New School Year = New Ideas = New Blog

With the first post in this blog, I want you to know that my plan is to post about my teaching experience.  Last school year I tackled the idea of "Flipping" my classroom.  Basically, I stopped lecturing during class time and put all my lectures online.

I turned all of my lectures into Prezi presentations that included pictures and videos for my stats classes.  You can find my Prezi page here.

I loved the "flip".  It allowed me to have more 1-on-1 interaction with my students and I saw more peer tutoring than ever before.  But most importantly, I discovered that I had more class time for discovery learning and hands-on applications.  About half way through last school year I started implement the "Explore-Flip-Apply" learning cycle described by Ramsay Mussalam.  Ramsay's cycles of learning allow students to explore topics and discover ideas on their own first.  Then they get more formal instruction at home in the form of "flipped lectures" or videos.  And then they come back the next day to apply what they have learned.

These Cycles of Learning have taken my teaching in a new, exciting direction.  I plan to share my cycles in this blog as the year goes on.

Another big change to my teaching this year is a switch to Standards Based Grading.  I've done a lot of research on this and hope that it will help to monitor my students' mastery in a better way.

So for those that stumble upon this blog, I hope that it can help you as a teacher and I would love to get feedback from you.