Flipping the Humanities Seminar

Kathi Inman BerensCET Distinguished Fellow

Fellow, Annenberg Innovation Research CouncilIBM Faculty Award Winner

University of Southern California

OPTIMIZING FACE-TO-FACE

The Flipped Humanities Classroom

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Mobile Learning

I shoot video lectures for my OL students. Example: http://bit.ly/1mHCwuM

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STEM Flip <> HUM Flip

In STEM disciplines, “Flipping” means doing “homework” in the classroom & watching vid lectures at home. STEM lectures are fast-paced content delivery & edification of textbook.

In HUM & related disciplines, classroom experience is already “Flipped”: learners actively interpret, debate and make meaning both individually and collaboratively. Lecture is dynamic & responsive. Vid flattens a hum lecture from 3D to 2D.

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HUM: “Flip” Graded Work The Classroom is already “Flipped”

Hum & other interpretive disciplines assess performance individually.

BUT… post-univ work environments are collaborative & virtual.

Broaden assessed work to include collaborative authorship.

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Cathy Davidson:

c20 edu = “Industrial” model

KEYWORDS: Fordism, “Efficiency,” Assembly Line.

Students stand up & move when the bell rings .

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There are 2 pieces to the Flipped Classroom equation. The problem solving during classroom time works

beautifully. But for humanists, the live piece, the lecture piece, is not worked out…. A good lecture meanders.

Jack HalberstamProf. Comp Lit, AMST, Gender

Studies, Queer Theory

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F2F’s Value Prop

“LIVENESS”

Databases can’t reproduce serendipty akin to the canniness of embodied learning environments.

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Myths about “Digital Natives”

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Use mobile to optimize hybrid learning.

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The New Learning Is Ancient

http://kathiiberens.com/teaching/philosophy/

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How To? Start w/ 1 assigment. I created these:

• Design Thinking Lab

• Mobile Role Playing Game via Twitter

• Collaboratively authored G-Doc

• QR-code powered Scavenger Hunt on campus

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Why MOOCs entice/ scare univs

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In the era of MOOCs

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How important is intimacy?

“The professor is in most [MOOCs] out of students’ reach, only slightly more accessible than the pope or Thomas Pynchon. “

--A.J. Jacobs on MOOCS NYT, 20 Apr. 13 Img: Ana Albero, NYT

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SCALE

• Raw materials of digital pedagogy can be shared at massive scale;

• But their application cannot.

• Even in Al Filreis’ Modern Poetry MOOC “there are abundant office hours, discussion leaders, and even a phone number you can call to discuss your interpretations of the week’s poem”

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Some F2F “procedures” are now optional

• Meeting physically in a campus room• Talking using voices• Taking turns• Synchronicity

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F2F, optimize for what a database can’t do

Computation can build working relationships from intimacy sparked F2F.

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is software’s procedural goal.

F2F classrooms should optimize

for …

Permanence

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EPHEMERALITY