So what's your favorite movie?
My answer has always been the same. Since attending a midnight sneak peek back in the very early 80s with my dad--quite a coup on a school night, I might add--my favorite film of all time remains Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Oh, there are better, more groundbreaking, meaningful, or cinematically important movies. But for my money and popcorn, no film succeeds on its own terms as fully as the whip-cracking, snake-slithering, Nazi-face-melting first Indiana Jones adventure. It is a frame by frame study in pitch perfect pacing.
This is where blended learning comes in.
There's a standout scene about halfway through Raiders, one reputedly improvised by Harrison Ford on set, where Indy is racing through a crowded Cairo marketplace. Marion has been abducted. Our intrepid, sweat-stained, fedora-wearing hero is exhausting every resource at his disposal to locate her among the jostling throngs. Suddenly the crowd parts to reveal a sinister-looking swordsman of daunting skill. Things just got complicated. And then this happens:
Blended learning is about complexity: station rotations, student agency, playlists, differentiation, personalization. It is, at its best, an effort to design lessons tailored to a variety of needs and an array of learning styles. From a teacher's standpoint, that very complexity sparks the excitement of the blended model.
Yet there are times when simplicity is the best solution. There are times when pragmatism is the best approach. There may even be times when the best way to teach something is to actually teach it. Not always, mind you, because that would make for a backwards classroom...and a boring adventure movie.
But if the students don't know a basic grammar rule, have trouble structuring a thesis statement, or can't seem to grasp the purpose of the problematic semicolon, then maybe direct instruction is the most effective method. Sometimes as blended teachers we must shift our pedagogy to include the simple as well as the complex.
Sometimes, as Indy illustrated, you've just got to shoot the swordsman.
I've certainly been guilty of complicating something that required the simplest solution!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good reminder, Scott, to always keep the capabilities of our students at the center--especially planning for Blended Learning.
(BTW...that's one of the best scenes in the whole series!)