Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto: Relationships and Data in a Blended Learning Experience

There's a line in the song Mr. Roboto... 


🎶 The problem's plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines, de-humanize 🎶

Many of us, including myself, once derided cold data's "over use" because it seemed to dehumanize the student.  My son, Charlie, for example, is more than his STAAR score or IQ or whatever... Grades are incredibly subjective by nature, especially if you consider what gets weighted more and what gets weighted less.

Which is a TRUER indicator of student learning: homework grades, test grades, standardized tests, conversations, exit tickets???  Further, how do we weigh those assessments so that the final number is a true indicator of the student's actual understanding???  UGH!!!

But... the aforementioned data CAN help refine a process to help scaffold learning to push my son to achievement more than he is currently.  Data can help teachers create personalized learning experiences that create greater engagement and frame the learning.

Data is a tool for learning, not the goal of learning.

As you've read through these blog posts, we certainly hope that you've picked up on a concept that some supporters of blended learning under emphasize.  Namely, at the core of the personalized learning experience that blended learning affords is the duality that data tracking and conversations can inform and build relationships and relationships help guide student achievement via data analysis.

The benefits to implementing blended learning lessons, those that incorporate student/teacher analysis of data in order to personalize the learning experience via flexibility in pace, place, path, time are aplenty.  Did I just use the 1930's farmer term "aplenty" in a blended learning blog?  You betcha buttons I did!

Those benefits, which include higher student engagement on tasks, higher student achievement, further development of future ready skills, and so on, are rooted in how teachers prepare for student learning via breakdown of data.  The data, formative or summative, can take on the guise of exit tickets, quizzes, exams, discussions, and other assessments.  In our Blended Learning Academy, we work with teachers on the idea that none of their old quizzes or exams need to be thrown out when blended.  They simply need to be re-purposed.  The exam, for example, can now be used as both a pre-assessment and post-assessment to gauge growth in a blended lesson.

In one of our recent Blended Learning Academies for administrators, Shelly and I did an immersive activity.  Our participants were immersed in a blended lesson that focused on federalism.  We gave them a pre-test on the topic with 5 fairly basic questions.  Used the responses to group our participants.  Each group was then put at one of three stations.  Station 1 was with me, the government teacher where I would walk them through the concept of federalism, introduce relevant topics, and assess via high level questions all the way through.  Station 2 had participants researching five Supreme Court cases that dealt with federalism disputes between the state and national governments.  They were asked on an instruction card to look for patterns and talk about those patterns.  Station 3 had students discussing in small groups what a future federalism court case or issue might be.  They had to talk about the future possibilities and come to a consensus on the topic and how the Supreme Court might rule.

Each group's size was determined by the participants performance on the pre-assessment (the session average was a 65).  The participants who scored higher on the assessment were given more autonomy, the middle group had a scaffolded exercise to guide them, and the lower group was with me, the teacher.  We also rotated.  The first rotation was longer since I wanted to the lower scorers to stay with me a bit longer.  The second rotation was a little shorter. The third rotation was about as long as the second.

We then pulled the group back together after the rotations and had them take the post test.  The session average at that point was a 95 with the lowest grade being a 60 and the next lowest being an 80 and every else scoring a 100.

We then all debriefed, first, about federalism and the lessons we had learned.  Second, we talked about the station rotation model that we used and how it could be co-opted into a variety of classes and resource rich or poor circumstances.

All of these conversations were centered around the particular types of data we had collected.  Pre quiz, post quiz, conversations, peer to peer reflections, and even body language.

At the end of the day, participants stayed behind to talk and the conversations tended to gravitate to that lesson and how the data drove the experience and the experience was a social one where learning occurred at high level.  The participants were very friendly with me, the teacher, and we all felt social connections, but to be honest I didn't ask them at any point about their favorite color or food or where they grew up.  Our social bond presented itself as a tangent to the data break down and my scaffolding of their learning experience.  They learned something new and seemed exhilarated by the experience and felt a social connection to me... but that social connection was steeped in the content and data.  I hope that makes sense.

The data in essence gave the context to a rich learning experience that allowed us to bond over the discovery of surprising facts about federalism.

So in the blended learning environment, data is not an end in and of itself.  The data is used to personalize the learning experience for each student so that they can achieve greater heights in F2F and online modalities.  The two worlds blend better together when data informs what needs to be online and what needs to be face to face.  Relationships grow because student's dendrites are being excited by experiencing success that is hand crafted (by their own hands hopefully) especially for them.  The analysis of data answers the question how should I teach, what should I teach, what should go online, what should be small group, what should be whole group, and so on.

Me gusta data. 🤖❤️

To Flip or Not To Flip - Part 2

     Let's dive back into the flipped classroom and see how it works with the last two components of our blended learning model.
     When people think about the flipped classroom, they generally envision the teacher assigning one video for everyone in the class to watch at some point that night.  Although there is nothing innately wrong with this, there are so many other possibilities to use flipped classroom as a way to offer flexible pathways.  Let's take a look at one example.  As the teacher, instead of giving my students one video to watch, I'm going to offer different options based on levels of readiness and preferred modalities.  I'm going to offer 3 different learning levels.  You could name them something like novice, intermediate and expert levels.  At each level, you can offer students different ways to learn such as videos, articles, or even pages from the textbook.  Then let the kids choose how they want to learn and at what level.  Maybe I have no idea what a ratio is, so I start at the novice level and watch a video.  After I finish the 3 minute introduction to ratios, I want to learn more so I move up to the intermediate level.  This time I choose to read the corresponding pages in the textbook, and I can also watch the video if I want. I can choose to stop there or I can go on to the advanced level and become an expert in ratios.  Meanwhile, another student already learned ratios previously, so they might start at the intermediate level watching a quick video for a quick refresher then move on to become an expert.  Now students are able to choose their own learning path while the teacher works to support, reinforce and challenge students as they move through this journey.

Image from Meme Generator

     Finally, let's dig in and look at how data really ties all of this together in the flipped classroom environment.  I know what you might be thinking at this point.  So, all my students are out watching videos and reading articles in class, out of class... all over the place.  How will I ever know what's going on?  This is where data comes in.  Teachers still need to keep tabs on their kids to see if they are actually learning.  Using available tools such as quizzes in your LMS and online sites such EdPuzzle or PlayPosit will allow you to continually gather data each day to see which students have mastered the concepts and which students have not.  This is where all that free time you created for yourself comes into play.  If you give students a quiz as part of their flipped learning experience, then you can check the quiz grades each day.  This will guide you as you make decisions on who needs to meet with the teacher in a small group for reteaching on the concept and who can continue working at their own pace as they are progressing along nicely.  One word of caution, make sure to find time to meet even just for a few minutes with all students so that you can continue to build relationships with everyone.  The only difference is that what you do in the small group might look different.  If I pull a group of student who performed poorly on today's quiz, then I will be working to find out where misconceptions lie and reteaching the concept.  Then I might pull a group of students who scored very high on the quiz.  With this group I would challenge their thinking, ask high level Bloom's questions to make them think critically and maybe even assign them a challenging task or problem to solve.
     By combining all the elements of blended learning with flipped classroom experiences, you can offer students personalized learning experiences, establish better relationship through small group and individual interactions and not go home exhausted every night.

To Flip or Not To Flip - Part 1

   

Image from 123rf

     Let's face it. People either love the flipped classroom or they hate it. I'm right there with you. I was there trying out flipped right from the beginning.  I went to all the sessions about it at EdCamps all over Texas.  I learned all the "dos and don'ts" of how to do flipped such as make sure to quiz students over their flipped videos, punish those who don't watch, do activities in class, etc.  Well, some things worked for me and some didn't and some I just flat out didn't agree with.  Does this mean that I decided to throw the whole strategy out?  No!  I tried it out, some things worked and some things didn't,  but I kept at it and tweaked as I went.  There's no flipped classroom police that will arrest you if you don't follow all the "rules of flipped classroom."  So, I did what worked for me.
     You might be wondering why I'm even bringing up the flipped classroom in the first place.  Well, flipped classroom is one of the models in blended learning and it can be a really great place to dive in to blended learning if you are just starting out; however, I've seen it done well and it gave students tons of flexibility and really allowed for personalized learning, and I've also seen it done poorly where there is no real benefit to the classroom.  So, let's talk a little bit about how we can make flipped meaningful and beneficial to you and your students.
     Let's take a look at flipped learning through the blended learning lens.  Using the blended learning graphic, we'll start out by looking at flexibility in time.  The idea of flipped learning is that the teacher assigns a video to the students to watch at home before returning to class the next day.  The video replaces typical lecture and the students are ready to jump right into activities where they can apply what they learned in the video.  This seems like sort of a no-brainer when it comes to flexibility in time, right?  Students can watch the video anytime they want after school, at night, or in the morning before school, so what's the problem?  The biggest complaint that I hear about this set-up from teachers is what happens if my kids don't watch the video?  What if they don't have internet access at home?  Instead of letting these things become a problem that prevents you from trying out this model, let's think about how we can adapt to make this a win-win for everyone.  Here's my argument.  Flipped videos are supposed to be a maximum of 3-5 minutes long.  We are not talking about hour long lecture videos.  What if a student couldn't watch the video at home and they come to class?  Why can't they just pick up a device and watch the video for 3 minutes?  What's that you say?  We can't allow students to do this.  Then everyone will do this.  Now, let me ask you this?  Why is it so bad to give them the freedom to watch the video at home or in class?  Is it going to completely ruin your class if some students take 3 minutes of class time to watch the video?  I dare say no.  I gave students this freedom and it became more like on-demand learning.  Some students watched at home, some watched at the beginning of class and some watched at a later point in class when they needed the information.  This became a wonderful set up that allowed students to access help and instruction when they needed it.  They could watch a video more than once or even stop and start while they are working alongside the video.  The best part for me as the teacher was that I was now freed up to help students who needed extra help either individually or in small groups.  The years that I did this in my classroom were probably my favorite and I would say more students learned more that year than students in other years.

Image from Meme Generator

     Now that we've got the time issue worked out, let's take a look at place.  Offering students some sort of flipped experience, which by the way doesn't have to only be a video, gives students 24/7 access to learning.  No longer is the learning confined to the classroom on a specific day at a specific time and if you miss it, then tough luck.  Let's hope you never get sick!  Now, students that are sick can still keep up with the lessons in class and you don't get bombarded with questions at the beginning of class such as did we do anything yesterday?  Think about all the reasons students miss class - vacations, school sponsored activities, ISS, etc.  Now if kids miss your class for any reason, they have the flipped experience to guide them in their learning rather than depending on you, the teacher.
     Finally let's take a look at pace.  Thinking back to every class I ever had, (and there were a lot of them) I had students that needed me to go faster in my teaching, those that needed me to go slower and those that liked my pace the way it was.  I'm sure this is true for every teacher in America.  If I'm standing in front of the classroom teaching a lesson to the whole group, there is only one of me.  I can only go at one pace so I'm only meeting the needs of about 1/3 of my students.  That means the other 2/3 of my students are either bored or lost and confused.  By using the flipped classroom model, you can provide students with scaffolded lessons that they can access on their own when they need it.  What if we are talking about prepositional phrases, but I'm confused because I don't remember what a preposition is.  Now as a student, I can return back to a previous video or other learning experience about prepositions to refresh my memory, then I can return back to the current lesson.  While there is usually only 1 teacher in a classroom, this becomes a problem if you are teaching everything whole group.  But, if you are using the flipped model, students have many resources to help them learn what they need, essentially multiplying the teacher and also freeing that same teacher up to work with individuals that really need some one-on-one instruction and guidance to clear up confusion or further challenge them.
     So far we've looked at 3 of the 5 components of blended learning in this blog post.  Check back in next week when we look at flipped classroom can add flexibility to path as well as how we can continue to collect and use data to guide learning.