#iNACOL Symposium Thoughts
I’m part of a cohort of teachers from the district who are learning more about blended learning with the intent of building the district’s capacity with this educational model. Blended learning is instruction both face-to-face and independently online. What I am finding, though, is that plenty of people toss it around, emulating the model as ridiculously important when really, blended learning might be more of a theory of practice, a reason to use the approach in the classroom.
The idea behind blended learning is partially to use technology to individualize and personalize learning for students. However, if you don’t have it in your head that learning should look like this, that you don’t have the time to even attempt and make sure students get what they need to be learners, then you probably aren’t even ready to start the discussion and should go back to your happy world of one-size-fits-as-many-as-it-will.
What do I take away from this conference? I’m going to focus less on the logistics of blended learning…giving students control of path, pace, and place (or whatever that catch phrase is)…and get back to the individualzed learning bit.
Why am I going to start the blended learning model in one of my classes come January? Because school isn’t about me covering standards with little regard to the students in my classroom. School is about a class full of learners and because I am not the end-all of knowledge, I need help helping them learn. That’s why I’ll be blending my classroom.
