Blended Learning and the Effects on Middle School Math Students
There are fifteen days left until teachers come back to school to prepare for students to walk through their doors. As an instructional coach, one of my middle school math teachers approaches me and says, “I want to try blended learning this year with my students. Can you help me?”. I was thrilled! In our district, there has been more talk about raising our math scores and improving student engagement. Traditionally, classes at the secondary level are sit-and-get lecture style with some independent practice to reinforce the skills taught. As a district, we are encouraging teachers, especially in math, to try a blended approach with lecture and online options. We encourage student …show more content…
One of my teachers is trying the rotation model. She has three to four different stations. One station is independent, online instruction. This online instruction is either an Edpuzzle video/formative assessment or IXL. Another station is a collaborative station. There are math games, practice work, competition, or peer tutoring. The third station is a whiteboard with an”Around the World” activity where the answer to one problem leads to the next problem. Finally, the last station is with the teacher. At this station, she works with this small group to give more personalized instruction and assess their learning in real time. Also, another benefit, is her students get immediate feedback that is specific to them. This rotation model divides students into groups of three to five and rotates on a ten-minute interval. Once again, she is mindful of the attention span of adolescents. There are various ways to group students. The teacher can give a pretest, or analyze data from previous lesson’s Edpuzzle assessment, since math concepts spiral. I do believe that grouping should not be a decision on the fly. It should be strategic in the use of data. You can form likeability groups, or different ability and have peers activate the resource of their own classmates.
These types of blended learning provide students with more personalized support. Students go deeper with their thinking by not only understanding the how of computing, but also the why (Smith & Suzuki 2015). When students not only understand how but why they solve the problems, they begin to make connections to the real world. It no longer stays in the working memory, however, it moves to the long term memory. Neurons that fire together, wire
There are fifteen days left until teachers come back to school to prepare for students to walk through their doors. As an instructional coach, one of my middle school math teachers approaches me and says, “I want to try blended learning this year with my students. Can you help me?”. I was thrilled! In our district, there has been more talk about raising our math scores and improving student engagement. Traditionally, classes at the secondary level are sit-and-get lecture style with some independent practice to reinforce the skills taught. As a district, we are encouraging teachers, especially in math, to try a blended approach with lecture and online options. We encourage student …show more content…
One of my teachers is trying the rotation model. She has three to four different stations. One station is independent, online instruction. This online instruction is either an Edpuzzle video/formative assessment or IXL. Another station is a collaborative station. There are math games, practice work, competition, or peer tutoring. The third station is a whiteboard with an”Around the World” activity where the answer to one problem leads to the next problem. Finally, the last station is with the teacher. At this station, she works with this small group to give more personalized instruction and assess their learning in real time. Also, another benefit, is her students get immediate feedback that is specific to them. This rotation model divides students into groups of three to five and rotates on a ten-minute interval. Once again, she is mindful of the attention span of adolescents. There are various ways to group students. The teacher can give a pretest, or analyze data from previous lesson’s Edpuzzle assessment, since math concepts spiral. I do believe that grouping should not be a decision on the fly. It should be strategic in the use of data. You can form likeability groups, or different ability and have peers activate the resource of their own classmates.
These types of blended learning provide students with more personalized support. Students go deeper with their thinking by not only understanding the how of computing, but also the why (Smith & Suzuki 2015). When students not only understand how but why they solve the problems, they begin to make connections to the real world. It no longer stays in the working memory, however, it moves to the long term memory. Neurons that fire together, wire