Thursday, October 3, 2019

Blended Learning: It's All in the Timing! ⏰

U.S. News and World Report stated in 2009 that thirty percent of college students drop out after their first year and half never graduate.  You might be wondering why this number is so large.  We are trying to up the rigor in K-12 to prepare our kids for college.  We are pushing AP classes and dual credit, so what's the deal?  Although we are doing all of this, we are still missing one big piece of the equation.  We send our students off to college to live by themselves for the first time ever and we've never taught them any time management skills.  This is where blended learning can be the hero if we do it right.

I've talked to a lot of teachers who are implementing blended learning in their classrooms and the number one complaint that I hear is that the kids aren't doing their work.  Let's examine this more
Image from 123RF.com
closely.  Our kids are used to a school environment where we tell them when and how to do everything.  Think about it.  We tell them when they can go to the bathroom, when to be in class, when they need to sit, when they can move around the classroom and the list goes on and on.  When we throw kids into a blended scenario, suddenly we are not telling our student when and how to do everything anymore.  So, I wonder... are our kids ready to suddenly manage everything on their own?  In some cases, yes, but in many cases the answer is no.  Time management skills become very important in a blended learning classroom because we are putting so much responsibility on the kids to take ownership of their own learning.

Let's take a look at some ways that we can help our kids be more successful at managing time.  First,
you as the teacher need to be organized and have dates and assignments ready ahead of time.  By making sure that you are able to provide students with important deadlines as far in advance as possible you will be setting students up to be able to manage their time wisely.  I know this sounds like a tall order because we can't really be planning months in advance if we are expected to use data to drive instruction, right?  Let me give you some examples of what I mean by this.  One this that helps students is by having a consistent pattern to follow.  For example, if you are going to have students post to a discussion board, then make sure to have the original posts always due on the same day of the week.  How do you choose what day of the week to make them due?  How about asking your students and letting them choose which day works best for them.  Then students can make sure to plan their week according to when work is typically due.  For example, if you have a student who plays basketball and they know that they have a game every Tuesday night and their discussion post is also due every Tuesday night they can plan ahead to avoid the conflict.

Image from 123RF.com
Teachers being organized for the students will definitely help, but it won't completely fix the problem.  I want you to consider your own life for just a moment.  How do you organize your life?  How do you know when you are supposed to be somewhere or do something?  For example, how do you know when you scheduled your haircut appointment?  I know what I do!  EVERYTHING gets entered into the calendar app on my phone.  I have my personal Google calendar, my work Outlook calendar and Yahoo calendar all connected together through this one app.  Every single thing I do gets entered here.  If I have a work appointment, it's there.  If I have a vet appointment for one of my dogs, it's there.  What happens if something slips through the cracks and I forget to put it on the calendar?  I'm sure you all know the answer to that one.  It doesn't happen.  If this is the way that we as adults operate, shouldn't we be teaching these skills to our blended learning students (or really all students) so that they can stay organized for their class, but really so that they can learn this incredibly important life skill.  If you would take some time to talk to students about choosing a calendar system to use - whether it be a phone app, a spiral daily planner or the built-in calendar on your LMS - students could start planning for time management success.  Then just take a couple minutes each class day or once a week to encourage students to make sure everything is entered in their calendar and their alerts are set.  Look how easy that is to provide students with a lifelong skill to organize their life!


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