Award-winning educator, speaker, and business-brain expert, Dr. Brynn Winegard, is a professor who advocates for the importance of real deep learning in the classroom. To Dr. Brynn, learning is a lot more than just writing notes — it's a process that takes significant effort, focus, and even physical exertion that leave little room for distractions. In this article, Dr. Brynn explains why she chooses not to use technology in her classroom and expects that her students put pens to paper instead.

A great way to motivate and change behavior for the better is to reward positive behavior, instead of penalizing what may be perceived as bad behavior. In education, some examples include awarding points for attendance, participating during class, or completing bonus work, and students are given the choice to earn these points.

Jump to Taking Attendance and Polling With Flipd Cellphone distractions have become a reality in today's learning environment. While most students want to pay attention in class, disruptive notifications, cleverly-designed apps, and distractions from peers frequently pull a student's attention away. With a powerful influence on our lives, checking our devices has become so habitual that it's more often automatic and unintentional than not. So, what is Flipd? Flipd uses behavioral economics to nudge students to pay better attention by encouraging them to remain off of their phones. In addition, the platform provides educators with powerful data and tools they can use to improve long-term engagement and make more informed teaching decisions throughout the year. How Flipd works At the beginning of your lesson, students are notified to Flip Off their devices. Then, until the end of class, students make the conscious and intentional choice to remain off of their devices. If at any point a student decides to check their phone, Flipd will remind them to return to a Flipd Off state. If the student does not re-enable Flipd, their phone will be accessible and the student will be aware that they've made the decision to use their phone during class. After class is over, a detailed report is made available for you on the Flipd web-dashboard, illustrating how much time each student was Flipd Off during the lecture. This information can help you gather valuable lecture insights around engagement and participation. For example, the data Flipd collects lets you gather information like which lectures were more engaging than others or at what point in the lecture students are becoming disengaged. Additionally, many educators on our platform use Flipd to allocate additional credit or award other incentives based on student activity.  What's the benefit? Educators benefit from gaining insights about their learning environment and student engagement. For example, if you notice that students are on average using Flipd for only the first 30 minutes of a 1 hour class, that could suggest that the material gets heavy in the second half of the lecture and students are more likely to check out. In addition to improving their attention and listening skills, Flipd teaches digital citizenship and wellness by helping students become more intentional and mindful technology users. With Flipd, students are more aware of their phone habits, which can positively impact other times in their lives when they might tend to use their electronic devices unintentionally. In addition to improving their attention and listening skills, Flipd teaches digital citizenship by helping students become more intentional and mindful technology users. 1. How to register

As the holidays approach, so does exam season for students across North America. By now, educators hope (and expect) that students have learned everything needed in order to succeed, which means that they must comprehend the course material in addition to the notes they took throughout the semester. But for most students nowadays, these notes live on a laptop, and there is growing evidence that typewritten notes may not be what's best for students.  So, we ask — are your students really as prepared as they could be?

Are you considering banning phones in your classroom or school? Consider trying Flipd, an alternative solution that incorporates technology while encouraging students to unplug from their devices. 

Jump to How to Use Flipd Messages Communicating with students isn't easy. With so many ways students can be reached now, it's difficult to know whether your message has been received or even read. But with Flipd Messages, sending a variety of messages to your students is simple and effective.

A few years ago, Janell Burley Hoffman gave her 13-year-old son his first iPhone for Christmas. Attached to the gift was a special contract — one that Janell wrote, identifying the rules and expectations around his newfound ownership of a phone. The creative contract was picked up by the local news and went viral, and it quickly transformed into her now famous iRules, a book that guides parents and teens through the digital age.

Every semester, professor Dr. Josie Ahlquist challenges her Leadership in the Digital Age students at Florida State University with a unique task. “Unplug from social-based platforms for 7 days,” she says to a class of hesitant college students. Allowing room for negotiation, Dr. Ahlquist has seen her challenges run for as few as two days and as many as seven, and she requests that students document their experience throughout. The results showcase a facinating journey of self-discovery and reflection as these students shed social media for the duration of the challenge. 

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