– by Susan White –
| Featured Faculty | Featured Faculty |
| Thomas Mennella, Massachusetts, USA | Jenny Leung, Hong Kong, China |
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| International Faculty founding member, Thomas Mennella, is an Associate Professor of Biology at Bay Path University, where he’s been a faculty member for the last six of his 11 years as a college instructor. Thomas brings to us five years of experience successfully flipping his university level courses. In April, Tom was named one of the top 50 Flipped Learning leaders in higher education worldwide. He currently serves as the higher education contributor/columnist for the Flipped Learning Review 3.0 monthly eMagazine. | International Faculty founding member, Jenny Leung, is the Assistant English Panel Head and Head of e-Learning at Hong Kong Baptist University Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School. Jenny is the English Subject Coordinator of FlippEducators@HK, a registered body in Hong Kong promoting Flipped Learning to educators. In addition to being named to the International Faculty, Jenny serves as one of several International Faculty members on the Presentations Leadership Team, leading the global development of world-class Flipped Learning keynote speakers, workshop facilitators, and presenters. In April, Jenny was named one of the top 100 Flipped Learning leaders in K-12 education worldwide. |
| What does the Global Standards Project mean to you? | What does the Global Standards Project mean to you? |
| Flipped Learning 2.0 is largely characterized by individual Flipped Learning educators working in isolation and doing the best they can do alone, but with varied results. For the potential of Flipped Learning to be fully realized, we need all flipped educators using best practices and implementing Flipped Learning in its most effective form. The question then becomes: what are the best practices of Flipped Learning (FL)? That's where the Global Standards Project (GSP) comes in. Ideally, the GSP will provide us with a checklist of things that all FL educators need to be doing. It's the 'standards' aspect of the the GSP that is most critical. We need to standardize FL so that every student receives the best education possible. I also see a double meaning in the word "global". First, of course, is international. We need a set of standards that is flexible enough, and relevant enough, that they can be embraced by all instructors and experienced by all students across the Earth. But, 'global' can also mean exclusive or far-reaching. In my work in the sciences, a protein that is 'global' is not found internationally. It is a protein that affects many different processes in a cell and exerts effects in many different ways. Through that lens, the GSP also should affect many different things: instructor preparation, the student experience, physical classroom space, etc. I expect the Global Standards Project to impact FL for the better. While we're currently in Flipped Learning 3.0 as a pedagogy or approach, many FL educators are still practicing FL 1.0 or 2.0. So, having a consensus on what good Flipped Learning looks like, and how it's accomplished, should help lift some of those educators up to FL 3.0. The global standards will also provide new instructors with a template or road map for excellent FL implementation. That will be a huge help for those that are new to Flipped Learning and want to do it right. Finally, as more institutions adopt FL at the institutional level, having global standards will give them measures to assess against. They can hold their faculty to those standards, which will be to the benefit of all stakeholders. | “It is very important because in Hong Kong, many teachers are still not familiar with Flipped Learning. When it is mentioned, they will only regard it as video-based instructions replacing traditional teaching. There’s no mention of Flipped Learning 3.0 or other evolving features. So with global standards, there will be clearer guidelines and updates for practitioners to promote Flipped Learning to those who have never heard of it. Unfortunately in Hong Kong, there is a minority of university professors trying their best to prove that Flipped Learning doesn’t work. Setting standards can put an end to misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what Flipped Learning means and and what it can do.” |
| How do you feel your role as a faculty member has impacted Flipped Learning? | How do you feel your role as a faculty member has impacted Flipped Learning? |
| I'm not sure I've impacted FL much at all..... So, for the sake of modesty and comfort, I'll 'flip' the question (see what I did there?) and speak to how FL has impacted me as a teacher. Before Flipped Learning, I desperately wanted to use active learning in my classes and teach in a more individualized and differentiated way. But, I was always stymied by my content. For example, one of the courses that I teach is genetics, which is a standard course for any biology major. I need to ensure that my students learn the same genetics as other students at any other institution, period. I knew that if I adopted active learning and in-class projects, I'd fall behind in my courses and not get through all of the necessary material. FL solved that problem. By moving all of the passive instruction to the home, I freed up hours and hours of class time to do all of the things I'd wanted to do for years; to do all of the things I knew would teach my students the content more effectively. So, in a nutshell, Flipped Learning made me a better teacher by getting me out of the driver's seat and giving my students the opportunity to steer. And, it's been an amazing ride ever since. | “I think a faculty member is the one who delivers very clear messages that there are Global Standards that we should achieve when we adopt Flipped Learning. We are the one who should clarify and clear all misunderstanding. With Global Standards, we can make sure Flipped Learning can be conducted with quality and it’s not a misinterpreted version in classrooms.” |
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