Do You Want Your Students To Take A More Active Role In Their Own Learning?

Blended learning is an instructional approach that allows students to have greater control over their learning. It is instruction that is at least partly delivered digitally and allows for some student choice over time, place, path or space of their learning. Chou and Chou (2011) describe this as "maximizing the best advantages of face-to-face and online education" (p. 464). Blended learning has been a part of higher ed. learning opportunities for some time now, but it is steadily working it's way into our K-12 learning spaces as well. Some people question whether this style of instruction is beneficial or even necessary at these levels. I recently came across this befitting video that shares a student's perspective.





 
The Voice of the Active Learner by Blackboard and JESS3 from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Our district will soon be using the learning management system,  Schoology, to help facilitate this blended learning approach. Schoology, or any LMS,  gives students, teachers and parents a one-stop, online space to curate, organize and negotiate digital resources.

Below are a few advantages to using an LMS to simplify a blended learning environment:

• It can save valuable time for the teacher  Teachers are able to create and upload handouts/activities that can be easily attached to assignments, questions and topics, instead of copying, collating and stapling worksheets and packets. It is also a great place to curate applicable multimedia by adding links, images and videos that further reinforce or enhance the topic being learned. Additionally, all assignments assigned digitally can be automatically graded and sent to the grade book.

• Collaboration and feedback are built in Immediate feedback is vital for student engagement and motivation. Online discussions and group work allow students to easily receive feedback from others besides just their teacher. Peers become valuable resources for one another and feedback is immediate. This environment can be especially powerful for students who are too shy to share verbally in class or for students who cannot attend class for health reasons.

• Easy way to involve and educate parents Parents and caregivers may join their child's classes in order to receive updates, stay informed about their child's learning, join discussion threads, view grades, etc. 

• Students can work at their own pace and the teacher is freed up to work with small groups or students who need additional assistance  Teachers set up learning modules that can be differentiated according to need and ability. Please note that the teacher's role is more important than ever in this model-- the focus moves away from whole group learning and moves towards using data to provide more individualized support for students.

Mrs. Fulciniti, one of our high school English teachers, has been piloting Schoology in her classroom during the last several weeks. She shares...

"Using this [tool] for the first few assignments has honestly changed the on-task behavior in my classes. I thought that maybe my first block was a little tired, but both of my classes were actively working, asking on-task questions, and getting “it” done. "

Giving students permission and opportunities to control their own learning increases engagement and motivation. The goal is to encourage our students to move from passive recipients of knowledge to  active seekers of learning. As educators, we can do this by shifting our own focus from being knowledge providers to becoming learning facilitators. Blended learning is one tool to move us further down this path.

What are your thoughts on blended learning? Please share in the comments below. Stay tuned for future posts where I plan to share some best practices for using blended learning in your classroom.