I attended the UMN Active Learning Spaces Conference, which was a fantastic gathering of learning spaces designers, faculty, learning technologists and support staff. You can find the resources on the conference website, at: z.umn.edu/alcforum
Here are some take-aways/examples from the sessions:
- Clickrs are best for large lectures or questions that might reveal personal information/ controversial
- Consider assigning roles for small group discussions: proponent, recorder, skeptic discuss the concept; faculty then rolls dice and the two numbers represent the tables and the proponent from one and the skeptic have to discuss to the whole class
- envelope with 13 photos, organize into different groups based on your own choosing, name each group; this leads into a discussion on taxonomy
- Whiteboards: discuss expectations about the course, discuss pro/con iissues with working in groups and create contracts
- have students use backchn.nl for discussions
- try real time writing as a group online with google docs and other writing websites
- Internet is a forum of external memory
- Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning Pogil http://pogil.org/
- Move to stripped down textbooks, Univ. of Illinois, students don't read, they google concepts
- Teaching is the art of changing the brain
- Prior knowledge- only way you can learn something new is to activate neurocircuts already have
Backward design was a big portion of the conference as well. Don't organize a session based on what you want the students to know, but instead on what you want them to do.
4 S's- assignments sat each stage should be:
- Significant problem- students view problem as authentic/real life
- Same problem- individuals work on same problem, case, ?
- Specific choice - individuals should be required to use concepts to make a specific choice
- Simultaneously report- groups should report their choices simultaneously