'''Module 2 - Effective Strategies of Blended Classrooms'''
Objective
In this section you are going to be introduced to different strategies applied to blended classrooms. You are going to examine and analyze these strategies and find reasons you like and do not like the strategies presented.
Lesson
One of the most commonly used strategies in a blended or flipped classroom is the use of multimedia, such as videos, in the course. These videos, either teacher made or found already recorded online by someone else, are great way for the students to learn the material at home. Towey stated in his article "Lessons from a Failed Flipped Classroom: The Hacked Computer Science Teacher", that, "if I do wish to have a successful flipped class, then I will need to include more multimedia resources, including videos or audio resources" (2015).
Creating Videos Creating effective videos is key to well running blended classroom. Different people have different preferences when it comes to how they make their videos. Some teachers capture the screen of their computer and show notes and clips through the video. These videos can be accompanied by teacher voice over and writing tool to mark the notes up.
Other teachers prefer to record themselves going over notes on a physical board, or recording themselves performing a demonstration while discussing what is happening. These recordings of demonstrations can be in the classroom or out in the world.
No matter which method you prefer there are two thing you need to make sure happen in each video:
- High quality audio and video recordings
- Videos are not too long or detailed to confuse students
You also do not have to spend time recreating the wheel and create new videos for every lesson. The internet is filled with videos that already go over the material students need to know. Utilizing these videos will save you lots of time and be just as effective. Assigning these videos as homework to be viewed outside of class is a great tool.
To ensure students watch the videos you can assign small assessments that correlate with the video. These can be given with the video that night or the next day in class. There is also a great tool where you can upload videos to and put question into the video that pop up periodically called "edpuzzle". These questions can then be viewed by the teacher as a way to see if the student watched the video. Either method is great for checking understanding on that topic as well.
Classroom
The direction you take your classroom once you begin creating video lessons can go many different directions and it is your job as a teacher to figure out exactly which direction you want to take it.
- One direction is student driven project based learning. This allows the students to have more control over what they learn and therefore are more likely to buy into the project. This type of project really fosters that independent thinking students need. These projects could be experiments in a science class or further research into a historical event.
- Another strategy you could apply in your class is collaborative projects, while this strategy does not cater self driven student projects it does still foster problem solving and independent thinking in the classroom. During this time students learn the life skill of working together on a group project. Students learn to divide work up and communicate with one another.
- Another great strategy you can use is student-created content. In this method students create their own lesson plan on the material. This can go in any direction and helps foster student directed learning. An idea students might pick up on is making their own videos on the topic which would help these students get an idea into the blended classroom setup. They could also have their material shared to help students study for an assessment.
- Afinal method you can choose is using this classroom time to get more teacher student one on one time. This time will help make sure any student struggling with the material get the specific one on one help they need.
Activity
You will need to create a ProBoards forum account to complete Module 2 & 3 of the course.
Use this link to create a new thread in "Blended Learning Strategies." Follow the instructions below to meet the criteria of the post.
In this section you are going to discuss with other members of the class the strategies presented in the video section and the classroom section. You should include in your post
- What you like and do not like about two strategies in each section.
- How you would apply one of the strategies from each section to your own classroom. Feel free to change up the strategy as it was presented to make it best fit your classroom.
Each member of the class will be required to comment on two other student's post saying what they liked, did not like, or if possible giving them a recommendation.
Module 3 '''Module 3 - Implementing Blended Classroom Strategies'''
Blended Classroom Home Blended Classrooms