Blended learning for all

Any 21st century teacher should know what blended learning is and just how many ways there are to accomplish it.  Personally I still find it all a bit intimidating.   Am I the only one?  It just seems like a whole lot of work and without having tried it yet, it is still a bit daunting to think about managing 30 students both online and in class, and planning lessons in both, not to mention the stress of making the technology available for all your students at the same time! Making lesson content online takes time, and as a new teacher I felt like time was the one thing I never seemed to have enough of. 

My background in education and my work experience are focused around people with disabilities and special education, so blended learning is intriguing to me as to how it might help enhance learning for those with special education needs.  My husband is a special education teacher in a high school and I have seen his program shift over the years to become more and more blended and technology based over the last few years.

Blended learning is quite useful for students with special needs or English language learners for many reasons. Firstly, you can design it so that students work at their own pace. One of the biggest challenges for ELL students is keeping up because they are learning the language at the same time as the lesson.  The ESL teacher has the ability to add links to help with the language development at the same time if they collaborate with the classroom teacher.  The internet offers so many translation and online dictionary and thesaurus tools that can really help an ELL student to progress through a lesson.  Secondly, there can be alternate tasks set up online.  Students don't have to do the same task to acquire the same knowledge, so by offering parallel tasks online, students can choose what works best for them. Lastly, the internet offers the ability to deliver content in audio, visual and multimedia ways.  We know that not all students learn in the same way (multiple intelligences) and so delivering content in multiple ways will reach multiple learners. 

Here are the examples that I found inspiring in each division:

Primary: At the Milan Village Elementary School in New Hampshire, students are equipped with their own computer and throughout the day they flip back and forth between online and in person lessons.  The teachers guide the students through the curriculum in an individualized way so that each student is learning how they learn best.  The assigning of online lessons will depend on individual progress and learning needs.

Junior: At Acton Acadamy, their school is focused on blended learning.  Students are given the opportunity to take charge of their own learning.  They use technology for lessons and for projects and also for feedback and assessment. What I loved was that they said that they know that even though something is online doesn't make it appropriate for everyone, so for their math program in elementary, they offer choices of programs and sites (ie. Khan Academy, DreamBox etc.) and then they let their students choose which works best for their learning.  The school blends their learning between technology and real life and often will have hands-on learning experiences in and out of the classroom. They ever have students as young as middle school going to apprenticeship style job placements.

Intermediate: The grade 8 science department at Hamilton Middle School has mastered the flipped classroom model of blended learning. Two teachers, Mr Alkire & Mr. Wandell work together to flip their classrooms.  They have created their own Google classroom : https://sites.google.com/site/hms8thgradescience/home as well as their own YouTube and Vimeo channels.  They upload video lesson content and student will work through the video lessons at home on their own time (or in school on breaks if they don't have internet access at home).  When they come to class, they have a checklist of activities to do to correspond with each video lesson.  The classroom according to them looks like organized chaos because students are all working on different things and the learning is so self directed, but the kids are all on task (even though they may be on different tasks).  The teachers are in class to help students on a more individual basis, to solidify concepts when needed and to inspire further thinking.

After doing more investigating tonight and reading a lot of success stories, I can really see how your investment of time can make such an incredible impact on student learning and it will make your job EASIER in the end because your students will be engaged and learning in the best way they can.

Resources:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/06/03/blended-learning-competency-826/2/

https://youtu.be/-jotk4mhQOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBLgVRsb7_Q

https://sites.google.com/site/hms8thgradescience/flippedclassroom

https://sites.google.com/site/hms8thgradescience/home