It's been an exciting and exhausting back-to-school, perhaps more than any of my other ten Septembers in this great profession. A lot of the extra energy and stress is due to my new assignment: I'm teaching in a blended format full-time.
Isn't that exciting?! I was so energized by the blended experience in our Pilot 1.0 last spring that I couldn't really imagine going back to "the old way"; however, the reality of managing what amounts to not only two new preps, but an entirely different way of managing content, assessment, and community... It's A LOT! A whole big pile of exciting LOT.
As an English department and a district, we found enough GOOD in our pilot last spring to expand from 79 participant students to about 250 this fall. We're adding a teacher, too, so I'm not alone in this blended boat. I'm also about a hundred times more prepared to tackle this challenge because of some work and learning I did over the summer with an Ed Tech/ARRA grant project. I feel like I'm finally making the cognitive switch to truly teaching online, rather than just adapting my existing assignments and activities to be accessible online.
Here are some of my observations from our first two weeks:
1. It's really hard to explain a blended course, especially on day one when at least half of my population didn't realize they'd opted IN to our Pilot 2.0. It takes a few days of thinking and talking, and then a few days of actually practicing the flexible attendance schedule, to understand what it means to be in this type of course. Right now, we're still in the stage where some think that they'll have less work, or that they can afford to wait until the last minute to do their English assignments because they're only "due" once per week. The students that I have for a second year - the ones that were in Pilot 1.0 - have a better sense of things. And I'm really relying on their leadership.
2. I can already see the benefits of having the time and flexibility to meet with kids in small groups and one-on-one. In last year's pilot, I had kids write weekly reflections about how things were going. This year, I replaced the weekly reflections with one-on-one meetings that kids will have with me once every three weeks. I had my first set of meetings today, and it was SO NICE to be able to sit with those 30 kids to talk about initial impressions, questions, goals, and dispositions. I love the way a blended class offers me the luxury of building more meaningful working relationships with my students. It fits directly into one of the most exciting parts about blended learning for me: teaching is finally collaborative. I'm finally allowed to share power with my students. Their experiences and suggestions and questions shape my content design more directly than they did when I had the added pressure of managing a room full of 30+ kids.
So, I guess that's where I'll start! I'm happy and excited! I'm busy and stressed! And I'm also looking forward to using this blog as a space to reflect on and share my practice!
