David Clausen, Department of Mathematics When teaching introductory college math courses, one finds a wide variety of students. In a calculus class, you might have people majoring in mathematics who need a conceptual understanding of “why” as well as facility with...
The Flip’d Blog
Two Misconceptions about Group Work/Collaborative Learning
Matthew Cheung, Department of Mathematics There are two misconceptions about group work and collaborative learning that need to be addressed. Group Work and Collaborative Learning May Not Always be Ideal As a teaching assistant at UC Irvine, I question other teaching...
The Case for Meta-Integration Collaborative Activities (MICAs)
Mayan K. Castro, M.A., Department of Psychological Science What is a MICA? This is a call for a new type of assignment: a Meta-Integration Collaborative Activity (MICA). The goal of a MICA is to present an explicit opportunity for students to connect the dots among...
An Assignment to Promote the Achievements of Diverse Scholars
Amanda R. Brown Tortorici, MS, RD, CSCS, PhD Candidate in Public Health Diversity in the 1980’s I remember being in elementary school in the late 80’s in suburban Pennsylvania, and I had a project to create a poster of female leaders of my choice. We were in the month...
Why Group Work and Active Learning Help to Complement Professions in the “Real World”
Ian Baran, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy Whether the reality of all classes or not, we have our image of the prototypical classroom. Large or small, we visualize it similarly: students sitting, some visually engaged, others taking notes,...
Food for Thought: Food and Community Building in the Classroom
Clare Gordon Bettencourt (@dearclare), Department of History “I didn’t realize how much I missed this food line!” Charlette Gregorian, Pedagogical Fellow 2019 Following two days of facilitating the Teaching Assistant Professional Development Program (TAPDP), a...
How to Increase Student Reading in the English Classroom
Nathan Dean Allison, Department of English In one of her numerous Faculty Focus articles, Maryellen Weimer notes, “On any given day only 20 to 30 percent of the students arrive at class having done the reading.” This data would be somewhat unsettling in classrooms...
Flipped Classrooms and Second Language Acquisition
Alejandra Castellanos, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Tell me and I will forget; teach me and I will remember; involve me and I will learn Chinese proverb At the end of a first week in intermediate Spanish, a student emailed me complaining that she wasn’t...
Redefining the Purpose of Education in the Information Age
Prince Paa-Kwesi Heto, Department of Political Science How is the technological revolution changing the world of education and the art of teaching? The easy access to information due to the Internet and changing hiring practices are transforming education in...
Learning Outside the Classroom Adds Value to College Courses
Hew Yeng (Betty) Lai, Department of Biological Chemistry Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) is fairly common in elementary and secondary education. For example, most of us can remember going on a field trip or to a museum and say, "That was fun" and learned a lot...