Blended Learning : Lessons for Schools Intending to Change

"Every organisation must prepare to abandon

 everything it does"

Peter Drucker

Extracts On Learning from DC on Blended Learning:

“District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS)[1] has developed three main blended learning initiatives over the past several years:

1. Since the 2013–14 school year, district and school leaders have redesigned 17 schools (10 elementary schools, four middle schools, and three high schools) to incorporate blended learning. Students who are introduced to blended learning in elementary school do not have to change instructional methods as they progress through schools.

2. Many schools not selected for redesigns are also using blended learning in a variety of grade levels and subject areas to meet their school-level academic goals.

3. High schools offer credit-recovery programs using the Enriched Virtual model of blended learning in which content is delivered online and students meet with highly qualified teachers in their content areas at least two or three times per week.

The district has made significant investments in online curriculum, network and wireless infrastructure, end-user devices, and professional development.

It has also established a dedicated team at the central office to research, implement, and evaluate blended learning. DCPS has recorded extensive and well-studied student gains in math and reading on district-wide assessments and the National Assessment of Educational Progress since implementing blended learning.

The redesigned elementary schools use the Station Rotation model of blended learning for math and reading, with some variation based on decisions made by school leaders. The redesigned middle school uses the Individual Rotation model of blended learning for math and has worked with New Classrooms to design and implement the blended model.

Across all schools (not just the blended schools), the district uses a variety of online curriculum products, including Lexia and myON for reading and ST Math, First in Math, and i-Ready for math. Science, social studies, and world languages classes also use online curriculum.

The district retrained its teacher evaluators, known as Master Educators, on evaluation techniques applicable to blended learning classrooms.

In elementary schools, students in reading and math classes rotate on a fixed schedule through three stations: one station is teacher-led small-group instruction, another is online learning, and a third is either independent practice or project-based learning.

In the redesigned middle school, all students have a laptop that allows them to move through online curriculum at their own pace, with support from a team of teachers. In addition to the redesigned schools, there are smaller blended-learning initiatives occurring in the district’s other schools that focus primarily on math and reading.  

It has also focused on identifying strategies that improve outcomes for the lowest performing students. The district has recorded student gains in math and reading since implementing blended learning.”

Source given in Footnote  

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[1] http://www.kpk12.com/wp-content/uploads/DCPS.pdf

Visualizing Internet of Things in Education:Autumn for Extant Teachers ?

• Student Centric Learning Management Systems will rule the realm of Internet of Things.  Students will learn with greater autonomy and will be on their own rather than be spoon fed. 
• Learning process would be driven by dashboard reflexes. Students would have access through a dashboard to all data that affect them.  
• Teachers will have a dashboard too. Manuals for teachers will set limits for dashboard usage; the role of on campus teacher will shrink. 
• Data from all connected IoT devices, including EI sensors, and student wearables will facilitate student technology solutions. 
• Skilled technological staff will extract, develop and provide solutions. Data analytics department will emerge as most important support service.
• The solutions will be useful to management of students even when they are off campus. There will be enhanced use of mobile technologies. Academic management, study process management and support services will be digitized and integrated. 
• Students will be reassured with 24/7 sensor driven personal attention.
• Applications will be developed to meet student needs ranging from knowledge doubts to mood swings to anxiety attacks. Apps might make learning game oriented.  They will offer personalized strategies to combat absorption apprehensions in students’ minds.
• Skill shortage of technology support providers will hit hard. There will be an influx of technology professionals in to the education industry. 
• Departments like language will 'wither away' to computer based learning. Extant language teachers may have to re-skill  or exit. Skills gap will  impact edu-thinking. As the industry transforms, EIs will realize they do  not really have all the data and analytics skills that are required.  
• Information would have a micro and a micro dimension. At the micro level it is each student and teacher; at macro level it will be aggregated data watched keenly for trends. 
• Armed with sets of voluminous data and analytics, research will emerge as more important than teaching. 

The Internet of Things: A teacher as a Displaced Person

A teacher could be a 'displaced person' (DP)  under the internet of things as he / she is incompatible with the new connected system.

1.  Customization incompatibility: Students need no face to face contact hours as students can tap online resources at their convenience. Computers do not ridicule, defer, or hurt. 
2. Time incompatibility: In IoT, the sensors will alert systems on any deviation from parameter. The system will have predictive abilities to suggest solutions in real time. Teachers cannot match such reflexes.  
3.  Cost incompatibility: Costs are saved by IoT platforms. Brick and mortar and human elements are relegated to robotic response systems as they have high marginal costs. In IoT, fixed investments are already made and capacity utilization brings down costs-  with every additional learner costs are spread.
4.  Memory incompatibility: A teacher cannot remember all the things that a robotic system can. In volume and content, the teacher is no match.
5. Analytical Incompatibility: Systems will analyse student records and initiate prompt corrective action.  The machines will be granular even as it is analytical using the Big Data it has at its command.
6. Perspective Incompatibility: The teacher cannot compete with the macro approach that is feasible.Subjectivity is reduced. They are subjective and oft carried away. Machines are impersonally efficient. 
7. Approach Incompatibility: Teachers use a broad brush approach which will be seen as a non – specialism, non- student centric. In the IoT approach, machines take over monitoring. approach. Continuous learning is possible. 
8. Record Keeping incompatibility. Electronic Student Records (ESR) will make it possible to react to data in rapid response system rendered feasible.  
9. Privacy incompatibility: Anonymity of internet should help the backward student raise queries and seek responses from the system and participants.
10. Technology Skill incompatibility. Teachers cannot acquire the technological skills needed to be in world of IoT in a short period. Students are more tech savvy than the average teacher. 

Building Teacher Skills in Emerging Economies-1

There is a worrisome perception among parents and other stakeholders about the declining quality of school education in emerging economies.  This is attributable to numerous factors but the more serious among faculty is a lack of adequate and contemporary post-entry training or continuous professional updating  for teachers.

Poor quality of  teachers means children are provided with weak inputs. Student learning is sub-optimal. Teachers may have the basic skills, but not much more. The cost of this failure to meet student needs on monetary and development and psychological angles could be substantial.  Thus investing in teachers'human resource development is the single most important challenge. 

There is a learning crisis at hand unless the teachers are adequately trained. There is need for focused attention on updating professional competences through technological intervention among teachers so that quality delivery of education is possible. 

Steps may include:

• Establish an IT based information system  to inventory skills of teachers. 
• Estimate demand and supply of skilled workforce in relation to education needs at a macro level and at the granular level.    
• Match supply with demand at granular level. Identify deficits and work towards rebuilding teacher competences. 
• Leverage modern technology to ensure  reaching out to teachers, particularly those needing scaling up in course content. 
• Technology to be leveraged for designing  and developing tech driven pedagogical techniques.
• An open platform for e-content on skill development of teachers to be aimed at. 
• Crowd source content for this platform from among the practitioners and experienced to keep costs low. Affordability has to be ensured. 
• High quality content aggregation by an expert team essential prior to release of content. 
• Teachers must utilize the contents of this platform through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and virtual classrooms . 
• Have teacher innovation hubs at  regional and administrative unit levels. Learning has to be simultaneously decentralized. 
• The Internet of Things (IoT)—the networked connection of people, process, data, and things—must be exploited to become the Internet of Learning Things. 
• The target should be improvements in infrastructure / device availability which make  24/7 connectivity possible  for teachers to benefit and for the teachers to use techniques ranging from Cloud Computing to Big Data integration with the IoT 
• Ease of delivering content to be ensured. 

Note: This is the first of a series on Teacher Skill Building in Emerging Economies by the author. 

From the Background paper for the Oslo Summit on Education for Development

"INVESTING IN TEACHERS IS INVESTING IN LEARNING A PREREQUISITE FOR THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF EDUCATION

"1. At the system level, develop a shared understanding of what is necessary to ensure that all learners are taught by good teachers and served by effective teaching. This will signal that the country is firmly focused on learning and will direct all partners to meet these criteria.

2. Re-orient initial teacher education and continuous professional development programmes to respond to challenging classroom conditions.

3. Recognize the need for effective and participatory school leadership focused on teaching effectiveness and learning.

4. Invest in teaching and learning materials, especially textbooks and supplementary reading books."


Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report team