Anyone who says a flipped classroom requires less effort from teachers and students is pretty far off the mark. It's actually quite the opposite. Having finally graded the first round of work by students, it's been an "eye opening experience." The process is incredibly intensive, but well worth the effort. Allow me to provide some of my observations and inferences at this point. To begin with, students were invited to try different formats including a Linnaeus Facebook page, a podcast where Linnaeus saves a Metropolitan museum from closing with his brilliant organizational system, and more. The guiding principle was to provide a few ideas for students and allow them to creatively expand and express their ideas. It was exciting to see some students embrace role play, having Linnaeus explain his system in character. One group of students went so far as to create a puppet show video with a full set with bears, squirrels, snakes, and starfish explaining why each belonged in their respective taxa. I asked to post their video, but the students being as modest and shy as they are asked that I provide screenshots instead. Overall, I had a tremendous time evaluating student projects and enjoyed the diversity and originality of their presentations. I learned that some students work especially well in groups. Others are hyper-taskers and work best alone under a well-defined deadline. What follows is a gallery of (anonymized) student work with my not-so-anonmymous comments and response to their work.
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In our first class, I like to recount the history of biological sketching and have students try their hand at cross-hatching and stippling techniques. From Leonardo da Vinci's biological sketches to modern stippled drawings, students were challenged to apply the two traditional drawing techniques. They drew specima from our collection and today, we added a benefit. Students used smartphones, tablets, etc. to provide additional and often better images than the preserved critters in the lab. This gave them an additional opportunity to practice biological sketching, from home if they so chose. Below are images of their works in progress - a synthesis of traditional approaches and modern technology. Students were quite happy to use their phones for learning. It was a great experience that we'll complete tomorrow. Next stop - Linnaean classification -- organizing living organisms in a logical hierarchy. |
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November 2016
AuthorWelcome to the eCampusLive blog. I'm Jerry Bleecker. I teach Biology, Science, Information Technology, Computer Arts, and more. It's an exciting year to share our experiences with our flipped classroom endeavour. Categories |