By: Alex Gilgorri and Kate Todero
Bio: We are former team captains and roommates who have a passion for education and exploring innovative teaching methods! Together, we are enrolled in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Drew University located in Madison, NJ.
Introduction
After exploring a range of contemporary teaching practices, we discovered blended learning, an instructional technique that combines the traditional classroom method with online learning resources and instruction that students have access to at home. Blended learning is a student-centered approach that coaches students to achieve mastery of content specific skills through the use of technology in order achieve learning goals. This technique allows for flexibility among students and teachers as it promotes individualized learning experience. As preservice teachers we are discovering our teaching identities. In order to become intentional teachers, we believe that blended learning is a fantastic instructional practice that can be adopted into our future classrooms. In order to effectively introduce this technique, it is important to describe the ways in which blended learning is advantageous to us as teachers and also to our students.
It is student-centered and flexible for students!
Blended Learning incorporates a student-centered approach to learning. Because students have full access to instructional videos and materials electronically, students with a variety of readiness levels can take control of their learning by going at their own pace. Students can stop a lesson when they have questions and rewind the video in order to catch what they may have previously missed. Blended learning promotes flexibility for all students. Students who are chronically absent and struggle to catch up with missed work can remain on track with the rest of the class. Across the board, students can feel supported during their blended learning experience and can build upon what they have learned with in-class support provided by their teacher and others in their class.
Keep in mind that, when creating instructional videos, is it important that the teacher utilizes their own voice and style. This provides continuity between both instructional videos and in class instruction delivered to students. Blended learning allows students to learn at their own pace both in and outside of the classroom. Therefore, students can spend their class period more efficiently by spending more time on misunderstandings instead of listening to repetitive instruction.
Efficient and flexible for teachers too!
Blended learning shifts the role of the teacher in the classroom. This method provides flexibility for teachers as there is no longer a need to deliver instruction in the front of the class. The Blended Learning method allows teachers the flexibility to create their lessons through instructional videos and attach materials that students have access to electronically. Student access to instructional materials frees up a teacher’s time in class because teachers can work more efficiently by engaging with individuals or groups of students to check for confusions, understanding, and mastery. Oftentimes teachers feels as if when one student is struggling they need to halt and reiterate instruction for the whole class. By doing this, students can lose interest and motivation. Additionally, because students can work at their own pace, teachers are relieved of pressure since they are not forced to “move on” to cover material when students are left confused. In this way, learning is far more flexible and fluid because instruction can be tailored to each student’s needs.
Collaboration is encouraged!
While working through lessons online, formative assessments and checks for understanding will be administered during class periods. This enables students to work together and correct any misunderstandings and clarify content that they learned online. They can practice problems together if it was a math lesson, discuss the proper way to construct a thesis sentence if it was a language arts lesson, and work together to create tables or figures for a science lesson. The collaboration allows them to work with any peer they choose while also promoting peer feedback. Even if students are at different places in the lesson and have reached differing levels of mastery, students can help one another reach their next stage of learning. Along with peer collaboration, teacher-student collaboration also occurs and teachers can more closely monitor student progress and the class’s overall performance. The teacher can more frequently check-in with each student and together they can reflect on overall progress.
Technology is an integral piece
By utilizing blended learning the teacher is able to gather data on student progress through formative and summative assessments that are assigned electronically. Formative assessments provide quick progress data regarding misunderstandings, confusions, that students are struggling with. Formative assessments also give the teacher insight on what topics students do understand.
Once these checks for understanding are submitted, the teacher can more efficiently tailor their instruction to the needs of each student and see who needs more one-on-one time and who could benefit from peer collaboration. The teacher is able to see how far a student is in the lesson, look at the students’ online work, and analyze their overall progress.
Our experience using blended learning!
7th Grade Social Studies Application: Ms. Gilgorri
Throughout my student teaching, I have had to create a variety of lessons that targeted specific pieces of the instructional and learning processes. These lessons asked me to look at the role of assessment, differentiated instruction, and technology integration in the classroom. This October, I created a lesson that was to focus on differentiated instruction and formative assessment in the 7th grade social studies classroom. At the middle school where I student-teach, the 7th grade curriculum is centered around World History and as my cooperating teacher likes to say, we study from “Byzantine to Boston”. Blended learning was one of the first methods of differentiation I thought about when I began writing this lesson plan. After seeing how helpful it was for me, in my own experiences in addition to research Kate and myself have look at, I knew how effective this instructional method could be for my 7th graders. During this lesson, I really wanted to focus on a skill that tied in with content knowledge. Currently, students are studying the Byzantine Empire, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for students to learn how to annotate primary and secondary source documents. All five of my classes have ELL students, students with IEPs and 504s, gifted students, and students who fall somewhere in the middle. Blended learning, to Kate and myself represents an individualized approach to learning for all students.
During this lesson, I created a “Think Aloud” screencast with commentary that demonstrated to students how to annotate a secondary source document. I provided the link to the video on Google Classroom so as students have full access to the resource whenever they feel that they needed reinforcement. Additionally, I allowed students the choice as to whether they wanted to take time during their class period to individually watch the Blended Learning video with earbuds on. I felt this was far more beneficial than listening to the video together as a class. Some students in my classes have annotated novels in previous classes while others have never heard the word annotation. Therefore, students who have prior experience could begin their learning activity which also would serve as a formative assessment to their learning. Once the annotation learning activity was completed, students could then move onto the document analysis video that I also created. This structure allowed students to work at their own pace and also freed me and my cooperating teacher up to assist students who were struggling or had confusions. This activity provided students with structured choices and also gave them the opportunity to work collaboratively with one another.
9th Grade Biology Application: Ms. Todero
During my time as a preservice teacher, I have seen my cooperating teacher utilize technology in their classroom. She has shown me how to incorporate technology with blended learning. My teacher showed me a lesson she has designed that utilizes the blended learning approach. My teacher designed a lab about the pH scale. In this lab the students are responsible for utilizing a pH sensor to measure the pH of water before and after they add an acid and a base. My teacher makes a screencast and posts the video to a website called edpuzzle. Here, the students watch the video before coming to class that way they learn how to use the equipment beforehand so they can start the lab right away. The website, edpuzzle, also allows the teacher to monitor student progress by showing the teacher how much of the screencast they have watched. In addition, edpuzzle can be embedded with questions. As the students watch the video they can answer questions designed by the teacher. The next day the students come in and are able to perform the lab, use the equipment, and ask any clarifying questions they may have. At the end of the lab, my teacher posts another screencast to edpuzzle that explains how they can analyze the data and the process is repeated. I think this is a great way to incorporate blended learning in a biology classroom and look forward to introducing blended learning into my future classroom.
References:
https://www.edutopia.org/video/student-centered-model-blended-learning
