Day 7

Blended Learning

The definition of blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns: (1) at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace; (2) at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home; (3) and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.

Blended Models (see http://tinyurl.com/tmlblended)

These blended learning models come from the Clayton Christensen Institute

• Rotation model 
  
  • Station Rotation
  • Lab Rotation
  • Flipped Classroom
  • Individual Rotation 
• Flex model
• A La Carte model
• Enriched Virtual model

Flipped Classroom

The idea of the flipped classroom as first developed in 2007 by Bergmann & Sams (2012), who describe their experience in their book "Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day". The idea behind a flipped model of education is that much of the content is covered outside of the classroom through bite sized (under 10 minute) video clips, quizzes and collaborative discussions. Subsequently deeper learning can occur in the classroom through face to face discussion which can apply, evaluate and contextualise the content as well as enhancing collaborative activities, strengthening relationships, developing communication skills and other key competencies. The pedagogical approach has to be adapted and the mode of teaching must change to a more student orientated practice as the content (often teacher led) part of the session has already been covered. A flipped method fits in extremely well with many different learning areas but particularly links well and supports active learning experiences; more time for hands on learning and less time stuck in the classroom.

One interesting approach suggested by Schell (2013) is that it is best not to t tell students you are “flipping” or “experimenting” since they might be resistant to the idea. Instead, just go ahead and do it (stealth flip'). She also suggests that just flipping the classroom is not enough; you probably also need to rethink your assessment practice.

In-Class Flipping (See http://tinyurl.com/tmlflip)

Besides the fact that it avoids the home-related problems of a traditional flip, the In-Class Flip has other advantages as well:

• The teacher can observe whether students are really watching. 
• The initial exposure to the video content has a better chance to sink in.
• Hardware is (presumably) safer. 

In-Class Flipping is not without its own challenges:

• It doesn't make for tidy one-period lesson plans. 
• More preparation is required at the beginning. .
• Technically, you don’t "gain" more class time.

Tools for Creating Content for Flipped or Blended Lessons

EdPuzzle

A simple tool to add content to existing videos. Can use video content from multiple sources within the site, or upload your own video. It’s also easy to “crop” videos so you are only showing the section of the video you want students to watch instead of the whole thing. Insert questions anywhere in the video you want and have multiple choice questions automatically graded. Teacher view shows you which students have watched the video and how they fared on the questions. https://edpuzzle.com/

TED-Ed

TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. Using any video on TED-Ed, TED Talks or  YouTube, teachers can create and customize lessons for their students. There are four elements, Watch, Think, (teachers can create multiple choice or short answer questions), Dig Deeper, (provide more information), and Discuss (prompts for online discussions). http://ed.ted.com/lessons

BlendSpace

Blendspace is an easy-to-use platform for creating multimedia lessons that can be accessed online. Using a drag-and-drop interface, can organize videos, text, links, images, and quizzes into cubes, then organize them to create lessons, or "canvases, " for your students to complete independently. https://www.tes.com/lessons

References

Bergmann, J. & Sams, A. (2012). Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education. https://books.google.co.nz/books?isbn=1564844684

Gudenrath, A. (2013). Flipping your classroom to meet the common core and other standards.http://blog.peerinstruction.net/2013/08/19/flipping-your-classroom-to-meet-the-common-core-and-other-standards/

Hamdan, N., McKnight, P., McKnight, C., & Arfstrom, K. (2013). A review of flipped learning. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson. http://www.flippedlearning.org

Raths, D. (2013, December 4). 9 Video Tips for a Better Flipped Classroom. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/11/18/9-Video...

Schell, J. (2013). The 2 most powerful flipped classroom tips I have learned so far. http://blog.peerinstruction.net/2013/04/16/the-2-most-powerful-flipped-classroom-tips-i-have-learned-so-far/

Westermann E.B. (2014). A Half-Flipped Classroom or an Alternative Approach? Primary Sources and Blended Learning. Educational Research Quarterly 38(2), 43–57.

Before: Log in as a student to EDpuzzle by using this link http://tinyurl.com/TMLEDpuzzle - do the homework viewing you will be directed to (you will have to use that specific link to access the right class task)

Online and Distributed Leadership

When leading students through new or unfamiliar online learning environments it is important for the teacher to establish a strong social presence so that they feel a similar sense of community and group cohesion.

Digital Citizenship/Cybersafety

How often do we teach students about digital citizenship or cybersafety? 

Netsafe NZ describe the qualities needed to be a successful digital citizen and the importance of Digital Literacy. Netsafe What is a 'Digital Citizen'?

Leading Online Discussions (MindEdge Learning Workshop, 2014).

• Set guidelines
• Make connections
• Challenge students to think critically
• Encourage participation
• Praise discussion posts
• Guide conversations back to the question at hand
• Use real world experiences
• Hesitate before interjecting

Why Use Twitter

• Encourages brevity
• Identifies the tweeter
• Allows replies and hashtags
• Integrates with other tools (e.g. Tagboard, Pocket, Buffer, feedly)
• Supports weblinks
• Mobile App available

Twitter Terminology 101 (Saimond, 2009)

• Tweet
• Follower
• # (hashtag, precedes a topic)
• @ (precedes a Twitter user name you are referring to)
• Retweet (RT)
• Modified Tweet (MT)
• Hat Tip (HT)
• Reply
• Direct Message (DM)

Mind Lab Twitter

Handle: #NZMindLab
Hashtag: #mindlabED

Some Twitter Tweeters and NZ education hashtags

@EducationGovtNZ @netsafeNZ

#edchatNZ (See: http://www.edchatnz.com/getting-started) #kidsedchatNZ #engchatNZ #mathschatNZ #scichatNZ #hackyrclass

Twitter Tips for Teachers

Education Review (2013) suggests ten ways that New Zealand teachers can get more out of the Twitterverse. We think these 6 are the most useful.

• Use TweetDeck to manage your Twitter feeds.
• Choose hashtags carefully and check for duplicates already being used
• Join the #edchatNZ club. Every Thursday night at 9pm, teachers and anyone interested can jump onto Twitter and join the discussions at #edchatNZ
• Make use of lists to group people based on any criteria you want for the purposes of reading their tweets
• Saving tweets for a rainy day. There are several tools for saving your favourite tweets, such as Diigo.com, Getpocket.com  and Evernote (using @myEN)
• Teaching with Twitter, for example microblogging for ‘summing up’, following the tweets of a famous person(s) during a significant event, such as politicians in the build-up to an election, ‘time tweeting’, where students choose a famous historical figure and create a twitter account from them, writing regular tweets in the appropriate vocabulary, or progressive collaborative writing, where students agree to take it in turns to contribute to an account or ‘story’ over a period of time.

Wisdom of Crowds

Surowiecki (2004) explored a deceptively simple idea. Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them. Groups do not need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent people in order to be smart.

As our own wisdom of crowns experiment guess how many Jellybeans are in the jar on the slide. Add your answer to the Google form. Do this individually - (do not discuss your answer with anyone else.) We will share the results in the next session.

http://tinyurl.com/TMLJellyBeans

Wicked Problems 

A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. They are highly complex, uncertain and often value laden. Bolstad et al. (2012) argue that learners and teachers, families and communities need support to develop the skills needed to engage in solving the wicked problems of the 21st Century. The use of term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil.

Education is complex. Wicked problems don't have an answer- but through the use of online tools and digital media, independent people are able to work together to find ideas and concepts to explore wicked problems. Distributed leadership allows many people to work together to tackle these wicked problems. Refining traditional roles for students and teachers allows distributed leadership to occur.

Wicked Problems (from TPACK)

1. Requirements that are incomplete, contradictory and changing
2. Uniqueness, in that no two wicked problems are alike
3. Occurring in complex and unique social contexts
4. Solutions that are difficult to realize and recognize because of complex interdependencies and contexts
5. Solutions that are not right or wrong, simply “better,” “worse,” “good enough,” or “not good enough”.
6. Solutions that have no stopping rule, the best we can hope for is “satisficing. (Mishra & Koehler, 2008, p. 2).

Mess Mapping

Mess Mapping is a process for collecting, sharing, organizing and evaluating information regarding a Wicked Problems. A Mess Map diagram or mural represents a model of the problem at hand that shows the important “chunks” of information and their relationships with other “chunks.” (Horn & Weber, 2007)

Distributed Leadership

Distributed leadership acknowledges that the work of leading and managing schools involves multiple individuals – not just those with formally designated leadership and management positions but also individuals without such designations. It is primarily concerned with the practice of leadership rather than specific leadership roles or responsibilities. It equates with shared, collective and extended leadership practice that builds the capacity for change and improvement.

Distributed leadership means mobilising leadership in order to generate more opportunities for change and to build the capacity for improvement. It is ‘leadership by expertise’ rather than leadership by role or years of experience. Genuine distributed leadership requires high levels of trust, transparency and mutual respect.

Distributed leadership is about collective influence and is a contributor to school success and improved performance- it is not an accidental by-product of high performing organisations. Individuals are accountable and responsible for their leadership actions; collaborative teamwork is the modus operandi and inter-dependent working is a cultural norm. (Hargreaves, Boyle & Harris, 2014).

• Expertise not position
• Distributed accountability
• Distribution is non permanent
• Changing roles and responsibilities
• Leadership as practice

A strong correlation has been found between the building of leadership capacity for learning and teaching through distributed leadership and the increased engagement in both learning and teaching.

Because digital technology is multifaceted, it opens itself up to involvement from a variety of people and groups with different roles and responsibilities causing distributed leadership across time.

Collaboration in a digital technology setting is the purposeful joining of people in an online environment that enables relevant problems to be tested and validated through constructed knowledge.

Tweet deck - makes twitter chats more manageable.

Discuss what happened
This is what happened
This is what other people say
this is what I'll try next time.

Blended Learning

Within a formal programme of learning, students study using a mix of on-site face to face learning and some degree of online learning, which may take place on site and/or remotely. There are several models of blended learning, which vary in their balance between the face to face and online learning, and how much of the on line study is on site or off site. Some models emphasise some kind of rotation between learning activities, which may be more or less prescriptive, depending on the context. The important thing is that there must be some element of face to face learning, contrasting with, for example, MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) or distance learning courses, where all the learning is online. 

Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom is a form of blended learning that brings together advances in education and technology to deliver instruction online, outside of class, via video, and moving 'homework' into the classroom. The end result is a personalized, engaging learning experience for every student — whatever their learning style, pace, or ability.

Whakataukī

Ko te pae tawhiti whāia. Kia tata, ko te pae tata. Whakamaua kia tina.
Seek out distant horizons and cherish those you attain.

Flipped Learning
blend space
ed puzzle
teded

Engaging with videos - summarise questions
timed task around video

Real world games
projects
tactile stuff - building things