I was invited by colleagues of our Tecnológico de Monterrey en Zacatecas to share a keynote (Flipped Learning) and a three instances of a one hour workshop on Open Educational Resources. This was indeed an honour and I was also interviewed by a local newspaper (NTR Zacatecas) and that interview should appear in the Monday edition.
My flip classroom does not include many videos. I create a video at the start (well, usually the start) of each week for each course to let them know what’s going to happen that week and what they should focus on.
I much prefer video on demand which matches the style of my classroom being focused on what each individual student needs.
So perhaps I keep coming back to this same theme about relationships in education and that relates to (finally) getting around to changing the title of my blog to #ConnectingIsLearning. If you don’t want to read about passion for education, move on to another blog or post.
Control is a curious word. Many of my colleagues at the Tecnológico de Monterrey know me as “that flipping teacher” which comes from my embracing #flipclass four years ago and evangelizing that approach to colleagues on campus, across the system as well as nationally and internationally.
Yes, #flipclass has been good to me but it tends to pigeonhole me with that label. I do so much more in my classroom (connected classrooms, #oer, giving my students voice, active learning) which I consider going beyond flipped class. I really should blog more about my classroom. Hmm.
The key component of #flipclass to me and the most important “flip” for me is the flip of responsibility in the classroom. I want my students to take control of their learning while I slide into a role as a guide and mentor. Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams talk about this in their book “Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day”
Guide on the side and not the sage on the stage.
— Bergmann and Sams
Another inspiration on my pedagogy is Keith Hughes (@hiphughes on Twitter), go search out his #TeacherTips which should become coffee table books for teacher’s lounges. One key concept I take from Keith is the term “Facilitator of Learning Experiences”. I love that expression and use it often to explain my role in the classroom.
I would prefer you go watch and listen to Keith explain this:
I’m been running a form of connected courses since the January-May 2015 semester here at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. I have this tendency to throw a new power tool into my teaching toolbox every January which has been happening for about five years now. The list of courses I have setup is growing so much that I’m struggling to keep them maintained (see Alan’s tweet about needing an updater) and really should list all of them somewhere on the landing page for kenscourses.com. You can just find the current semester courses there now, go ahead and tweak the URLs to find the past semester.
@ken_bauer I cannot even count them. I need a maintenance mode for me.
I think the tool side has matured and is leaving room for more focus on making actual connections. I want to listen more than I want to be heard and that aligns with so much I’ve been reading, discussing and hearing about lately.
August Focus
So what am I focusing on this semester?
More love.
More love for and in teaching and learning. Amy Collier spoke so well about this in our Virtually Connecting hallway conversation (joined that day by Stephen Downes). Just last week I had a (in-the-flesh) lunch conversation with my colleague Pille here on campus and we found a connection there that institutions (through fear) want to remove so much personal communication between students and teachers when we know that students (and teachers) need personal connections that allow us to feel the confidence and have the strength to struggle at this thing we call learning which can be so messy.
More Listening.
I’m known locally and in my network as the “flipping guy”. That label is descriptive in some ways but limiting in others (like most labels). For me the key to my flipped classroom is the flipping of responsibility for the learning. I talk less and listen more while guiding my students. I think I’ve done a good job so far but need to push myself to be sure I am listening to the students that don’t have such a strong voice. This came up in another Virtual Connecting (see a pattern?) hangout which involved our first student participant: Andrew Rikard.
More Openness
I recently discovered the HybridPod podcast and gave all eleven episodes a listen while leaving the feed on my phone for further updates. The latest episode was about the concept of Openness in the context of sexual orientation and I applaud Chris Friend and his guests for being open about how important (and scary) that can be in a classroom environment.
Their discussion led me to consider how my sharing and interaction with my students online and in person needs to come from a context of me showing my own vulnerabilities when confronted with something new, uncomfortable or scary.
Lately I have found myself hanging out online with a group of educators that frankly intimidates me (see Bonnie‘s reply below). This is a new group and I’m the new kid on the block. I don’t know the language (all of my education is in computing science, not education) but I can be aware of my own deficiencies while also being aware of my strengths.
@ken_bauer lol. if you mean us, see previous tweet re imposter syndrome. we's all got it. ;)
When the pendulum swings from teacher focus to student focus I wonder if my diving to deep into active participation will lead to a danger of going native? We’ll find out as I try to spend more time in the habitats of the Tec student.
flickr photo by kenbauer https://flickr.com/photos/ken_bauer/29001239105 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
Thanks for People
Thanks Laura for pushing me to get a post out. You do amazing work (and intimidate the heck out of me) and I appreciate that. I love all the people that go out of their way to spend little moments of their day to help others.
@ken_bauer cooommmeee onnnn. My family partied til 5A this AM. I stopped at 9P last night so I get up & blog. You can get ONE out the door.
Nota: voy a tomar tiempo hoy/mañana durante el evento a poner otras ligas y detalles, si hay preguntas o peticiones, adelante en los comentarios.
Hace un par de meses me invitaron a presentar sobre aula invertida con maestras y maestros de escuelas públicas en la Ciudad de México. Responder con un si fue muy fácil.
DM con Diego Sánchez
La Presentación
Ha dado varios talleres y pláticas sobre aula invertida en los últimos cuatro años pero normalmente en ingles. No es fácil para mi expresar mi pasión por aprendizaje en español pero me da un oportunidad de repensar como llevo las ideas a mis clases.
Cada presentación es dinámica. Prefiero conversar con los participantes y ajustar el ritmo a ellos. Por eso es posible que usamos uno o más de los siguientes videos.
OpenFlip
Desde hace dos años doy un curso (grátis y abierto) en linea estilo cMOOC (la ‘c’ es para conectivismo) y les invito acercar. El curso tiene mucho contenido en inglés pero estamos haciendo más esfuerza para mezclarlo con contenido en español. Más información conmigo directamente o en la página de proyecto.
No puedo enseñarlos #flipclass pero darles una vista mía y esperar que van a explorar y compartir la experiencia con otros. Les invito a acercar con otros maestras y maestros aplicando aula invertida en sus salones, es una comunidad grande.
flickr photo by enriquejimenezrojas https://flickr.com/photos/111191007@N03/16050603276 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
flickr photo by kenbauer https://flickr.com/photos/ken_bauer/27230451816 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
Alternating paragraphs of English/Spanish here since we have a mixed audience. I invite corrections to my Spanish (or English). We plan (and always have with OpenFlip) to support work in both English and Spanish since Ken and April are native speakers of English with enough Spanish to work with teachers in both languages. Feel free to pursue this course in your language of choice or even try interacting with participants in both languages.
Párrafaros alternando aquí de inglés y español. Invito corregir mi español (o inglés). Tenemos planeado (y siempre ha sido así con OpenFlip) dar soporte en inglés y español dado que Ken y April tienen inglés como su lengua nativo con suficiente nivel en español para trabajar con maestros en los dos idiomas. Están bienvenidos en participar en el curso en cualquier de los dos idiomas o incluso dar el reto de interactuar con participantes con los dos.
One aspect that I particularly love about my institution where I work is our ability to move quickly and make changes. We had been using the same online system for teaching evaluations for quite a long time (perhaps a decade?) and made a change in format, questions, scale and focus this past year. The instrument actually changed again in January in reaction to the previous semester I assume. I did not play a role in the design of the instrument but did give my feedback on early versions before it was released. As always, the comments are the most important section of teaching evaluations.
