Disrupt and Conquer! How far can technology go to ensuring no child gets left behind in school? In America’s race to eliminate the domestic and international achievement gaps, when will blended learning models be effective enough to disrupt the existing mainstream classroom system?
En 2008, Michael Horn and Clayton M. Christensen co-authored the book Interrumpir la clase: Cómo innovación disruptiva cambiará la forma en la mundo aprende (McGraw-Hill). Hoy, as executive director of the Innosight Institute, Cuerno lidera un equipo que estudia la innovadora tecnología de maneras ya está transformando el sistema educativo de Estados Unidos en uno en el que todos los alumnos, cualquiera que sea su / sus necesidades de aprendizaje, puede darse cuenta de su / su potencial. Heather Staker es investigador senior de la práctica de la educación en Innosight Institute y autor de “El aumento de K-12 Blended Learning: Perfiles de los modelos emergentes.”
Le pregunté a Michael y Heather a compartir sus ideas sobre el aprendizaje combinado en la edición de esta semana de La Búsqueda Global para la Educación.
Brezo, can you briefly describe the term “aprendizaje combinado” and the four different types of models that serve as blended learning?
Blended learning is a formal education program that includes two components. The first is online delivery of content and instruction, where the students have at least some control over the time, lugar, camino, and/or pace of their learning. The second is that the students also attend a supervised brick-and-mortar location.
Through our research, we are observing four main models. The Rotation model is any time students rotate on a fixed schedule between online learning and other modalities for any given course. In the Flex model, student schedules are more fluid and content and instruction are delivered primarily by the Internet. The Self-Blend model is any time students take one or more courses entirely online to supplement their traditional courses. The Enriched-Virtual model involves students dividing their time within each course between attending campus and learning remotely online.
Michael, which of the four models do you believe is best?
None of the models is “the best” per se. En este punto, different schools will be able to put in place different models depending on their distinct needs and capabilities. A largo plazo, I am most intrigued by the Flex model and believe that a combination of it and the Self-Blend model will likely represent the ideal educational model. La razón es que pone más natural estudiantes primero para que todos los estudiantes pueden personalizar y dueños de su aprendizaje, que debe suponer para los estudiantes más motivados y aprendizaje más eficaz para todos. El modelo Flex también crea oportunidades naturales y potencialmente ricas para los estudiantes de interactuar con otros estudiantes a participar en proyectos desafiantes basados en las necesidades de cada estudiante, mientras que la preservación y el fortalecimiento de las actividades potencialmente como la aptitud y las artes.
Can you give me a real life example of the Flex model?
One of the best examples I have seen of the flex model was in Morgan Hill, California. This is a district south of San Jose where about a third of its students are Hispanic and I believe over a third of its students are on free-and-reduced price lunch. The school is called the Silicon Valley Flex Academy – Los grados 6 a través 12. As you walk into the school there are a couple of huge open spaces on either side where every student has his/her own office. In this space, each student has his/her own computer. The students are encouraged to decorate their own space with things they like (in the same way an adult might decorate an office at work). There are break out classrooms around the perimeter of the building. Here teachers are getting the data on how the kids are doing. Teachers can pull students into these break-out classrooms in very small groups. The teacher is then able to focus on a student’s individual issues. The teacher’s job is totally different in this arrangement. The fascinating thing was how much ownership the students have over their learning. They all knew exactly what was expected of them the entire year. They knew exactly how they were doing at any point. Their job was to learn the material. If they could get the work done during the school day there was no homework. So it was up to the individual students to make those decisions.
You say “the teacher’s job is totally different in this arrangement.” Were teachers learning on the job? Did you see any challenges in terms of educating teachers to use the Flex model?
The teachers I spoke to explained that they had been trained to do lesson planning, lectures to large groups of students and classroom management — none of which they were now doing. They explained that the adjustment was difficult. Training has not been built into the formal teacher training system for programs like this, and few are really thinking about it at the moment. Ahora, the teacher is still doing teaching or tutoring when pulling students out into small groups for project-based work, but instead of this being determined by a pacing guide, this is now being determined by where the students are in their learning. What was so interesting was that in this model, teachers were able to do the tutoring and value enrichment work that teachers really like to do but don’t always get time to do in a classroom. One of the challenges the teachers mentioned was staying on top of scheduling. How do you keep track when you have students at different places in the curriculum? Those were tough decisions for teachers to make and they were, as you say, learning on the job.
What feedback did you get from the students in terms of being motivated to learn?
A number of students said to me: “Last night I was so bored. It was a three-day weekend and I decided to jump on my computer and do some math.” So I said, “You decided to jump on during the weekend and do math?” One student explained she thought it was fun to go on and get ahead a little bit. When I asked them if they ever did that in their old school model, they replied, “Not a chance!” When students own their learning, they feel responsible for it and motivated to do it. What they also appreciated was that the teacher was no longer there to “punish them” o “grade them down”. Instead the teacher was there to help them reach their goal. This is much more of an environment built around success and motivation versus failure.
How far can online learning in blended systems go towards leveling the playing field for different types of learners?
En el momento, it appears that the sky is the limit but we also don’t fully know. Because online learning allows for modularity, it can in theory customize learning for each student’s individual needs. Sin embargo, we are just in the early days of leveraging this as well as leveraging the enormous amounts of data we can receive in real-time about how a student is doing, which should allow us to adapt our approaches in exciting ways also in real time for each child. Today we’ve grasped the power of online learning to individualize for students, particularly those struggling ones, along the dimension of pace. But we haven’t come close to grasping the power to vary the paths for students.
Brezo, what do you believe is the effectiveness of a blended learning school versus a brick and mortal school and versus a school that uses some tech but is not blended?
By many measures, America’s traditional brick-and-mortar classroom model is failing. El Programa para la Evaluación Internacional de los Alumnos (PISA) en 2009 ranked U.S. students as 14th in reading, 25th in math, and 17th in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. One cause of this underperformance is that the system is inflexible. Students move through grade levels in standardized batches and monolithic curricula, regardless of how each child learns best. School leaders often think technology will help. They add bling with electronic whiteboards, iPads, and digital lesson plans, but none of these on its own transforms the factory structure. The attraction of blending online learning into schools is that online learning allows for modularity. It can customize around the learning pathway each student follows, who teaches them, and how fast they master each concept. Several schools are already delivering highly customized blended-learning environments, and the results are promising.
Michael, what challenges do you see with blended learning systems?
I think one challenge is executing it well. I think the changing role of the teacher is profoundly challenging. It is unfair that a huge percentage of what teachers have been taught is irrelevant in this learning environment. The beauty of this system is that computers are able to do what computers do well. Humans are freed up to do what humans do best.
I also think the assessment system that we have in place in schools is a problem for this learning system going forward. Assessment needs to be based on where each individual child started and then grew to and finally ended up in a particular year, versus a snapshot once a year view of an entire school.
For more information on the Innosight Institute: http://www.innosightinstitute.org/
Photos courtesy of Silicon Valley Flex Academy and Stern + Asociados.
En La Búsqueda Global para la Educación, unirse a mí y reconocidos a nivel mundial los líderes de opinión, incluyendo a Sir Michael Barber (Reino Unido), DR. Michael Bloquear (Estados Unidos), DR. Leon Botstein (Estados Unidos), Profesor Clay Christensen (Estados Unidos), DR. Linda Darling-Hammond (Estados Unidos), DR. Madhav Chavan (India), El profesor Michael Fullan (Canada), El profesor Howard Gardner (Estados Unidos), Profesor Yvonne Hellman (Países Bajos), Profesor Kristin Helstad (Noruega), Jean Hendrickson (Estados Unidos), Profesor Rose Hipkins (Nueva Zelanda), Profesor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Señora. Chantal Kaufmann (Bélgica), DR. Eija Kauppinen (Finlandia), Secretario de Estado Tapio Kosunen (Finlandia), Profesor Dominique Lafontaine (Bélgica), El profesor Hugh Lauder (Reino Unido), Profesor Ben Levin (Canada), Profesor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Profesor R. Natarajan (India), DR. PAK NG (Singapur), DR. Denise Papa (Estados Unidos), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), DR. Diane Ravitch (Estados Unidos), Sir Ken Robinson (Reino Unido), Profesor Pasi Sahlberg (Finlandia), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OCDE), DR. Anthony Seldon (Reino Unido), DR. David Shaffer (Estados Unidos), DR. Kirsten Immersive Are (Noruega), Canciller Stephen Spahn (Estados Unidos), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais EE.UU.), Profesor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Profesor Tony Wagner (Estados Unidos), Sir David Watson (Reino Unido), Profesor Dylan Wiliam (Reino Unido), DR. Marcos Wormald (Reino Unido), Profesor Theo Wubbels (Países Bajos), El profesor Michael Young (Reino Unido), y el profesor Zhang Minxuan (De China) a medida que exploran las cuestiones de educación cuadro grande que todas las naciones se enfrentan hoy. La Búsqueda Global para la Educación Comunitaria Página
C. M. Rubin es el autor de dos ampliamente leído serie en línea por la que recibió un 2011 Premio Upton Sinclair, “La Búsqueda Global para la Educación” y “¿Cómo vamos a Leer?” Ella es también el autor de tres libros más vendidos, Incluido The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Comentarios recientes