Reflections after the first week – Blended Learning

We survived. We survived our first week in a 1:1 BYOD Blended Learning initiative. All of our grade 9’s brought their own devices (laptop or tablet with a keyboard). It was a chaotic, hectic, crazy week for sure. I would say for many teachers we got “less” done this week in terms of student work, but that we are further ahead in setting up the culture of our classes. The student work I have seen appears to be very creative and collaborative so far (animations about acceptable use, digital collages, collaborative brainstorming,  digital or paper timelines of life plans).

I have a learning strategies class that is mostly boys. It is the nicest, kindest group of young adults I have ever met. Just fabulous. I had the opportunity to call the parents of these students yesterday and tell them how wonderful our first week was and I could hear the relief in the parents voices. The exasperated, large sigh of “thank you” coming from the other end of the phone. We often forget how stressful the first week of high school is for the support system behind our grade 9’s as well. Teenage boys are often poor communicators when asked “how was your day?”. “Fine” can often be the extent of the response. Parents can sometimes struggle to really get a grasp on how their students are adjusting to high school.

On Thursday I asked my class if they would be open to accepting a request from the life skills language teacher (Mrs. Fernandez), to use our class as “communication buddies” on Friday. Her class had been practicing some communication skills and were practicing introducing themselves to people and asking how others were doing. My class enthusiastically responded that YES! they would love to work with the life skills class.

It was a quick activity on Friday. The class came in for about 10 minutes. Students worked at tables with a few of my students and one life skills student who directed the conversation. My class yet again proved that they are the kindest, gentlest, most thoughtful, caring group of students I have ever met. There was respect dripping from the classroom.

This activity really had me considering what “blended learning” is. It certainly had me comparing what would have been lost in a purely eLearning course. Face-to-face social interactions are so very important in the development of teens. Throughout our course we will be doing many activities around diversity and differences. Today they demonstrated the skills of recognizing strengths in those with differences to ourselves in a face-to-face environment. I was very proud of my students’ leadership. As we build on the theme throughout the semester, we will take these skills and blend them into online environments as well. These environments will include open social media conversations, closed environments where classes from around the world are collaborating and video conferencing with people around the world.

2 comments

  • Building culture is as important as learning “content” as it as an investment that brings rich returns – thank you for reminding me of that !

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *