Asking Questions About Blended Learning?
Kiera Chase reflects on her experiences planning for blended learning. By David Goodrich.
Around this time of year, many teachers and administrators begin starting to really begin thinking about broad program changes and improvements to be made for the next academic school year. Maybe you are in the same boat. Kiera Chase has been. Here she has been asking questions such as:
- What programs to expand?
- Where should these programs be expanded to?
- How do we finance this growth?
- What other organizational goals and objectives will support blended learning program expansions?
- What professional development is needed to expand these programs successfully?
Kiera Chase is a Blended Learning Coach at Envision Schools which has three schools in the Bay Area, one in Oakland, one in Hayward, and one in San Francisco. In her post, Chase reflects on some of the initiatives that his district has been working on this year. Much of it revolved around the curriculum re-working as a result of the accountability measures being implemented. This is as a result of California piloting the Smarter Balanced Assessments of Common Core State Standards.
Chase discusses how technology has been used to monitor student achievement. It does so using targeted assignments based on personalized learning environments. These environments adapt to the learner’s discrete skill proficiency. The teachers also decided to have Chromebook carts in their classrooms rather than having the students carry the devices from class to class. Apparently, this has resulted in very few damages and even no reports of theft thus-far.
She leaves those of us considering making big changes to blended programs with some words of advice summarized here:
- Have technology ready on Day 1. Not doing so has long lasting ramifications. It will not produce confidence in those who need to have buy-in to the changes.
- Teachers also need to feel 150% supported the day the technology arrives.
- Have your IT folks really think and plan the Wifi infrastructure prior to implementing a high usage of mobile devices through your building.
- Allow teachers to learn things through the change, make their own mistakes and adapt. Have a key leader during the change who can help nurture conversations together about reflecting during these opportunities to learn.
- Lastly, make sure that you have strong support and buy-in from your leadership.
Sounds like some good words of wisdom to me. I know that for me and the work I am doing at helping develop lessons, courses and programs for the upcoming semesters, #2 and #5 have been the most critical, but I would also add how important it is to gather clear goals, solicit input and cultivate buy-in from those implementing the program as early on as possible.
What about you?
What would you add to the list from your experiences planning and implementing blended learning initiatives?
David Goodrich (@rangerdavie) was an instructional designer for Michigan Virtual University through August 2014. He now works for the Learning Design and Technology department at Michigan State University. Originally published on February 6, 2014 at myblend.org.
