Confronted with community concerns about blended learning? Heed these solutions.
September 10, 2019 |As a classroom teacher for eight years, I previously worked in three different schools with very different faculties, leadership teams, and student bodies. One similarity across all three schools was a hesitancy to adopt technology as a primary content delivery system. Although some members of the schools’ communities recognized the potential of blended learning to […]
The way people think about edtech misses the mark
April 23, 2019 |Does adaptive learning software improve test scores? Does a 1:1 device initiative improve learning? Is screen time good for students? Questions like these are regulars in debates about edtech. But whether you’re an edtech advocate or a critic, if you’re asking questions like these, you’re missing the mark. All of these questions stand atop an […]
There’s a reason why teachers don’t use the software provided by their districts
November 30, 2018 |Earlier this month, education news outlets buzzed with a frustrating, yet unsurprising, headline: Most educational software licenses go unused in K-12 districts. The source of the headline is a recent report by Ryan Baker, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Learning Analytics. Baker analyzed data from BrightBytes, a K-12 data management company, on students’ technology usage across 48 […]
Reimagining Math Instruction with Blended Learning
November 28, 2018 |“We need better tools that provide more reliable and detailed data about our students’ performance in math so that we can personalize instruction for each learner!” This was the resounding feedback we received from our grade K-5 teachers during our math instructional materials adoption process in 2015-16, which was spurred by our district’s implementation of […]
Tackling access to International Baccalaureate courses with blended learning
May 15, 2018 |Last year, we published our first paper on blended learning featuring schools outside of the US – Blended Beyond Borders. Part of this research included the distribution of a survey that would capture data on technology tools used in Brazilian, Malaysian, and South African classrooms. Pamoja, an online provider for International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme […]
New framework helps unlock transformative, creative learning
May 2, 2018 |In today’s world, many schools experimenting with, or building on, classroom education programs, like blended learning, often get so excited about the new technology available that they may neglect the underlying effectiveness of it for the program, and ultimately student and classroom performance. As an administrator or teacher, it can be difficult to evaluate the […]