10.31.16

Cycles.
Seasons, systems, celestial rotations.
From large to small and back again, our universe wheels along orbital ellipses that are predictable.
This predictability is not off-putting; it is instead infinitely powerful.
Predictability arises from patterns, and patterns are sustainable. Chaos is not tolerated. When an aberration occurs, the pattern either alters to incorporate it elegantly or moves to reject it utterly.
As in the cosmos, so in the classroom:
Warm-up, min-lesson, work time, debrief--this forms the standard instructional pattern: I do, we do, you do.
So where does this pattern, this lesson cycle, fit in the blended learning model?
It would seem at first glance that, despite its station rotations, there is no lesson cycle when students are working independently at their own pace on differentiated or personalized activities. Or perhaps the patterns still exists, but the august "I" in that equation no longer refers to the classroom teacher. That venerated personal pronoun now indicates an online module or a guiding peer.
This is a struggle for many teachers.
Blended is dynamic. Blended is progressive. But does blended exclude a key elements of the lesson cycle?
Does blended presume that students--not just teenagers, but human learners in general--are equipped to grappled with rigorous, higher-order concepts without explicit and direct instruction, the inaugural stage in the lesson cycle?
I don't believe it does.
I believe that our new instructional model is not just dynamic, but it is also flexible. Blended learning operates within certain prescribed parameters--data-driven instruction, student agency, flexible grouping, station rotations--yet it is agile enough to adapt, to change, to accommodate in order to thrive.
I believe that student performance will shape the trajectory of learning.
If direct instruction in required, then blended will allow for it. If students can learn collaboratively or autonomously, then blended will embrace that too.
Systems are sustainable.
Blended has systems, but those patterns are still evolving, still altering, adapting, accommodating, and subtly, sometimes infinitesimally changing.  
Just like our universe.



     

10.17.16

Today my creative writing classes worked on composing Six Word Memoires as part of our creative nonfiction unit. This had me thinking about drafting six word reflections for our English I blended learning initiative. Here are the results:

Leverage student
agency
by differentiating
instruction.

That's a nice one. But does differentiation truly engender student agency? Maybe this would be more accurate:

Differentiate instruction
by leveraging
student agency.

Given our fast-paced, digitally-driven, consumer-oriented society, here is another one, a more pointed and poignant commentary on technology and digital natives :

Invention is
the mother
of necessity.

I rather like the inversion in that one--indicative, perhaps, of the upended power structure and lesson flipping in our blended classrooms. Students are teachers. Teachers are students. "We have to let go of the idea that in order for students to learn, we have to teach them," to quote a blended expert. Sometimes I agree. Or at least I'm working on it.

Does all reflection have to be done online? Certainly digitally documenting our shared blended journey is valuable and has its place. But I wonder what quiet, solitary thinkers like Emily Dickinson would say... I reflect on blended learning all the time--looking out windows, running in my neighborhood, sitting behind my desk at lunch. So here's a last one, just for me:

I still
have some
untweeted
thoughts...

Success: Students have adapted to station rotation routines.
Challenge: How do you personalize learning for each student each day within the current system?
Goal: To take more risks within the blended model.