Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is facing away from you? From a body language standpoint, it certainly doesn’t facilitate much discussion. Unfortunately, in traditional classrooms with heavy/bolted desks and chairs, this is the typical view of anyone sitting behind the first row. Luckily, at Chapman University, we’re adding improved flexibility into several
Last year I attended my first BbWorld conference. It was my first time attending any conference and I had just started my role here at Chapman as the Blackboard Support Specialist. Blackboard Learn LMS was new to me, and I was still learning the basics. I wanted to get the most out of the conference, so
This YouTube video created by EDUCAUSE has me thinking that after hundreds and even thousands of years, we still don’t have a grasp on our assessments. Even some of our education thought leaders have a hard time defining what learning is. This video acknowledges the struggle of trying to assess learning and it suggests that
This semester has been a tough one for my students. We had illness, car accidents, senior capstone stress, and the typical spring fever–all of which brought a great deal of anxiety into my already-difficult class. As their teacher, I know I’m supposed to maintain a certain amount of rigor in the content and assessment of
As I referenced in a recent blog post, self-determined learners with the motivation, drive, and resources can teach themselves amazing things online. (See the blog here about two boys who taught themselves skills such as driving a car and speaking English.) What does this mean for the future of learning and the future of the
This blog was inspired by two young boys. The first, an 8 year old, really wanted a cheeseburger, so he went to YouTube and taught himself to drive. He drove past four intersections and some train tracks with complete control of the vehicle–perhaps even more rule-abiding than the average driver. He was caught at the
Prior to the Information Age, teachers were expected to stand at a podium and expound upon topics that were otherwise out of reach to the students. Since the last part of the 20th century, instructors have felt a shift from being the information hub to being the architects who must gather the various informational materials
TPACK, meaning Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge, is an acronym brought to us by Mishra and Koehler’s (2006; 2009) studies on instructors’ abilities to combine their content knowledge with adequate knowledge of best pedagogies for teaching and best technologies to support learning. Most instructors in higher education have not had the benefit of formal pedagogy and technology