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We have a concept we want the class to understand, so we stand and explain it to them. We give them background. Offer details. Anticipate and pre-empt common misconceptions. Illuminate the more entertaining bits. Emphasize the nuance.

Allowing for greater flexibility, a HyFlex teaching model enables higher student engagement and options as opposed to completely hybrid or in-person learning.

With the disastrous conditions of 2020’s pandemic, we as a society have had to adapt to accomplish still what we need to. This meant we had to move to virtual offices to work from home and adopt social distancing strategies in public. Part of these strategies for many schools was in moving to online virtual classrooms to teach remotely.

While these emerging technologies may offer many benefits for students and professors, institutions will need to address ethical and safety concerns.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging time for educators. For many of the teachers who responded to a nationally-representative survey we conducted last spring, the 2020-2021 school year was the most difficult time of their careers. But in the midst of these challenges, some teachers found ways to use blended learning to build relationships with their students, identify their students’ needs, and empower their students to take ownership of their learning.

"Flipping the classroom is a tried-and-true approach that, when effectively incorporated, greatly enhances students’ learning experience and ability to apply their newfound knowledge. Here are some important steps to consider when implementing this practice into your virtual or in-person instruction."

Making learning accessible through an inclusive learning community is crucial for all students to feel seen, valued, and to maximize their potential by implementing a safe space (CAST, 2018). Ensuring that all students feel included is especially vital in remote learning, where they are likely to feel less connected to others to begin with. Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which maximizes student performance and success, argues that inclusion is a prerequisite for academic success (CAST, 2018). This manuscript offers recommendations to combat prejudice and implement an inclusive learning environment by bringing equity to the forefront to better support minority students and improve their academic experiences and outcomes. Though this paper mainly focuses on supporting students of color, many of these teaching strategies can also benefit students of different marginalized identities, such as LGBTQA+ students or international students navigating North American culture.

If there ever was a time to create a flexible structure for student learning and success, the time is now. One of the most empowering and compassionate practices that we can integrate into our classrooms is scaffolding, an instructional strategy that provides students with a framework to guide and support their learning (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). Scaffolding can offer a weekly structure that supports student growth, creates autonomous learners who are responsible for their own learning, and gives learners more confidence in acquiring new skills.

"When we look at all the assumptions that have been overturned in higher education because of the pandemic and all the needs that have only grown during this time, what becomes clear is that frameworks that previously worked for higher education are no longer guaranteed to function. Something new is needed, and flipped learning may be exactly the right model for where higher education is headed once the pandemic is over."

"Here are a number of ways that scaffolding learning experience can help support all students and provide equity"

Visible thinking routines that encourage students to document and share their ideas can have a profound effect on their learning.

The Internet and the immense connectivity it provides is a powerful tool that many educators have yet to take advantage of. Computer technology allows teachers to easily organize their work and provides plenty of functionality available for use in even the most mundane tasks. Sorting, categorizing, and cataloging your work has never been easier, and it is high time more educators make use of the technology at their disposal.

Josh Davis spent 14 years teaching high school special education and middle school history, so he’s well aware of a few classroom constants. He understands how students with learning difficulties can feel separated from the rest of their classmates, how issues at home sometimes manifest as classroom misbehavior, and that being singled out—for both positive and negative reasons—is panic-inducing for just about all students.

However, Davis discovered new constants when he moved out of the classroom and into his current role as instructional technology coach at Downey Unified School District in California. Over and over, he saw teachers resisting technology adoption because they didn’t want to look foolish trying something new in front of students.

If we are to bring about lasting changes around the use of technology in teaching and learning in colleges and universities, we need to understand the practices that staff undertake and the challenges they face. Effective and sustained change comes from a place of working in service to pedagogies, and practices that support and surround learning and teaching. In order to better understand these issues Jisc commissioned research to gain more understanding about practice around learning and teaching and gaining insights beyond the technology-led. 

What does it mean to infuse equity, inclusion, and diversity into your classroom? Most importantly, what does it mean to your students to provide them with a sense of belonging? These questions aren’t easy, but they are necessary to foster an inclusive classroom and to diversify your content. From culturally responsive teaching, inclusive classroom strategies, teaching diverse learners, gender diversity, and more, we’ll cover an array of topics and strategies you can learn about and start implementing in your own courses to help students feel seen and heard. From articles, free reports, programs, seminars, and courses, this resource guide will present ideas, tools, and techniques that you can start using right away.

Each semester, I receive student evaluations from the courses I have taught the previous semester. Similar to most professors, I’m sure, I open the document with excitement and a bit of nervousness. I want to see what resonated and what I need to improve upon for the semester. This year, instead of teaching in-person, I taught all of my courses from home. Now don’t get me wrong, I love technology and teaching from home had some benefits, mainly avoiding an hour commute each way to school; however, it was also a disorienting experience. I had to reimagine all of my lessons for the online environment and find a way to engage students in the content for 2.5 hours. As I waited for my evaluations to load, I wondered if I had done enough to forge connections with and among my students. The depth of those connections through the organic, in-person experience, along with informal meetings around campus, seemed difficult to imagine in this screen-to-screen world. 

The rapid changes to the ways in which most are teaching at the moment have led to some recurring debates that are surprisingly persistent despite what I would argue is strong contrary evidence. Fortunately, colleagues are rarely rude, deliberately divisive, dismissive and provocative like the Times Educational Supplement piece that appeared during the autumn term of 2020 (Anon, 2020). In this article an anonymous academic berated educational ‘evangelists’ for trying to force new teaching ‘fads’ on resentful academics, who apparently burn with resentment at being constantly torn from their research and burdened by inanities like teaching. The colleagues I have in mind, by contrast, are almost universally rational and reasonable and do take teaching seriously.

Educational technology, or edtech, has revolutionized the classroom by improving learning efficiency and efficacy. Used wisely, edtech strategies help students develop vital critical thinking skills, and can change the paradigms of education. Here are eight specific ways classroom tech can help students develop their critical thinking.

Shifting to “Learn by Doing”

Becker of NMC says just as the role of the teacher is switching from “sage on the stage” to one of a coach or guide, there is a shift from rote to active learning. To foster skills of teamwork and collaboration, online education is incorporating group projects and hands-on labs to help students think more critically and retain the content.

Building on the concept of “learn by doing,” online education is expanding to connect students from around the world to learn together and meet professionals. Morris is also executive director of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, which partners with more than 200 cultural organizations, such as art museums, to offer real-time interaction with experts in various fields.

This exposure can help answer student questions about the relevance of a geometry class, for instance. “To answer the questions of why you are doing it is key,” says Morris. “[Students] are motivated when they understand and have a reason to understand the material.”

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching