One of the main benefits, in my mind, of rethinking delivery of a course is the all too rare chance to really evaluate what concepts, outcomes, and learning strategies you are trying to achieve with a course, and then working through the creative process of realizing those achievements. \u00a0In my own case, I have a course I have been teaching for years, with the requisite annual tweaks that improved the course, but I had rarely had the chance (or need) to do a complete rethink of the course. \u00a0As a result, I have fallen into pitfall #4 – putting plenty of “knowledge” in front of the students, but too rarely really engaging students in the development of that knowledge in their own selves. \u00a0Moving to a flipped approach provides an opportunity to really consider what types of learning materials and strategies deeply engage students in knowledge generation, while taking advantage of the expanding capabilities of electronic media. \u00a0My course focuses on modeling a range of biological and ecological phenomena, with goals that are both skills-based and concept-based; how to represent systems mathematically, how to understand and represent linkages between system components, \u00a0how to discover and anticipate general patterns of behaviors based on underlying systems structures. \u00a0This a rich domain for interactive learning, and software tools are perhaps getting close to useful for supporting interactive learning and engagement. \u00a0I’m just now started to delve in to some of these tools, and am looking forward to seeing where this goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the main benefits, in my mind, of rethinking delivery of a course is the all too rare chance to really evaluate what concepts, outcomes, and learning strategies you are trying to achieve with a course, and then working … Continue reading