Sunday, January 19, 2014

#MIflip14 Reflections

I was lucky enough to be a part of the planning team for the second annual Michigan Flipped Learning Conference which was held this past weekend in Byron Center, MI outside of Grand Rapids. Over 100 dedicated educators braved the cold and snow showed up to learn for a day.

Similar to the first version of this conference, I had a blast there. I tweeted some initial reflections on the conference - the screenshot is below.




A couple things bear some fleshing out. First, Steve and Zach did a great job with the keynote. Inspiring, funny, and self deprecating. A great job.

Second, Michigan education policy is, umm, well, pretty tough. To the best of my understanding, half of Michigan educators' evaluations are based on, wait for it, test scores. I'll lay off the string of profanity that this induces in my mind and just say that this is beyond a travesty. A buddy of mine tosses around the phrase traveshamockery. That's what an evaluation system like this is: a travesty, a sham, and a mockery.

But the point wasn't to rant about Michigan education policy. It was to express gratitude and amazement at the incredible dedication of the Michigan educators who, despite adverse conditions, still want to change education and schools for the better.

Ideas flowed all day. Conversations continued into the hall after sessions ended.

I had a blast and can't wait for #MIflip15.

The #MIflip14 planning team

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