Tag: Blended Learning

In the future, the benefits of blended learning will accrue to schools that can integrate it across their instructional, operational and financial models - but the short term temptation is a rush into technology-based solutions that remain disconnected from the broader needs of schools.

At Rocketship Education, we view the key to our blended learning model as tight alignment between classroom instruction and online learning. But we’ve long faced technical hurdles in providing provide meaningful and actionable data from our Learning Lab to our classroom teachers.

When Alliance College-Ready Public Schools launched Blended Learning for Alliance School Transformation (BLAST), we were confident that the integration of technology into our curriculum would help us individualize instruction for all students. What we didn’t fully appreciate was the impact on teachers.

Blended learning has driven substantial academic gains for Arthur Ashe Charter School's SPED students and others. Effective change management made it possible.

The 2011-2012 school year was a transformative one for Summit Public Schools. What started out as a blended learning math pilot in our two San Jose schools has fundamentally reshaped the model of our next generation schools, the first two of which will open in the fall of 2013.

Before KIPP Empower Academy even opened, even opened, we projected a $200,000 shortfall in expected revenue in year one. Even more problematic, our planned class size was no longer possible.

As a former teacher, I was inspired from the moment I understood blended learning’s potential benefit: Executed well, it could effectively support teachers in individualizing instruction for all students. And so I have watched over the last few years, as blended learning has generated a undeniable excitement among players in the K-12 space.

Integration of live and online instruction may enable teachers to address the instructional challenges spurred by a flood of student data. But as we move forward, we need to study blended learning models’ impact in the classroom.

A spate of new teacher evaluation laws threatens to lock innovators into the current state of school design and curtails the autonomy of charter and other high performing schools. Now is the time for states and districts to apply some critical thinking how to craft evaluation policies that foster innovation while simultaneously holding school leaders accountable for objectively verifiable results. Otherwise, we’ll end up squelching some of our more promising improvement efforts.

Blended learning has created a buzz in K-12 sector. But as the field matures, innovators must be held accountable for adhering to sound educational goals.