Role of Teacher and Student in Blended Learning

Video Transcription

Thank you for joining me today to discuss the role of teacher and student in a blended learning environment. Remember, this course is all about you, the learner. So please feel free to pause, rewind, fast forward or use any of the information from this tutorial to help you in your own classroom.

Let's get started by looking at the essential questions that we'll be able to answer by the end of today's tutorial. We're going to be able to answer, what iNacol's online standards? And iNacol stands for the International Association for K Through 12 Online Learning. What is the role of the teacher in a blended learning environment? Is the role of the student in a blended learning environment? And how are the rules different in a blended learning environment and in that of a traditional environment?

But let's do a quick recap of blended learning. Remember, sometimes blended learning is also called hybrid learning, and it involves the integration of technology with traditional face-to-face instruction. And it uses technology in a purposeful way that is connected to the objectives. If you remember from our tutorial about blended learning, there are six different ways that we can see blended learning in the classroom.

So what are the iNacol's online teaching standards? Remember, iNacol stands for the International Association for K Through 12 Online Learning. There are 11 standards, A through J. And for each standard, there are indicators for teacher knowledge and understanding. The teacher is then rated on a standard from 0, which means the standard is absent, to 4, which is very satisfactory.

An example will be standard G. It reads, "The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments and online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures." If you want more information on this and online standards, you can look them up by searching iNacol's online learning teaching standards.

So what's the teacher's role in a blended classroom? Well, the teacher can be a coach, tutor. They can be the encourager, and they celebrate the student as well. This is especially true in a flipped classroom, where the teacher takes on more of a support role than a facilitator role. The teacher can also facilitate deep learning, discussion, or collaboration. And this can be either on an online setting, like a class discussion board, or it can be supplementing the online learning. It could be a group discussion in the actual classroom.

The teacher can also design problem based activities and opportunities for the extension of learning. And this is when the teacher can extend the actual learning that's going on in classroom by incorporating technology. The teacher can also instruct content and provide foundational skills. And this is more of what we'll see in a one-to-one classroom. This is also what we'd see in a face-to-face driver classroom. The students would then build on these skills by using technology.

The teacher could also analyze student data and make instructional decisions. This goes directly back to standard G from the iNacol's online teaching standards. The teacher can also coordinate cooperative grouping. This provides for peer scaffolding. And we've talked about that a lot and some of the other tutorials that we did on Marzono and Shulman. The teacher can differentiate. The opportunity to differentiate is really limitless when the internet is our resource that we're using. And the teacher can also assess and provide actionable feedback.

Remember, it's really important to provide timely and actionable feedback, so that students can make changes in their learning and make the most out of their learning situation. This is really a great benefit with having a blended classroom. Because a lot of times, we can gather that information using the tools the students are working with online.

The teacher really focuses on the foundational skills, problem solving, and higher order thinking skills. In a blended classroom, it's decreased time in the teacher, centered lecture based activities. So the teacher might do a little bit of direct instruction in a blended classroom. And then the students further their own learning by using online technology.

So what exactly is the role of students in a blended learning environment? Well they definitely own they're learning a lot more. An example of this is teachers providing students with something like a Genius Hour. A Genius Hour, if you're not familiar with it. It's something that Google did where they allowed their employees to work for a certain amount of time each day on a pet project. So the way this might look in the classroom is that a teacher would provide students a choice of what they want to learn. And then they could set aside a period of their own time each day, or a period of that classroom time each day, to kind of work on that pet project.

And a lot of really great things have come from the Genius Hour that Google provided their employees, such as Google Drive. So we can definitely see the benefits of this. It also makes learning mimic what's going on in the real world, and where the future is headed in our technology based society. So it allows for student choice, which is going to lead to students who are much more involved in their learning.

The students can also own their own data. And this kind of also goes back to that standard G, even though this isn't an observable teacher action. This is something that we can teach the students to do, how to collect and how to store data, and how to analyze that data and make sense of it, so that they can direct their own learning. And the students can also be collaborators. And they can collaborate with teachers or with other students.

They're the communicator. And this really leads to something that I think is important for students, which is self-advocacy. They can communicate what they want to study, how they want to study it, what their needs are, how they need support from the teacher.

The student can also be the creator. They can have limitless possibilities with this one. They can create their own content. They can create their own learning. They can create their own ways to prove learning through projects.

And then student as researcher-- and this goes back to Marzono's high yield instructional strategies, where we talked about scientific reasoning. A student and a blended learning environment is constantly participating in.

How are the roles different than that of a traditional classroom? In a traditional classroom, teachers do not have the ability to analyze student assessment data in real time. There's a delay in immediate shifts of instruction. But in a blended classroom, it's easier for teachers to collect the data. Because a lot of times, the programs the students are using are collecting the data themselves. And the teacher can analyze that and make the necessary shifts.

In a traditional classroom, the teacher may be the only source of content knowledge. This isn't true for a blended classroom. Because the teacher can supplement his or her content knowledge by having students do research online or giving them a variety of tools to use to enhance their learning.

Also, in a traditional classroom, students are restricted by the availability of resources. And this may result in an inability to coach or facilitate students to explore more widely or make real-world connections. This is especially true if the technology we have in our classrooms are as basic as books. It's still important to have the unlimited resources of the internet at hand.

Lastly, in a traditional classroom, teachers may have fewer opportunities to support learning through online platforms, while working in smaller group settings. There's less flexibility in design. However, a teacher can definitely differentiate and group students based on ability, or they can create those peer scaffolding groups and have small group instruction that uses technology.

Let's take a moment to reflect. What are the challenges you might experience in the new role of teacher in a blended learning classroom? And what are some challenges your students might face in their new role in a blended learning classroom?

Today, we reviewed what iNacol's online standards are, and we reviewed what the role of the teacher is in a blended learning environment, as well as that of the role of the student. And we discussed how these roles are different than the roles that a teacher and student would have in a traditional learning environment.

Now, it's your turn to apply what you've learned in this video. The additional resources section will be super helpful. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. Each link includes a brief description, so you can easily target the resources you want.

Thank you for joining me, and happy teaching.