Blended Learning

Topics:

• Organizing the Learning Space
• Meaningful Tasks
• Learning Cadence
• Digital Citizenship
• Tech Integration with SAMR

Overview:

In a blended learning model, students engage in synchronous and asynchronous learning with control over the time, place, path, and/or the pace of their learning. Many blended learning classrooms leverage the use of a blended learning model, such as station rotation, to deliver a blend of online and offline learning experiences to students. When effectively employing these models, teachers regularly make critical instructional decisions around how best to leverage and integrate educational software, apps, and other digital tools in order to select the most appropriate, high quality content and resources to support their students. In a blended learning model, teachers are able to play the role of a coach or facilitator of student learning, and use student data to design customized supports and personalized growth opportunities. Effective blended classrooms hold the potential to revolutionize the way that teachers teach and students learn.

What We Believe: 

We believe that in order to effectively employ blended learning best practices that meet all students' needs, teachers must provide individually tailored resources, supports, and content. 

We believe that teachers must create a flexible and personalized learning environment dependent on real-time data, direct observation, and interaction with, and feedback from students.

We believe that teachers must support students to use technology creatively and purposefully to learn effectively and efficiently and to demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways.

We believe that teachers must support students to use technology and digital tools in safe, legal, and ethical ways in order to demonstrate digital citizenship.

We believe that teachers must support students to develop vital critical thinking skills that allow them to be innovative, independent thinkers in the classroom and beyond.

BL Blog Posts:

• Heyman, Hadas. Five Lesson I Learned in Becoming a Blended Learning Coach. May 30, 2019.

• Bertrand, Romain. Students in Charge and in Control: Exploring and Designing Student Self-Paced Online Learning. February 5, 2019.

• Tennessee DOE Blended Learning Pilot Yields Promising Results. June 20, 2018.

• Saunders, Melissa. Manassas Partners with BetterLesson for District-wide Blended Learning Implementation. October 8, 2017.

• BetterLesson Partners with Avi Chai for Blended Learning. April 13, 2016.

Additional Resources:

• Liberty, Jeff, et. al. Blended and Personalized Learning: 10 Key Findings from BetterLesson's Master Teacher Project. Whitepaper published in 2016. 

• Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker, Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014).

• Maxwell, Clifford. What Blended Learning is and Isn't. Blended Learning Universe. March 24, 2016.