Cyber Bullying

When people think of bullying, often times physical bullying is assumed. Physical fights, yelling, screaming and aggressiveness towards someone is thought of when discussing bullying, but what is not assumed is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying that occurs over technology, this can be through  messages, social media, gaming and more. This type of bullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. Though cyberbullying doesn't sound physically harmful or confrontational, this type of bullying is often the most detrimental to one's mental health. It is important to address this subject as society only continues to grow its online presence. With incoming new generations, their lives are shown through images, videos, and posts. Spreading awareness of this serious issue, how to cope and avoid these situations online can potentially help save someone's life. Cyberbullying should not be taken lightly as it can damage people's personal life, work life, mental health and one's quality of life. Especially when individuals spend half their days using technology, it's hard to escape. 

Personally, I have not engaged in or experience cyberbullying and I am thankful to not have had said experience. I think a huge factor in that is due to the fact that I grew up along with social media. Meaning, during my childhood, there was still little technology regarding iPhones and social media, but as I grew up, Apple products began to create new and advanced technology within each year. During middle school, I only had a limited amount of social media access as apps like Instagram and Twitter were still gaining popularity. Comparing to social media now, I believe kids should take a much more cautious approach to technology and social media platforms as it is much different that the past. Access to different information can be obtained much easier as well as exposure of explicit content. Cyberbullying is common mostly because people are desensitized about what they see or say online, they are more willing to engage in cyberbullying. People are quick to say harmful things over a screen rather than to someone's face and is much more frequent than confrontational bullying. Children growing up in this day in age need to be aware what the internet is capable of and what precautions to take to avoid or not engage in any cyberbullying for the sake of their mental health.  

Flipped Classroom

    The flipped classroom model has become much more prevalent label in education compared to years past, but what does it mean? Flipped classrooms involve students learning a lecture or lesson on their own as homework and then, by the time they come back to class, the information should be known. The teacher then can use class time to answer questions, review material, and create activities around the lesson, assuming the students have acquired the new information. According to an article made by Harvard University, "Flipped Classrooms," this model is correlated to active learning, where the students are engaged in learning the new information shown through discussions, activities, beyond listening and independent reading. Benefits of this model include flexibility, "students can learn at their own pace," and "students taking responsibility for their own learning." These benefits are important for the student in progressing in their education and can also create better social experience at school when discussing and engaging with the lesson, rather than having that class time strictly for lecture. 

Explanation of flipped classroom with visuals how education responsibilities are flipped

    Throughout my education, I've had varied experiences with flipped classrooms, some positive and some negative. The reason why some experiences were negative were because of the teacher more than the actual flipped classroom model. The teacher would provide us a previously recorded lecture video, to which it was a little too long to just be for homework. After we were to watch those for homework, the teacher wouldn't provide any engaging activity or answer many questions about the lecture and just incorporate more quizzes and graded material. There was no incentive to actively learn and felt very overwhelming at times. I believe that a flipped classroom can be successful with the right kind of teacher where they are willing to further explain any material where there is confusion on. The positive experience I've had with flipped classroom involved a much more engaging atmosphere. There were activities, games involving the material, teacher led discussions, and was a safe space to ask questions about any of the material. I think overall to have a effective classroom where the students are actively learning and completing the assignments, the teacher needs to take the initiative to create a safe space for the students to discuss with their peers, create opportunities for those introverted students to participate in discussions and create incentives for the students to stay on task for these assignments due to the independence of this model. 

                                                                             Upside down image of someone typing on a laptop 

with the words "Flipped Classroom" labeled on it