Lately, maybe you’ve heard of “flipping” the classroom – or maybe you’ve already flipped yours! Basically it’s a “reversal” of the standard use of class time to “deliver” course content, with students doing independent and, perhaps, group work outside of class sessions.

So in a flipped class, students are learning the material independently outside of class and class time is used for activities like q & a, small groups comparing their interpretations of material, problem-solving, games, etc.There’s no a cookie- cutter; there are many models for using class time this way, and as Andrew Martin points out in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, it’s not new. The comments also bring in some interesting points about context and learning styles on both sides:  http://chronicle.com/article/How-Flipping-the-Classroom/130857/

And here’s a YouTube video from Penn State that walks through the basic logistics of Flipping the Classroom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26pxh_qMppE&context=C4ea3421ADvjVQa1PpcFNGoyORoBG1wYMoVa2PVKUB5cmNm3i_uAI= .

In leading seminars such as Community 2.0, we try to use a model like this as much as possible, so that the time we have together face to face utilizes the fact that we are a diverse, multi-disciplinary group of educators who have the ability to help and maybe even push each other to think about developing effective and innovative learning activities. Phew, that was quite a sentence!

Academic Exchange Quarterly–a respected, peer-reviewed, print journal–invites original, unpublished manuscripts of 2000 to 3000 words for its Winter 2011 issue. Learning technologies–technologies used to enhance learning, teaching, and assessment–are rapidly gaining popularity in higher education. However, the debate concerning the effectiveness of these technologies over more conventional means of teaching remains ongoing. The focus of this topic is to explore evidence-based research on any area relating to learning technologies, but we are especially interested in the following: pedagogical techniques that rely on learning technologies; the use of learning technologies in assessment of outcomes at any level (individual student to entire campuses); and comparisons of technologically-enhanced learning outcomes and conventional outcomes. In any case, we are seeking empirical, evidence-based research studies more than theoretical pieces.

Submissions are welcome from researchers, teaching and learning scholars, learning technology users, as well as others who are actively involved in higher education learning, including graduate students, faculty members, academic staff members, administrators, and researchers in non-academic settings.

Submission instructions are available at http://www.tinyurl.com/AEQ-Tech. Identify your submission with the keyword: TECHNOLOGY-1. Please format your paper carefully according to the online instructions. Submission deadline is August 13, 2010.

Posted by David S. Goldstein. “Call for Papers on Learning Technologies.”  on Academic Commons: http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/announcement/cfp-learning-technologies

Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 3 pm EST

Join Steven Bell and John Shank, and their guests, Joshua Kim and Laura Braunstein, in this open forum in which instructional technologists and academic librarians ask each other questions about helping faculty and students with technology, handling and management of digital collections, achieving better collaboration, and working in the same space.