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Catlin incorporates blended learning in her classroom and has lots of ideas! http://catlintucker.com/2015/07/creating-small-learning-communities-with-the-station-rotation-model/ and https://twitter.com/Catlin_Tucker

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https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/educational-technology-mobile-learning-3732469/here-is-a-good-visual-on-blended-learning-5212028403

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https://www.edutopia.org/blended-learning-resources

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http://mmserpd.weebly.com/blended-learning-lesson-plan.html

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Brittany: Blended learning in 1st grade (teacher perspective)--

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Brittany: Blended learning in 1st grade (teacher perspective)--

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw5dh5tGkeg

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As part of our teaching and learning guest blog series, we've invited Paula Barr, second grade blended learning teacher for Lawrence Public Schools in Lawrence, KS, to share her tips on how to create a collaborative learning environment within the classroom:

Collaborative Room Setup

The students' learning environment contains six round tables, two large half-round tables with Mac Minis and 31 inch flat screens and white boards around the room. Our class has 5 Mac Book Airs and 5 iPads. Students choose where they want to sit and move around throughout the day according to their learning needs. The environment is designated as the students' space - not mine. I removed extra furniture, removed Pinterest-inspired, personally pleasing decorations, and two four-drawer file cabinets in order to return the classroom to its workers.

I also purchased half-size white boards at Home Depot for $9. Because they only weigh 3 pounds I was able to secure them to the wall with adhesive Strips. The size allowed me to place the white boards lower so that my second graders could more easily use them for collaboration.

Engagement

Engagement comes from designing the students' learning environment to be one where they are doing the work at their own pace and level. Rather than me standing in front of the room giving them the information, now I use Blackboard to house the information I want them to learn and they have to work together to acquire and apply that knowledge. They also work together and use Blackboard to demonstrate their learning. The engagement naturally occurs because the students spend their day in charge of their own learning and learning at their own pace and level.

Involving and Educating Parents

Before the first day of school I sent a welcome email to parents and students. I included links to videos and information about blended learning. Then on the second week of school when parents came for Parent Night, I used pictures and video clips from the year before to give parents a peek into a blended learning environment.

Starting in November I opened my classroom one day a week all day long to parents. They may stop by anytime throughout the day without appointment. Most of the time parents just pull up a chair and sit with their child, helping them and the collaborative group with whom they are working. This has been powerful in helping parents understand blended learning.

Paradigm Shift

When asked about how my thinking changed when I became a blended learning teacher I like to use this analogy: As a traditional teacher I stood in front of the classroom, the vessel of all the knowledge, and I poured that knowledge into my 25 little sponges at the rate and level I decide. As a blended learning teacher, I explain our common core goal and throw my 25 little sponges in the pool. Some happily swim independently to the other side and even move on the next pool. Some need water wings and my support to get there. Some students work collaboratively to build a raft and work as a team, to get to the other side, and some get clear out of the pool and go their own way. My job now is to design the learning environment so students acquire and apply their own knowledge through Blackboard, online resources, and paper resources independently or collaboratively to meet state standards. In other words, the students do the work.

Technology

Authentic use of technology is an important part of a blended learning classroom. For our classroom Blackboard houses our information, videos, and links. Students upload pictures and write on Blackboard wikis. They use the discussion boards and take quizzes on Blackboard. Blackboard allows them to connect immediately with some commercial curriculum. We use technology as a tool for students to demonstrate their learning. Technology also allows me to provide the means through which students can progress at their own level and pace. It allows me to provide choice for students to design their own learning path.

For more tips like these, and to hear educators and experts share top strategies and pedagogy, register for Blackboard's K-12 Innovative Teaching Series.

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5 tips for embracing blended learning in elementary classrooms

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As part of our teaching and learning guest blog series, we've invited Paula Barr, second grade blended learning teacher for Lawrence Public Schools in Lawrence, KS, to share her tips on how to create a collaborative learning environment within the classroom: Collaborative Room Setup The students' learning environment contains six round tables, two large half-round tables with Mac Minis and 31 inch flat screens and white boards around the room.

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DreamBox Learning - Online Math Learning

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DreamBox is PreK-8 math solution driven by a technology that's as unique as the students and educators who need it, love it, and use it to go to the next level. For district, school, classroom, and home use.

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Kaplan recently released a review of Online and Blended Learning: What the Research Says. Author Marcella Bullmaster-Day, Ed. D. is the Associate Director of the Lander Center for Educational Research at Touro College and is a Kaplan advisor. It's well researched and worth a read. I bet Chief Academic Officer and super-smart learning scientist Bror Saxberg made a few helpful hints.

The paper suggests that online and/or blended-learning courses usually include some mix of three kinds of instruction:

expository instruction (direct presentation of material through lecture, text, visuals, animation);

active learning (the individual student researches information, solves problems, takes quizzes, manipulates digital artifacts, engages in drills, simulations, or games); and

interactive learning (students collaborate with other students).

Here's the conclusion: effective online and/or blended learning:

1. Is personalized and adaptive to meet individual learning needs.

2. Supports high levels of cognitive engagement in meeting learning objectives.

3. Balances computer- or teacher-led guidance with learner control.

In the section on personalization, Marcella notes that:

Regular monitoring of each student's progress provides data to: guide differentiated instruction; offer students constructive immediate feedback and guidance as to how to improve; and group students for further instruction and practice.

On cognitive engagement, she recommends :

Lesson material is segmented into manageable chunks and students are allowed to sufficiently process it through practice, which may involve collaborating with other students. Practice is most effective when it: is relevant to the learning goal; is spaced or distributed over time; mixes different types of problems; requires effortful retrieval, not merely recognition, of new knowledge and skills; and includes tailored explanatory feedback.

On balancing student versus instructor controls:

When students have some control over the sequence of lessons or topics within lessons; the amount of time they spend on each lesson; and their access to learning supports like practice exercises or worked examples, learning is enhanced.

Blended learning strategies have been used extensively for more than a decade in corporate and military training. As education shifts to job training it becomes increasingly productive to back map learning experiences from specific job requirements. Bror notes (in a recent blog) that there's quite a lot of research, done mostly by cognitive psychologists, not folks within domains, showing how to improve the outcomes for learners:

There's both research and practice in a wide, but scattered, array of domains showing how to more carefully extract and document what the best experts in many field do when they make decisions in their domain. (Cognitive task analysis - note that you need a way to objectively determine expertise in a field to make these techniques really sing, so not every academic discipline is likely to benefit. ) Much of the decision-making turns out to be unconscious, so careful interviewing is key - and, again, it's not a hobby activity, it takes time and practice to become good at this.

Even with a better layout of what experts are doing, you still need to carefully architect a sequence of experiences for a mind to build up conscious and sub-conscious capacities to act in that way. There is, again, a body of knowledge about that (see, for example, E-Learning and the Science of Instruction), but again, applying this well is not exactly a hobby - requires time, information, and coaching to get good at this.

It's interesting to note that Kaplan, the higher ed and test prep giant, sold their online high schools (shortly after buying Insight) to K12 in May. Kaplan K12 Learning Services ( www.kaplank12.com) sells tutoring and test prep services to K-12 schools.

It's also interesting that in 2011-the year of the blended inflection-we've seen an interesting confluence of 1) edtech products, particularly adaptive math, 2) tabs and apps, 3) expanded access to online courses and instruction, and 4) a lot of smart lessons from test prep and SES providers like Kaplan.

For more from Bro see his popular blog on game-based learning, SKYRIM: How far r uu?

Tom Vander Ark is author of Smart Parents, Smart Cities and Getting Smart. He is co-founder of Getting Smart and Learn Capital and serves on the boards of 4.0 Schools, eduInnovation, Digital Learning Institute, Imagination Foundation and Charter Board Partners. Follow Tom on Twitter, @tvanderark.

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Blended Learning: What Research Says - Getting Smart by Tom Vander Ark - blended learning, Online Learning

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A new Kaplan white paper suggests that effective online and/or blended learning is personalized and adaptive to meet individual learning needs; supports high levels of cognitive engagement in meeting learning objectives; and balances computer- or teacher-led guidance with learner control.

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7 Tips To Plan For Effective Blended Learning - eLearning Industry

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7 Tips To Plan For Effective Blended Learning - eLearning Industry

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As known by all of you, blended learning offers the best of both the worlds - online training and classroom training. As a learner, you benefit from synchronous learning strategies that include traditional instruction methods, such as direct group collaboration and immediate feedback. Simultaneously, you are also benefited from the asynchronous learning strategies that allow you to learn at your own pace. But the question here is how you would plan for an effective blended learning that allows a successful combination of both these learning styles.

How To Plan For An Effective Blended Learning

Planning for an effective blended learning program requires a good deal of preparation. Let us see a few tips in which we can achieve this objective.

1. Emphasize on identifying clear learning objectives.
Like any other training program, it is very important in blended learning to identify the right course goals and objectives before you start creating the content. The objectives serve the purpose of a roadmap and help you in understanding where the learning is headed and what topics you need to cover to successfully achieve the course objectives.

2. Prepare a comprehensive course outline to guide the learners.
Having a proper outline and syllabus for your blended learning program will provide multiple benefits for your learners. The learners can make use of the outline to keep a track of their learning. Ask yourself all the probable questions - what skills you expect your learners to develop by the end of the program, what information should be included in the course, etc. On the other hand, the developer or the facilitator of the program can ensure that the course is progressing on the right track and at the desired stride.

3. Determine the level of interactivities for greater engagement.
The best part about developing a blended learning program is that you have complete control over determining how engaging you want your course to be. This would again depend on two factors - the first is how much of the learning would take place online and how much of it would be self-paced activities. While opting for a blended learning strategy, you could choose from a variety of tools and delivery methods to impart instructions to your learners. These tools also come with a host of interactive elements that make learning all the more fun and engaging.

4. Plan your group activities to enhance the learning curve.
Collaborating with the group is absolutely necessary when planning for an effective blended learning program. When the learners exchange their ideas, experiences, skills, and perspectives, it creates an enhanced knowledge sharing environment which benefits one and all in the study group. For instance, you could ask the group to log into an online chat forum to discuss a particular topic or question. They will get an opportunity to share their views through a social media platform which will further enhance their motivation and learning curve.

5. Determine how learners should communicate with facilitators.
While developing a blended learning program, you must make sure that the learners are aware of how they should communicate with their facilitator regarding any question or concern they may have related to the topic. This will make them feel they have a strong support system to rely at times of need. At the same time, you must also determine ways in which you could gather feedback from the program participants.

6. Put down a list of links and resources for future reference.
Since a part of your blended learning program is conducted online, it is good to offer your learners a list of valuable resources that they can refer post the session. For instance, you can point them to links and other web resources which they can refer in order to delve deeper into the topic.

7. Determine which assessment strategy works best to track progress.
Like every learning program, a blended learning program too is incomplete without a proper assessment strategy in place. As a developer, you need to determine how you would test the knowledge of the participants at the end of each module, whether it should be through a quiz, or a summary that they need to complete, or even engaging themselves in a lively discussion through different web forums. Assessments strategies help the participants to mark their improvement areas and use the knowledge and skills gained from the program in their daily job roles.

It is true that planning an effective blended learning is slightly complex, but if you have great organization skills and can let your creative juices flow, then your blended learning program is sure to be a great success.

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7 Tips To Plan For Effective Blended Learning - eLearning Industry

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As known by all of you, blended learning offers the best of both the worlds - online training and classroom training. As a learner, you benefit from synchronous learning strategies that include traditional instruction methods, such as direct group collaboration and immediate feedback.