2012-2013

Pictured Left to Right:  Renee Carney, 2013 eLearning Council Chair, with 2013 Leadership and Innovation in eLearning award winner Rhonda Meyers at the Assessment Teaching and Learning Conference in Spokane Washington

eLearning Award Nomination:

Rhonda heard the doubts that a flipped model could be implemented in a hybrid lab course and accepted those doubts as a challenge.  She now has the statistics and the student success to prove that the flipped model works in a STEM lab course. 

Rhonda started the process by placing her existing PowerPoints in Canvas, but quickly discovered her students needed more.  To add presence and context to the PowerPoints she began recording her lectures and then evolved into demonstrative lectures using Camtasia and other lecture capture tools.  Students own the responsibility of watching and listening to these lectures before class and completing an anonymous survey that informs Rhonda of their questions and struggles.  The first half hour of class is dedicated to answering and clarifying their anonymous questions and struggles - eliminating the fear of 'feeling dumb' in class.  When reviewing the concepts in class Rhonda uses her iPad to draw, annotate, and capture the explanation, which she then uploads to Canvas for future review.  She then plans in class constructivist group activities and utilizes student response technology.  Rhonda has provided a few examples of those activities below:

1. Group work on portable whiteboards where they are to draw something out; perhaps a concept map or parts of a membrane.   Rhonda will go around the classroom while they do these and guide each group if needed. She then takes a picture with her iPAD of the best whiteboard depictions. Then she will project this on the big screen for the class to review.

2. Case studies are sometimes used.   For example, when the class was discussing respiration Rhonda utilized a high altitude case study that required her students to apply the knowledge they were learning.

3. An online clicker program called Socrative is also used to review questions and anonymously identify what areas the students need more explanation in.  A student just needs a smart phone, iOS, android, laptop, iPAD.  Rhonda has now switched from Socrative to InfuseLearning

Rhonda noticed results right away, but she needed data to share.  To assess her own efforts, Rhonda pulled her student achievement levels for the previous four years.  The average exam range was 72-73%.  Since Rhonda has implemented the flipped model in her A&P course the average exam range has jumped to 80-82%; an increase of almost 10%; a full letter grade.  In comparing Winter 2012, which was an average quarter, to Winter 2013, which is her second quarter using the flipped model, Rhonda has seen an upward swing in overall final grades.  Course A’s increased by 8%, B’s by 6% and overall course success increased by 9%.  Rhonda has shifted the needle from an 82% pass rate in her A&P course to a 91% pass rate!  This is what I call innovation for student success!

Don’t just take my word for it; here is what one of her students had to say! 

“I really love it when Rhonda Meyers uses her iPad to show us something to help us better understand concepts.  Rhonda uses her iPad to draw out complicated concepts for us and she can upload them to Canvas so if we end up having to miss class we can see and hear her go over it with the class. She also has used it to display an app that demonstrated how the electrical system of the heart and blood flow through the heart. Through Rhonda's drawings we have a different way to understand a concept that was discussed in class and allows us to go back and study it again to understand it better. Through the use of viewing the virtual heart on the screens in the lecture room we have been able to visualize a complex concept without having a real functioning heart to watch.”

Award