"The most valuable resource that all teachers have is each other."
-Robert John Meehan
When you get great teachers together, great things can happen1. I have always found teacher workshops focused on collaboration to be the most valuable professional development. I love hearing what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, and why they are doing it.
Personally, this was one of my greatest "roses" of the 2020 school year. We were all 1st year teachers again teaching in a totally new and different way. This led to an extraordinary amount of teacher collaboration - both within and between divisions. I loved seeing teachers going for "walk and talks" and sharing their challenges and triumphs. Now that we are back to "normal" these opportunities have become less frequent. I was reminded how special these conversations are the day before winter break. In this post, I would like to share with you what I learned.
Some Context…
In 2018, I was one of four teachers lucky enough to participate in a district-wide blended learning pilot. In order to assess the efficacy of the modsel, I taught one section of blended AP Psychology and two sections of traditional AP Psychology. My research showed that this learning model had a positive impact on student achievement and motivation. Since then, our program has exploded. We have over 50 teachers district-wide trained in blended learning and offer blended courses in the social sciences, world languages, business, humanities, math, and science. The language of blended has permeated throughout our school. I remember during my pilot hearing a student saying they had a "flex day" to another student and they had to explain what it was. Now, flex-days, asynchronous and synchronous work, and even Canvas are a common part of our vernacular for both teachers and students. Over the past 4 years, there has been a seismic shift in our teaching landscape.
During our last institute day, we gathered together a group of blended teachers and discussed what this model looks like in practice. We shared what has worked, what hasn't, how we use our time in class and our flex days, the benefits that we have seen, and the challenges we have faced. I left this meeting feeling energized - and considering that this was the day before winter break and grades were due later that day - this was a miraculous feat!
I wanted to share with you what I learned that day in hopes that if you are considering teaching a blended course, or maybe you are an experienced teacher who needs a little extra inspiration, you will benefit from hearing from other teachers. We addressed four main topics in our meeting; Class Structure, Flex Days, the Benefits and Challenges of a blended model. Class Structure: How do you STRUCTURE your flex time?
- Whole Class: The students have an asynchronous assignment to work on outside of class. The teacher is available to the students during this time period. The students are always welcome to go to the classroom.
- A/B Groups: Students are working on a project and rotate in and out of the class to conference with the teacher.
- Station-Rotation: Students progress through a series of stations. Typically, there is a teacher-led station, an online station, and an offline station. To be considered a blended learning at least one station must be an online learning station.
Flex Days: How do you USE your Flex Days? What is your criteria for the students to "flex out?"
- Group Projects: The teacher can rotate the groups in and out. This allows for the teacher to meet individually with student groups.
- End of Unit: The day before an assessment additional support is provided to struggling students.
- Discussions: Students are rotated in and out on an A/B schedule to allow for smaller group discussions in which every student's voice is heard.
- Speaking Assessments: This time is used for authentic speaking and listening assessments in language courses.
- Labs: Smaller class sizes allow students to work individually on science labs. This is especially helpful when there is not enough space or lab materials for every student to complete the lab on their own.
- Conferences: Conference individually with each student to discuss goals and/or progress.
- Test makeup/Retakes: Students are required to attend if they missed the last test and take the assessment with the teacher.
- Individualized/Differentiated instruction: Provides an opportunity to work with struggling students.
- Grading: Students meet the teacher individually for some side-by-side grading.
- Common criteria: Grades (C- or better), assignment completion (all or some - for example, for my students to flex out they had to have completed the previous flex assignment), behavioral expectations (tradies, no cuts, etc).
Benefits: What are the BENEFITS of blended learning?
- Motivates students to complete their assignments.
- Leads to increases in student achievement. The students are completing more work and they have the opportunity to receive help, as needed.
- Provides time to build relationships with students.
- Helps students take ownership of their own learning and develop executive functioning skills.
- Provides students with the opportunity to share, collaborate, and help one another.
- Students report that it reduces their stress levels.
Struggles: What are some STRUGGLES you have experienced?
- Most of the struggles shared dealt with our current open campus policy. Our policy is in response to Covid-19 space restrictions.
- Another common struggle dealt with students who did not come to a flex day when they were required to attend and/or they did not complete their flex day assignment before the next class.
It was a hard sell getting teachers together for professional development the day before winter break. Everyone was a little bit stressed and a whole lot tired. Even so, this was one of the best learning experiences that I have had in a long time. I left energized and ready to tackle the second semester because when you get great teachers together, great things can happen!
Do you have additional questions about the blended learning model or anything in this post? Leave them in the comments below!
1 Troy Bruley (STEM Division Leader and Mentor Extraordinaire)↩
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