In our blog post last week, we discussed Flipped Classrooms, this week we are going to examine blended classrooms. Blended Classrooms focus on some of the best parts of Flipped Classrooms and Traditional Classrooms.

Essentially a Blended Classroom uses a mix of face-to-face instruction and technology-led instruction. During the face to face time, the teacher leads the students through a concept or standard. When the students are working independently, they are able to work at their own pace, focusing on their needs. A blended classroom gives students more agency in their learning.

Check out this video, which demonstrates how Blended Classrooms work:

Wasn’t that awesome! What kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t give you some guidelines on how to get started with blending learning:

Start Small: While you might want to go in 110%, all in on this strategy, you should consider starting with small changes first. Having small goals and making small changes to start with is much more manageable. If you are anything like me, you may want to jump in with both feet, then you’ll get paralyzed and then do nothing. By starting small, you can make the changes as it makes sense for your classroom.

Be Patience!: When you start something new, it takes a little time for it to catch on and for you to get into a groove. Many of us are parents, one of the things you’re told is that if you want your children to like a particular type of food, you need to give it to them at least 7 times! With that in mind, you should be prepared for bumps in the road.

Authentic Technology: Don’t use technology for technology’s sake. It will only falter and you will abandon it.  Let’s look at book discussions as an example: When you are having discussions in person, not every student will participate. Once a question is answered quickly the discussion will move on. When you do have a great discussion going in the classroom you might not get full involvement. If you have your book discussion online everyone gets the opportunity to contribute and the discussion can go deeper.  This is how you can use technology authentically in your classroom.

There are so many great articles on how to do blended learning. Instead of summarizing everything for you, I am going to include every article that I used at the end of the post, so you can explore for yourself.  I will pull out a few of the tips from the articles that I found to be the most helpful.

Redefine Your Role: Consider this, by using a blended learning model, you are moving away from the traditional role of a classroom teacher into a role that is constantly evolving. A few basic tenets of the teacher role in the classroom is content curator (that is whether you are creating it yourself or using something else created), integration (making it works for your classroom), & guidance (many of the blended models move students into a more active role in their learning and you, in turn, become more of a guide moving them along)

Goals, Objectives, & Outcomes: You need to take your curriculum and strip it down to the goals that you need to have the students meet. By doing this you, as the teacher, will gain a deeper understanding of the content and really make you an even stronger expert in your content. Objectives help you quantify the goals by helping you create a guide to evaluating student performance. Outcomes will define how the students achieve the objectives and goals that you have set. For this part, I would have a few outcomes that the students could choose from. How they demonstrate their knowledge should be determined by the students.

Pick a Blended Learning Model: This one is key. Since there are many different blended learning models, many teachers will choose a combination of them that works for them. I listed this bullet point third because you need to pick a model that will work for the goals, objectives, and outcomes of your classrooms. Many models might not work for you and fit into your teaching style. By picking between blended learning models you can explore different ways to teach your content and find the one that works for you.

Design a Classroom That Fits Your Model: This one can be a little tricky because in many cases we are limited to what is available in the school. By shifting the layout in your room, it will foster the learning you’re looking for. Try moving your desks around into groups, ask for tables and chairs, you’ll be surprised to find out what classroom materials are available in your school.

Content is King: This one might seem obvious with any teaching style, but for this model to work it is extremely important. It allows you to set individual and overall goals that match your students, allows them to access the content at their level. In the book “Moonshots in Education: Launching Blended Learning in the Classroom” by Esther Wojcicki (great book) created an acronym (what teacher doesn’t love acronyms) that helps the students trust that you not only know what you are talking about but also helps foster the learning community you are looking for.

Be Clear: At this point, you might be thinking that “Man, there is a lot of guidelines” and I would agree with you. If this was easy, snap your fingers, magic bullet of learning then everyone would be doing. By being clear in your expectations, classroom activities, projects, playlists, and outside resources the students will know what is expected of them and how they can achieve their goals (see, I brought back to a few bullet points above).

There are so many more things I can say but I am going to link to the article from Legends of Learning so you can dive more deeply. They break some of the bullet points up that I have into smaller, more manageable items.

This is a lot of information. If you are looking for more information, check out all the resources below. Leave a comment and let me know what you think in the comment section below.

Articles:

• https://www.legendsoflearning.com/blog/27-tips-blended-learning/
  
• https://elearningindustry.com/blended-learning-vs-flipped-learning-can-tell-difference
• https://www.edutopia.org/practice/blended-learning-making-it-work-your-classroom
• https://hechingerreport.org/blended-learning-classroom-really-looks-like-urban-teachers-reboot/
• https://www.teachthought.com/learning/12-types-of-blended-learning/
• https://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/04/3-ways-to-implement-blended-learning-in-the-classroom/
• https://www.blendedlearning.org/what-blended-learning-is-and-isnt/
• https://www.21things4teachers.net/21-things/20—blended-or-flipped-classrooms/
• https://medium.com/inspired-ideas-prek-12/student-centered-learning-in-a-blended-classroom-748a6a1814a5
• http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/The-Basics-of-Blended-Instruction.aspx
• https://www.edelements.com/definition-of-a-blended-classroom