends in higher education. Currently, 33% of higher education students now take at least one course online, and nearly 75% of academic leaders rate online education as the same or superior to brick-and-mortar courses, according to the Babson Survey Research Group’s 2013 Survey of Online Learning.

With less face-to-face interaction happening between students and teachers in an online course, quality learning design becomes even more of an imperative to ensure the experience is engaging, effective, and matches students’ digital expectations. Drawing on research from fields such as informatics, human factors, cognitive psychology, and human computer interaction, the learning sciences are interdisciplinary and explore how learning is manifested, demonstrated and measured.

Four Components of Learning Design & Evaluation

There are four distinct components that are important to consider when designing any learning experience. These components are necessary to deliver intended learning outcomes.

Educational Policy

This refers to the policies, held by the federal government, state governments, accrediting bodies and institutions that shape educational practices. Quality learning design meets these policy requirements in any number of ways, for instance, by supporting credit hour regulations; supporting accessibility recommendations; and supporting outcomes-based or mastery-based courses, such as those designed to be competency-based; and by providing transparent assessment and rigorous evidence of learning. Thus, courseware that is designed taking policy requirements into consideration is more likely to help instructors and institutional leaders ensure that they meet these requirements with relative ease.

Academic Research

There is a growing body of published, scholarly research around learning, from fields such as instructional design, educational psychology, and human computer interaction. Three important areas of applied research are instructional systems design, motivation and multimedia learning.

• Instructional Systems Design: This research ensures that products are engaging, intuitive, and match users’ expectations. Instructional design begins with the desired learning outcomes. Outcomes are broken down into objectives by the subject matter experts and instructional designers, who can then collaborate on the most effective strategy to obtain those said outcomes. The end result of this approach includes properly aligned assessments, practice, and instructional content (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998) .
• Motivation: The ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) theory is a methodology to foster learner motivation in instruction (Keller & Suzuki, 2004) . First, motivating instruction should gain and then sustain the learners’ attention. Once the instruction has gained the attention or interest, learners must feel or believe that it has relevance to their lives. When learners feel the instruction is relevant, they then need to build confidence in their mastery of the content. Finally, the learners need to generate satisfaction from their mastery. If the learners are lacking motivation in any of the four areas addressed in the ARCS theory, motivational design is used to improve motivation where lacking. Motivated learners are more likely to be successful learners. The ARCS model allows instructors to create an effective motivational strategy in their courses. Therefore, user-centered design courses should reflect the ARCS theory, in order to avoid issues that inhibit motivation in learners.
• Multimedia Learning: The cognitive theory of multimedia learning is a research-based approach to helping students learn through the use of media components integrated into the course material. The theory has evolved with the understanding that effectively combining visuals, text and audio in programs for learning is complex, and requires deep and sophisticated examinations of how humans process information (Mayer, 2005) .

Learner-Centered Design

Learner-centered Design is an outgrowth of user-centered design or participatory design, in which the learner is placed at the center of the design process. This begins by creating learner personas then evolves to conducting design labs that involve actual learners, and culminate in increasingly sophisticated design reviews, design tests, usability tests, focus groups and survey research. The goal is to produce educational experiences that are intuitive, engaging, and consistent with learners’ expectations.

Multiple types of testing methods and associated technologies are leveraged throughout the learning design and evaluation process to collect extensive data that provides a better understanding of what occurs when students learn online. This information consists of “tasks successfully completed” during the process of taking a course, while measuring how and why the task was successfully completed (or not). Participants involved in testing exercises also complete surveys and participate in focus groups to provide more detail and context to the data they generated during the process of taking a course online.

Typically, there are three primary types of testing, including design testing, usability testing, and engagement testing. Each of these tests is measured using eye tracking software, two-way mirrors, screen recording technologies, usability software, and neurosignal headsets.

Third-Party Evaluation

This refers to the measures taken to ensure that a product or service meets rigorous quality standards devised by external experts and researchers.

• Endorsements: These include certifications, recommendations, and awards. Endorsements are provided by external reviewers, such as the American Council on Education (ACE), Quality Matters, and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) CODiE Awards.
• Qualitative and Quantitative Studies: These include formalized case studies with both qualitative and data-driven outcomes, often conducted by institutions, third-party vendors, and external partners.

Extensive evaluation is integral to making data-driven decisions. Evaluations provide stakeholders with detailed and reliable analysis of their product, processes, and future initiatives (Russ-Eft, Preskill, 2001) . By committing to regular formative evaluation, including those conducted by respected third-party reviewers, institutions can continue to measure the effectiveness of user-centered design including instruction, media, functionality, and assessments.

Today, nearly any course can be taught partially or entirely online — and the choices for designing a specific course are endless. But with more focus on performance-based funding, and potential changes in how institutions are evaluated, efficacy in higher education is more important than ever. Overall, when designing courses, institutions and educators should consider how their design model supports efficacy. What are some other components to consider when designing an online course? Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below!

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1) Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). “What is backward design?” in Understanding by Design. (1 ed., pp. 7–19). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

2) Keller, J. M., & Suzuki, K. (2004). Learner motivation and e-Learning design: A multinationally validated process. Journal of Educational Media, 29(3), 229-239.

3) Mayer, R. E. (2005a). Introduction to multimedia learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (pp. 1-30). New York: Cambridge University Press.

4) Russ-Eft, D. & Preskill, H. (2001). Evaluation in organizations: Enhancing learning, performance, and change. Boston: Perseus Books.

 Authored by: Jeff Bergin, Ph.D., Head of Learning Design, Pearson

Post Source: http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-design-effective-online-courses/

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