Blended Update #4

As the year starts drawing to a close (24 schools days left...but who’s counting?), I’ve been reflecting on my blended Honors Spanish 3 class. Under the umbrella of a “blended pilot,” we’ve tried out different instructional strategies, different settings, different routines, etc. It’s been a very interesting year and my students have been really great about being flexible, giving me feedback, and working hard.

Most recently, we’ve been working on a semi self-paced style of learning. In the past I wrote about attending a Marcia Kish conference on blended and personalized learning. I’ve had success with Phase 1: Station Rotation and this is my version of Phase 2. In order to accomplish this, at the beginning of the week, I provide students with materials in a Schoology folder set for student completion for all of the work I want them to complete that week. Then I give the students a due date, usually 1pm that Friday since my prep hour is at the end of the day. And the students complete the work on their own time schedule.

As part of the blended model, the students in my class are afforded some extra freedom. During Block 5 (our assigned class time), students earning a C or higher are able to move to the North Cafe, the CLC, and the library in addition to our classroom. During most classes, about 12-14 students choose to move to other areas of the building. Often students will leave and then come back to ask questions or to check-in. It has a little bit of a Seminar feel to it in that regard. Obviously, having fewer students in the classroom makes classroom management much easier and allows me to better focus on the students with whom I’m working at any given time. So far (knock on wood), we haven’t had any issues with the students who are outside of my classroom.

When choosing activities, I make sure that everything has some sort of accountability check to it. For example, I use online activities from our textbook because I can access those and see attempts, scores, etc. I also create quizzes and activities in Schoology again so I can see who has done what, how well they’ve done it, etc. I’ve also had the students turn in assignments to Schoology as part of their work when appropriate. I want to make sure that all of their work has accountability both for them and for me.

In addition to the work they complete on their own (or in pairs, groups, etc.), I schedule certain times with the students to do work with me. An important aspect of implementing this method is teacher contact. I want to make sure that I am still able to have individual or small group time with all students. Also, since I teach a language class, it is very important that the students are given opportunity to hear and speak in the target language. I’ve now tried this in various formats like:

• scheduling a specific time on a given day with me for a mini-lesson/focused practice on a topic, usually done in small groups.
• inserting a “quiz” that requires the students to check in with me for the correct answer.
• creating assignments that require students to do small group/paired speaking activities in my presence.

When creating the work, I have tried two different methods of deployment. I’ve tried assigning all the same work to all of the students in one folder. I’ve also made different folders and then assigned each student to a specific folder. I think I prefer the second version, but I’m still working on an effective and efficient manner for determining specific learning needs for each student to better assign them more individualized folders.

As mentioned, I assign the students the work and then give them a due date. Once everything is due, I record everything in Infinite Campus...but not for points. I set up a category to show on Infinite Campus, but the scores do not calculate into the final grade. I think it’s important for the students and their families to see what’s happening in class every day, but not for every practice to count toward their semester grade. This allows students and parents to formatively assess how they are progressing in the course.  I do record formative assessments like vocabulary and grammar quizzes into their semester grade, but those usually come after several weeks of working on the topics.

I am able to see various benefits. Even though it is an Honors Spanish 3 class, my students have a variety of abilities and skills. Working with this method allows me to focus on each student’s needs and to better meet them where they are. I also like that it respects student time. I dislike when I create a lesson that creates a situation for students to become disengaged either from boredom or being lost. I think that with the model we’ve been working on lately, the students are more focused since they are controlling the pace.

As I continue with Phase 2, I use my own observations and feedback from students to make improvements. These are the questions that I continue to ask myself as I move forward:

• Are the students speaking “enough” Spanish during class?
• How can I incorporate student choice into goal achievement?
• How do I develop these lessons within a whole unit? So far I’ve been working more or less week to week, but am working to create seamless cohesion.
• What are different kinds of data I can collect to make decisions about what kinds of activities would best help each student?
• How can I get additional feedback/suggestions/ideas from colleagues?

So that’s it! If you have any ideas/suggestions to the above questions, please let me know! I really appreciate the different ideas I’ve gotten from colleagues this year and would love your ideas, too. If you want to know more about what I’ve been doing, please ask. Thanks for reading!