Flipped Classroom Resources from UT Austin

July 11, 2015 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

flipped flow model
The Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at Austin has developed some outstanding resources for faculty interesting in “flipping” their classroom instruction.

What is a flipped class?

This 1 minute video introduces the flipped classroom model of instruction.


What is a flipped class? from UT Austin CTL on Vimeo.

A flipped class is one that inverts the typical cycle of content acquisition and application so that

  • students gain necessary knowledge before class, and
  • instructors guide students to actively and interactively clarify and apply that knowledge during class.

What is flipped? Table comparison

Flipped Classroom Quick Start Guide

Flipped Classroom Quick Start Guide

How to Flip a Class

The videos and recommendations with guiding questions on the UTAustin CTL website, walk you through the steps of flipping a single class; the process is scalable for flipping portions of each unit or an entire course.

Thank you to the UT Austin CTL for developing and sharing such a comprehensive set of flipped classroom resources!

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TOPcast: Teaching Online Podcast

July 10, 2015 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

TOPcastThe Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida has launched the Teaching Online Podcast (TOPcast) hosted by Dr. Thomas Cavanagh and Dr. Kelvin Thompson, a monthly podcast for online and blended learning professionals. Tom and Kelvin are rockstars of the online and blended learning world with decades of experience growing and learning blended and online programs. In their podcast they discuss current issues in online and blended learning relevant to leaders and practitioners. Any online instructor, instructional designer, or aspiring online learning leader will find benefit from the insights shared. You might also learn something new about different coffee blends in the process 🙂

You can share with the hosts your thoughts on past episodes or ideas for new episodes via email (topcast@ucf.edu), follow on Twitter at @topcastnow, or join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #topcastnow. Subscribe (via iTunes or RSS) to never miss an episode.

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Course Readiness: Tips for getting your course ready to teach online or blended

July 10, 2015 By Jason Rhode 1 Comment

Course Readiness Guide

The University of St. Thomas Information Resources and Technologies and Faculty Development Center have created this excellent guide for faculty on how to structure a course for online learning and addresses both fully online and blended/hybrid delivery methods. There is a checklist at the end of the booklet to assess your “course readiness,” and to help minimize any problems your students may incur as they acclimate to the online material, navigate the course and complete online activities.

Also included is assistance for incorporating active learning strategies to help you plan your class time more efficiently and to assess where students are in understanding the material. Lastly, the basic tenets of how to design for accessibility, especially if you are using the Blackboard learning management system, are introduced.

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Institutional Blended Learning Adoption Checklist

July 8, 2015 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

Blended Learning Institutional Adoption Checklist

This checklist shared by Charles Graham can be used to assess where your institution is at in terms of providing strategy, structure, and support for blended learning.

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Measuring Digital Professional Development: Analytics for the Use of Web and Social Media

May 4, 2015 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

Journal of Applied Research in Higher EducationMy colleagues and I at NIU were recently notified of the publication of our article, Measuring digital professional development: Analytics for the use of web and social media.

Purpose

As faculty professional development increasingly occurs online and through social media, it becomes challenging to assess the quality of learning and effectiveness of programs and resources, yet it is important to evaluate such initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how one faculty development center experimented with using analytics to answer questions about the use and effectiveness of its web and social media resources.

Design/methodology/approach

The case study was based on direct observation of the center’s practice and review of selected data generated by the analytic tools.

Findings

Unfortunately, while some analytics are available from a variety of sources, they are often distributed across tools and services. The center developed an analytics strategy to use data from Google Analytics and social media reporting tools to assess the use of online and social professional development resources. Initial results show that the center’s online and social professional development resources are widely used, both within and outside the university. However, more work is necessary to improve the strength and scope of the available analytics.

Practical implications

As a result of the analysis, the center has streamlined online resources, targeted social media use, and has begun developing methods to allow faculty to report online resource use as professional development for academic personnel purposes.

Originality/value

Many faculty development centers have not explored methods of evaluating online and social media resources. This paper outlines a strategic evaluation plan to measure the usage of online resources as well as engagement and interaction through social media.

Citation

Rhode, J., Richter, S., Gowen, P., & Krishnamurthi, M. (2015). Measuring digital professional development: Analytics for the use of web and social media. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 7(1), 19-31.

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