Mobile Apps?

I'm currently reading the NMC Horizon Project Short List (2013) for EDHI and I got really excited when I read the 'Mobile Apps' section. I could definitely envision using this in a class. Imagine the following scenario:

 At the end of each class, you do a 'muddiest point' activity where you ask students to take 60 seconds to jot down the portion of the day's lecture that was perhaps unclear to them. Assuming there's some sort of consensus, you could produce a short video (or two) or supplementary explanation that got send out via your app. This information would be easy to digest (~5 minutes or less), to encourage students to participate. Enrollment would (obviously) be optional and materials from the app would also be uploaded to the classroom management system for equal access.

Just a quick thought!

Flipping the classroom is esentially taking the lecture (or needed fundamental knowledge) component out of the classroom and making it homework. As a result, classtime can be effectively utilized for experimentation, active learning, and other collaborative learning activities.

As a laboratory teaching assistant, I feel like I've almost exclusively 'flipped the classroom'. Students must come into the labs prepared to perform experiments. Students work in groups to develop hypotheses, produce an experimental design, and carry out an experiment to answer a question. Without performing some amount of background research, students will likely be unable to handle the tasks assigned to them. This can be rewarding but frustrating. If students come unprepared (despite needing to complete a pre-laboratory assignment), they can hold up their teams and cause general frustration to the class.

Lost in the World of Job Candidates and Wikis

UGA's Department of Biological Sciences is hiring a new biology educator to replace Paula Lemons, who accepted a job offer with Molecular / Cell Biology. Due to my interest in biology education, I was asked (along with Ermegersh Furgerson and several other graduate students) to get lunch with each candidate. Today, we had the pleasure of eating with Dr. Luanna Prevost, an alum of UGA's Department of Plant Biology. She is utilizing interesting technology (<---- this makes it relevant) and statistics to analyze written assessments in biology classes containing 300+ students. Multiple choice assessments are the norm in such a large class, however the shortcomings of these types of questions are evident. Utilizing technology may make it possible to assess a student's written work and get a more holistic view of how each student is learning. As lunch progressed, we learned about the various activities Luanna has engaged in as a postdoctoral researcher, and it got me very excited for the next step of my academic journey. I'm very excited to meet more candidates!

Second order of business: I'm strongly considering using a Wiki in my Introduction to Plant Biology laboratory section. A major project in the lab is for each student to produce a lab report detailing their exploration of enzyme activity. I though it could be interesting to create a Wiki where students could share pictures, data, methods, etc. My thought is that this may facilitate the lab report process, making it less painful and more productive for students.

Matthew Furgerson tried to give me lip in FFP today, and I was like:

A post made by Matthew Furgerson (plug plug plug) got me excited to talk about the Carousel  activity we performed in class yesterday. I did something quite similar in my Fall 2012 GRSC7770 class, without knowing the name for it! As a summative activity, I broke the class into four groups; each of which had a poster board. The groups were then given a specific topic related to teaching and were assigned to develop a concept map on that topic. After five minutes, the groups would switch and have to add to the already existing concept map. This was done until each group visited each concept map and added to it. The final group would then present the concept map to the rest of the class. I found this a really interesting way to summarize everything that had been done in throughout the semester, and the students seemed to enjoy the interactivity (as I did in EDHI!).

In other news, I'm really excited about the Team Tech Talks. I'm a huge fan of alliteration AND a huge fan of  utilizing technology in the classroom.

I'm taking EDHI9040 in an attempt to become competent with classroom technology. I frequently fumble around with SmartBoards and crash powerful computing clusters. While I expect this course to remedy only one of those issues, it is certainly a step in the right direction. Further, distance learning via online courses is become increasingly prevalent in higher education and I don't want to become a fossil before I receive my Ph.D.