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During our first meeting of the school year, we jotted down on sticky notes what each of us wanted to accomplish in our weekly meetings. Three main ideas rose to the top and have driven our work together ever since: support for each other, help with pacing an overwhelming curriculum, and detailed plans to implement with our students. Everything we do as a group addresses one or more of these three objectives.

Talking about the issues and pressures of teaching—always in a solutions-focused way, of course—is cathartic itself.

PLCs must find ways to share the workload, not increase it.

Granted, there are no papers to grade, and assignments aren’t free-form, but how does one professor handle so many students? We had four teaching assistants, and my initial plan was that they would spend a lot of time on the discussion forum, answering questions. One night in the early days, I was on the forum at 2 a.m. when I saw a student ask a question, and I was typing my answer when I discovered that another student had typed an answer before I could. It was in the right direction, but not quite there, so I thought I could modify it, but then some other student jumped in with the right answer. It was fascinating to see how quickly students were helping each other. All we had to do was go in and say that it was a good answer. I actually instructed the T.A.’s not to answer so quickly, to let students work for an hour or two, and by and large they find the answers.

Most students who register for MOOCs don’t complete the course. Of the 154,763 who registered for “Circuits and Electronics,” fewer than half even got as far as looking at the first problem set, and only 7,157 passed the course. What do you make of that?

EdX operates under an honor code, with no way to verify that the student who registered is the one doing the work. Is that likely to change? It’s quite possible employers would be happy with an honor certificate. We’re looking at various methods of proctoring. We have talked about people going to centers to take exams. There are also companies that use the cameras inside a laptop or iPad to watch you and everything else that’s happening in the room while you take an exam, and that may be more scalable.

As the name suggests, a “hangout” is an informal place, but that doesn’t mean that teaching and learning won’t happen there, of course. And as the show-and-tell on “Ask an Engineer” demonstrates, we’re just beginning to see the innovative ways in which Google+ will be used in educational settings. I asked those who follow me on Google Plus if they’re planning on using Hangouts with their students in the Fall, and it’s clear that we’ll see office hours, collaborative grading sessions, and the like occur via the new video conferencing tool.

So with all of this confusion, many ask why it is hard for people to accept change.  

 The problem with this is that people are more comfortable with what they know and have experienced, as opposed to what “could be”.  The other issue here is that if we cannot clearly articulate examples of powerful learning, why would anyone buy “change” in the first place?

It is clear to the world that something just isn’t working with institutional education and most people say that we need to CHANGE institutional education. But to the educators of the world, I am here today to say that I disagree. You don’t need to change anything,  you simply need to understand that the world is changing, and if you don’t change with it, the world will decide that it doesn’t need you anymore.

It doesn't solve anything. It is a great first step in reframing the role of the teacher in the classroom. It fosters the "guide on the side" mentality and role, rather than that of the "sage of the stage." It helps move a classroom culture towards student construction of knowledge rather than the teacher having to tell the knowledge to students.

We must first focus on creating the engagement and then look at structures, like the flipped classroom, that can support.

If the flipped classroom is truly to become innovative, then it must be paired with transparent and/or embedded reason to know the content.

Residential poverty tends to be concentrated, and successful school integration requires either a district with enough socioeconomic diversity within its boundaries or a group of neighboring districts which, when combined, have enough diversity to facilitate an interdistrict integration plan.

Open education seeks to reduce barriers to learning for everyone while providing tools and resources that facilitate success. Initiatives in open education include open sharing of high-quality educational materials (Open Educational Resources), flexible and free learning formats that make use of open content, alternative pathways to assessment and certification of learning, and projects that support improvements in educational systems.