Kim Ibara's List: Blended Learning

• use the time that you have with the entire class to problem solve together, collaborate on projects, and use virtual break-out rooms for guided practice.

• Collaborative work can be meaningful when students problem-solve together, plan, and apply their learning in new contexts.

    
• Teachers can use project learning to create authentic projects where students see the relevance and need to do the work
• Teachers need to build in frequent moments, both as a class and individual, to reflect on the learning, and set S.M.A.R.T. goals (4).
• In an effort to individualize instruction, use the online work to meet individual students needs. Whether an extension of learning, or work to clarify a misconception, the work that occurs online can be more valuable to students when it is targeted.
• Successful blended learning educators and schools are focusing on engagement as they work towards student achievement.

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• In education, the components of online and F2F are stronger together than apart. The power is in a Blended Learning equation:

    

  Face-to-Face + Synchronous Conversations + Asynchronous Interactions = Strong Online Learning Environment
• teachers must be an active part of designing online learning's rigor and quality
• by taking actual teaching out of the distance learning equation, we are dooming distance learning to mere correspondence course status.
• Both synchronous communication and F2F interaction are vital to support the success of online learning.
• at least four necessary components to include in a blended learning environment:
• 1. Your first class should always be Face-to-Face (or at least Real-Time) if possible.
• 2. Assessments should be real-time and the choice of F2F or online should be made available.
• 3. There must be multiple times throughout the class that are synchronously conducted.
• 4. Differentiate your Content Delivery and Discussion Methods.
• 5. Keep the Class Size Limited.

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• It is critical that students experience encouragement, support, and affirmation.
• deep respect for each learner
• hold each learner accountable for respecting his or her peers.
• constructive recommendations for improvement, meaningful academic challenges, and consistent grading practices.
• effective learner focus
• The responsiveness of the professor to his or her students’ needs is critical.
• responded to within 24 hours.
• Empathy needs to be extended to learners at all times.
• individualize, differentiate, and personalize their teaching to the needs of their adult learners.
• Some students are learning how to navigate the online classroom for the first time and their experiences are often challenging, frustrating, and, at times, overwhelming. Processes, procedures and personnel to support these students need to be provided by the professor and institution.
• The instructor’s daily presence and participation in the online classroom is critical
• Communication pathways should include email, telephone, teleconferences, webinars, Skype, and audiovisual communications
• positive, proactive, and caring disposition at all times.
• clearly establish the online learning community as a place of respect.

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• Interestingly, the center found that students in hybrid classes — those that blended online instruction with a face-to-face component — performed as well academically as those in traditional classes. But hybrid courses are rare, and teaching professors how to manage them is costly and time-consuming.

• the research is clear that strategies that combine the use of traditional face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities are here to stay. Enter the blended learning model.
• for our purposes let's take the definition of blended learning from Innosight Institute (3) which defines blended learning as: a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.
• Catlin Tucker defines blended learning as "a formal education program in which a student is engaged in active learning at least in part online where they have some control over the time, place, and/or pace and in part at a brick and mortar location away from home."

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• Flipped Classroom – a Rotation-model implementation in which within a given course or subject (e.g.. math), students rotate on a fixed schedule between face-to-face teacher-guided practice (or projects) on campus during the standard school day and online delivery of content and instruction of the same subject from a remote location (often home) after school. The primary delivery of content and instruction is online, which differentiates a Flipped Classroom from students who are merely doing homework practice online at night. The Flipped-Classroom model accords with the idea that blended learning includes some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace because the model allows students to choose the location where they receive content and instruction online.
• Flex model – a program in which content and instruction are delivered primarily by the Internet, students move on an individually customized, fluid schedule among learning modalities, and the teacher-of-record is on-site. The teacher-of-record or other adults provide face-to-face support on a flexible and adaptive as-needed basis through activities such as small-group instruction, group projects, and individual tutoring. Some implementations have substantial face-to-face support, and others have minimal (e.g., some flex models may have face-to-face certified teachers who supplement the online learning on a daily basis, whereas others may provide little face-to-face enrichment; others may have different staffing combinations; these are useful modifiers to describe a particular Flex model.)

• Some reformers have suggested an online-offline hybrid model. Students in, say, Ecuador, could gather in a Quito classroom, watch the MOOC lectures on video, and then have a local teacher facilitate a discussion. As I learned in my science literacy course, it’s hard to predict what will work in the real world, but this seems worth testing.