BLENDED LEARNING: The Future of Education

Introduction

Learning has traditionally taken place in a classroom setting; a gathering for students to get knowledge on various disciplines. With the onset of the pandemic, schools were forced to adapt to the new normal with the changing times with a different education system. Schools have gone digital, allowing students to attend class from the comfort of their own homes. Having said that, making it wholly online, wasn't entirely beneficial to schools or students. The blended learning paradigm was born as a result of this.

Blended learning, also known as hybrid learning, is a form of learning programme that allows students to integrate virtual and face-to-face learning. Students interact with the lecturer, the material, and other students in both a physical classroom and an online platform.

Here are a few of our instructors' best practices for making blended learning, a phenomenal success at I Can!

Asynchronous and Synchronous Tasks

Teachers at I Can offer a blend of these two learning activities to have a healthy balance in a student’s cognitive development as per the Cambridge curriculum. With Synchronous activities, teachers provide students with group projects where miscommunication is almost eliminated and personal connection is enhanced. On the other hand, asynchronous learning activities are those where teachers send students a self-paced video lecture of their class or provide an individual project/ homework through Seesaw, which caters to different learning types. At times the teacher offers choices and the students can pick what is best for them and work on that.

Integrated Technology on an Online Platform

Integrating technology for students in the classroom creates learning objectives for students who are actively involved.  A student at I Can uses platforms like Seesaw,  google slides, jamboards, padlets, Google classroom etc. These technologies are easy to use and have a great impact on the learner’s growth in the class. Most Cambridge International Schools follow the set curriculum to promote holistic development amongst the children.

Bitmoji used to Create Virtual Libraries

Remote learning experiences were a new concept for students because of which teachers felt the need to turn it up a notch to bring in a fun element at our international school. Bitmoji was used to make the class more interactive virtually, which instantly became a hit with the students here. In this day and age, children do not spend a lot of time in the library or borrow books from there. However, the birth of Bitmoji libraries has allowed teachers to post links for books and videos for students to refer to. 

I Can teachers also started using it for a myriad of activities like class assemblies, study tools, birthday celebrations, videos and academic-related fun games to name a few. 

Instructor-Led Station

Many people mistake a teacher-led station to be a type of learning that involves only the teacher doing most of the talking. On the other hand, a teacher can encourage students to interact and get involved in the module at hand either through a project, Q&A sessions, homework or simply by demonstrating an activity through direction and asking students to complete a task similarly. 

Differentiated Instruction

Most teachers often fail to understand that students may have the same learning goal but a million ways to achieve it. I Can encourages teachers to provide instructions to students in different ways even though the task at hand may be the same. This helps students of different learning capacities understand the agenda to stay on the same page with their peers. It also shows students what they already know in different ways. Teachers at I Can give basic instructions for students who can grasp the concept in one go and then go a little in detail with it for those who need a nudge.

Small-Group instruction

This is a mode of teaching wherein the teacher groups students of 8-10 and asks them to reflect on the happening over one or two days. Students practice and work out what they have studied and think about what they're learning at their own pace without the teacher’s intervention. If they bear a doubt in mind the teacher steps in to clarify the misunderstanding. It helps students to stay on the same page before moving into the next set of modules lined up.

Intervention

At I Can teachers allow students to get involved in the subject being discussed after they have completed explaining it. This student-teacher intervention helps the teacher to gauge the comprehension of each student and see what level they’re at. Here, the child is given an opportunity to intervene and experiment with the concept that they have learnt. This is extremely crucial for the student in developing leadership skills as they are guided on steering things.

Breakout Sessions Used for Teamwork

The teacher uses breakout sessions in class to split the children into smaller groups where students get to discuss answers with each other. This increases STT (Student Talking Time), which allows every student a chance to speak. This in turn reduces TTT (Teacher Talking Time) which allows time for them to gauge every student to understand each one’s comprehension. Since students are left alone in breakout sessions, it brings in a sense of responsibility where they try to steer the discussion in turn helping them with leadership skills in the long run. 

Flipped Learning - Student-Driven

Flipped learning is an approach that assists educators in prioritising active learning throughout class time by providing lecture resources and demonstrations to learners to examine at home or outside of class. This is usually the case in High School education and Secondary education at I Can School. Students may study more profoundly and retain information more effectively. Students can obtain more knowledge since they have greater control over the learning process and obtain regular feedback.

Creating Instructional Videos

Video is becoming a significant component of many flipped, blended, and online classes, but ensuring that films are beneficial to students necessitates a more in-depth examination of video design and production. The best way to create great educational videos is to start with defined instructional aims and then follow design guidelines through research evidence. In the video, students here are given an exercise or a project to work on in their way.

Assessment Tools

Blended learning models enhance the educational quality and knowledge absorption while increasing teaching efficiency and productivity. These assessment tools help in not only showing where the student is going wrong but tries to assess why they were in the wrong and how they could improve upon themselves. Quizzes, Nearpod and Pear Deck both provide a range of questions and tasks for student assessment, but more significantly, both technologies serve to boost learner engagement and broaden where and when students study.

In Conclusion

Blended learning provides new ways for educators to engage and connect with students. Our students at I Can felt more confident as they developed the capacity to work in their preferred learning mode, at their own pace, and in collaboration with other learners to enhance learning through blended learning.

There's no concept of one-size-fits-all here. Every student has a unique method of learning. But when the research was done, it pointed out that students performed better under blended learning than being physically in one place. I Can is a pathway school which recognises the student requirement and works towards its development, keeping the students’ progress in mind.