School type:
6-10 school (adding 11th and 12th over two years)
480 students Daily class structure:
Students rotate daily through small group discussion or independent work
Class size 34 Tips from teachers:
Be ok with changing your teacher role to become a guide on the side
Trust your students to build self-directed learning skills
The classroom setting:
Ms. T teaches middle school science to a diverse student population in a growing 6-10 school that will add 11th and 12th grade over the next two years. Ms. T uses blended learning to improve engagement, to incorporate project-based learning, to enhance high-order thinking, and to move away from the traditional teacher paradigm of sage on the stage.
A typical day in the model:
Class begins as students line up outside the class and Ms. T calls the names of eight students who will be working in a small group with her for the class period. Those students, the Elite Eight, come in and sit at a table at the front of the class, next to a SMART board with a "do now" projected. Ms. T gets the student discussion flowing by asking additional guiding questions as students work through the do now.
After five minutes are up, Ms. T leads a discussion around the do now. Students in the small group then participate in a Socratic discussion where Ms. T pushes students’ critical thinking skills and guides them to deeper understanding of science topics.
The remaining students fill in to four tables and sign in to the iLearnNYC platform. The previous class had left the laptops out and on, so the students are able to quickly sign in. Once logged into the iLearnNYC platform students choose from a list of tasks they must complete during the week. Tasks include interactive lessons, modeling assignments, and web quests, where students search the internet for data to complete an assignment. Students are working independently or in pairs, depending on the
assignment and their preferred learning style.
Discussion Group
SMART board Task Groups
Students working on the tasks are able to ask Ms. T for assistance by raising their hands but, many students ask each other for help first. Students seem to know the routine and work collaboratively on their assignments. Students move at their own pace throughout the period, requiring only occasional reminders to stay on task. A few students find games to play online and are distracted by the vast access to content on the web. For one student, Ms. T has found that he struggles in class to complete work, but he often accesses content at night and he completes his work at home. When assigning online homework, Ms. T makes sure she gives students a few days to complete the assignment because some of her students must find computers and Internet access outside of their homes. Fortunately, Ms.
T’s school offers computer lab hours so those students with access issues are able to stay after school if necessary. By utilizing blended learning to give students access to anywhere learning opportunities, Ms.
T has found that students who struggle to complete work in a brick and mortar school environment, may have more success outside of class time.
Building in skills and project-based learning:
Ms. T has structured her class into units which last 3-6 weeks. In a typical four-week unit, students will spend two weeks building skills and content knowledge and two weeks completing a project-based learning experience. The length of the projects and the length of the content and skill building range depending on the unit. Ms. T introduces the project and the rubric she will use to grade students at the beginning of each unit, so students have a clear understanding of how the content knowledge and skills they will learn relate to the project.
During the two weeks students are learning skills and content knowledge, Ms. T has set up four-day cycles. Each day, a new group of students rotates into the discussion group table so that after four days, every student in the class has been to this table. Depending on the assignment, Ms. T will build
heterogeneous or homogeneous groups based on past performance and behavior. As discussed above, students at the discussion table usually complete a do now and a group assignment while the rest of the class works on the assigned tasks at their own pace. In a typical two-week unit, students must complete tasks that bolster the skills and content understanding they will need to do the unit project. The tasks are created to intentionally improve differentiation or student choice.
Once the skills and content are covered, using the online content and discussion rotation, students move on to the project-based learning assignment. Students use web-based tools to complete their projects, building a range of computer skills.
Classroom management:
Ms. T uses wall charts to track student progress on tasks. She thinks visually representing progress in a public space provides external motivation for students. Students also like getting stars to put next to their names, even in middle school. By trusting students to self-regulate their learning and providing scaffolded assignments students can complete on their own, Ms. T has seen a decrease in student behavior issues. While this may seem counterintuitive, giving students more responsibility for their learning has led to better overall behavior in Ms. T’s classroom.
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Wrap-up:
Moving to this model of blended learning has not been a short or simple process for Ms. T. She gives credit to her mentor for supporting her work and helping her build a blended model where project-based learning meets online learning. As Ms. T continues to learn and grow from the experiences she has in the classroom, her model of blended learning will only improve and stand out as a new way of increasing student engagement and personalizing learning to meet the needs of all students.