Harvard’s Eric Mazur Honored at UNC Conference

Events / The Community April / June 17, 2018

-by Staff Writer-

On Friday, the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences (AALAS) presented the first International Flipped Learning Award at the University of Northern Colorado’s Higher Ed Flipped Learning Conference banquet, just outside Denver in Greely Colorado. The first individual award was presented to Harvard University’s Professor Eric Mazur, widely considered the father of Flipped Learning in higher education. Banquet attendees came from around the United States and from as far away as Finland to UNC’s third annual event. The award was presented by Errol St.Clair Smith, one of the Academy board members.

The International Flipped Learning Awards recognize the contributions of Flipped Learning and active learning practitioners, researchers, and administrators, as well as model schools and universities around the world. FLGI has partnered with the creators of the BAM Education Awards to launch the International Flipped Learning Awards program. AALAS will be to serve as an independent body to nominate candidates and vote on who will receive the international honors. The academy also manages the Flipped Learning Global Standards Project and is the new home of the FLGI Flipped Learning Fellows.

Award Presentation and Acceptance

Professor Mazur accepted the award via video as he was unable to attend the UNC banquet. The awards presentation was followed by a keynote presentation by Dr. Thomas Mennella who discussed the new era of Flipped Learning 3.0.

The UNC Higher Education Flipped Learning Conference.

The Flipped Learning Academy and the MAST Institute hosted the Higher Education Flipped Learning Conference and banquet dinner. The conference enables higher education flipped classroom practitioners to exchange information, highlight faculty engaged in the assessment of flipped classrooms, and discuss the future of flipped learning in higher education.

This year’s annual conference ended on a high note with a banquet, award presentation, and a keynote presentation.
“Keynote speaker Dr. Tom Mennella contributed to many talks over the course of the conference with his acumen of flipped learning and his insightful questions and responses. Many attendees mentioned they enjoyed their hallway chats with him. In his keynote on Flipped Learning 3.0, he stressed the importance of reflection, reflecting on where one has been, where one is going, and the moments that change us. He connected the evolution of each of our individual teaching journeys to the evolution of flipped learning as a movement in an engaging way with examples and audience participation, ” said Dr. Nissa Rae Yestness Conference Chair.

Previous keynotes have included Jon Bergman and FLGI Research Fellows Dr. Caroline Fell Kurban and Dr. Karen Hessler. “Here at UNC, we could not be more excited about future collaborations with FLGI and the Academy of Active Learning Arts and Sciences,” said Yestness.

Some of the other sessions were live-streamed and/or recorded and available on the conference Facebook page.

About the BAM Education Awards

It began with a simple question: If we really valued educators like we value entertainers and celebrities, what would the quintessential, cross-discipline symbol, honoring all educators, look like?

With this goal in mind, the Bammy Award statuette was designed to be rich in symbolism and meaning, visually arresting and a world-class honor for educators across every domain.

Its base is comprised of 14 concentric circles representing while also signifying the various disciplines and support groups that make up the education village — all of which are essential to successfully educating our children.

Integrated into the center of the Bammy statuette is a classic symbol of the earliest schools. People of a certain age will immediately recognize the hand-held school bell that was traditionally used to call students throughout the village. The Bammy bell is a call to everyone interested in education to remember that it takes a village to educate a child.

Crowning the Bammy statuette is a creatively sculpted and highly polished monolith signifying the effect of a good education in the life of a young person.

Intended from the outset to be an iconic symbol, the Bammy Award statuette places the recognition we give to educators on par with what we give to the actors, singers, and entertainers whom our culture so highly values. Each Bammy Award makes two quiet but powerful statements: that the recipient has made a difference and that it takes a village to educate a child.

Designed to precise specifications and handcrafted by sculptor Michael De Medina, the Bammy Award statuette is made of the same material as an Oscar, is two pounds heavier than an Emmy, and at 12 inches tall strikes a presence as impressive as both the coveted Oscar and Emmy Awards. Each Bammy statuette is hand-finished and individually numbered.

In combination with the distinction of the Academy members selecting the honorees, the elegant, iconic beauty of the Bammy statuette lends a distinction to the recipients of the Bammy Award that will grow in meaning and value over time.