Photo credit: Coronal MRI Brain Slices Colorized by Tracy Abildskov on Flickr cc

On May 7th 2015 I listened to an amazing talk and it changed the direction of my career plans. It was the annual professional development offering at VIU, a symposium on Successful Student Learning, and there was a presentation in the morning session entitled “Flipping to engage our Learners” that caught my interest.

“So much to do and not enough time to do it” is the lament of students and instructors of the 2-year Diploma Program in Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Fish-Aqua) at Vancouver Island University. The program strives to provide learning opportunities to prepare students for employment in broad ranges of jobs in different but related fields, from fish health technicians to fish farm managers, from environmental outreach educators to fisheries habitat restoration consultants, and from microalgae culturists to shellfish growers.

VIU Fisheries & Aquaculture students learning how to sort oysters from one of the Deep Bay Marine Station’s rafts. (Photo credit: K. Leask) (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) 

Too much of student’s learning time is spent sitting in desks staring at exercise sheets, books, or computers, and the students are often either struggling to keep up with the class or bored to distraction.