We invite you to register now (FREE) and share your expertise with other faculty and staff members at our Annual Academic Technology Learning Conference. Discover new ways to use technology in your classes and engage students. (http://tlcconference2014.sched.org/ )
Prize Drawings:Dr. John R. Kelly, Assistant Professor in the Urban Education Department at the University of Houston Downtown, will introduce his version of a flipped classroom and describe how to combined universal design/differentiated instructional concepts with the technology within Blackboard Learn to build 21st century classrooms for online, hybrid, and F2F courses. Dr. Kelly will provide conference participants ideas on ‘how to’ transition the traditional professor directed survey course (lectures and slides) and flip-it into a high-impact technology driven, student-centered/directed, interactive, and collaborative course that digital natives (students) are demanding. Course content is featured in modules and presented by means of Blackboard tools such as blogs, web quests, wikis, games, surveys, discussions, journals, twitter, mashups, online quizzes, and webinars throughout the semester. Having students work independently using content within Blackboard to initiate instruction on new topics prior to class allows for opportunities to offer students meaningful real world experiences using evidenced based instructional methods that engage students’ critical thinking – service learning, project based learning, and team-based learning. The models structured approach makes it easy for students to navigate the course and frees up time to provide immediate individual feedback that is responsive to each student’s needs, which Dr. Kelly believe has had a major impact on students’ interest, scholarship, and course evaluation. The benefits of this model of instruction for students and the professor will be discussed.