Taking a Bite Out of Blended
Spotlight on all things blended and beyond
I tried. I failed. I learned.
As we all jump into this blended learning journey, we will embrace the messiness as we make iterations throughout the way. We continue to FAIL FORWARD.
Here are some examples from our PL Team Members of when they tried something new, failed at it, and the lesson they learned from that failure.
Mrs. Robert's Example
"I started my student reflection with students choosing one of the following questions: 'What is something new you learned today?' or 'Show me a mistake you made and how you fixed it.' I spent a week modeling appropriate responses and highlighting student responses that were on track. I had Mercedes come in and take data collection and realized that students were giving what looked like excellent reflections but didn’t actually reflect what the student had done during our Math rotations. They were only copying what I had told them a good response looked like! I then went back and talked to the students about WHY I was having them reflect: this was their chance to let me know how awesome they were doing on something or to “raise their hand” and ask for help. I changed my question choices to: 'What is something new you learned/celebration you would like to share?' or 'Tell me something you need help with.' I then honored their reflections by celebrating with them or giving them help during Success or our Friday conferences."
Ms. Lawrence's Example
"I have been doing stations for awhile and my students have been doing really well with them. I decided to change up the stations one week. I assumed that once I had my stations up and running that changing them up would not really be an issue. Well I was so very wrong. I gave a brief description of the new station and let them go. The class went nuts! It was like day one all over again. I had to stop and pull the students together and explicitly teach the new expectations."
Blended In Action
Room 7
Students in Ms. Rogers class work on leveled story problems in their collaborative station. Students have to solve the problem, show the strategy they used, the strategy their partner used, and discuss the differences in strategies (or even answers). Students are equipped with a Mathematicians Strategy Folder that holds different types of tools and resources that will help them with their problem solving. Want to know more? Send her an email!
Room 104
A group of students in Mrs. Abbey's class sitting in various seating arrangements to work on ST Math. Mrs. Abbey keeps tracks of their progress on ST Math and has student conferences with them on Friday to talk about their progress. Want to know more? Send her an email!
Room 17
Mrs. Dick is continually making iterations in order to create personalized playlists for her students. This is where she is at now (knowing that she will continually make changes and challenge herself by asking "Is this truly personalized for each student?") She is currently using Google Drive to push out playlists to students. These playlists include the tasks that students need to accomplish, additional directions, data collection, and student reflection components. Want to know more? Send her an email!
Focus Area: Student Reflection
5 Tips for Infusing Student Reflection Into Blended Classrooms. Check out this great post for details: http://www.edelements.com/blog/5-tips-for-infusing-student-reflection-into-blended-classrooms
A Collaboration Idea!
Thanks Mrs. Benberry for sharing the great things you are doing in class!
What do you think school will look like in 2050?
Some food for thought... Teachers from six countries respond.
Event Information
Twitter Chat: Student Ownership
Tweet chat about student ownership. The discussion will focus on sharing ideas that will help students create that "inner-drive".
Please consider tweeting!
Tweeters: Please make sure you are following the handles listed below to ensure that you see the questions tweeted by the moderator.
Amy Lorch @amylorch
Leslie Koomler @lkoomler
Carey Storm @CStormRP
Kathy Hench @khench1
Kate Schwartz @bookhooks
When?
Tuesday, Feb 23, 2016, 08:00 PM
Where?