A year ago, I was feverishly planning for Blended Pilot 1.0. I had four sub days to figure out attendance schedules, workloads, safeguards, rationales, tech tools, and communications strategies. I'd never logged onto Moodle. I was totally overwhelmed. Excited, but overwhelmed.
Now (and I can't believe I'm going to type this out loud - surely I'm tempting some kind of nasty classroom fate), things are totally under control. I feel like I know what I'm doing.
Here are some recent highlights:
I have a new way of grading papers that's both saved me a lot of time, and I think provided better feedback to kids. Because they hand their papers in online, I read them online. I keep a notepad by me while I read and jot comments in shorthand. When I'm finished with the paper, I write five-six complete sentences about their work. I type this text directly into the space for comments on our online gradebook. My compliments and criticisms are clear, and the kids and I have access to them forever. My son's first-grade teacher told me that she learned in a professional development seminar that the first thing a teacher says in the writing conference is the one the kid remembers most. So, I always begin with a compliment or a statement of confidence in the student's potential.
My colleague Elizabeth Barniskis and I gave a well-received presentation to the teaching staff about blended learning.
Here's what I thought was cool: we know WHY we're doing what we're doing. Besides the logistical and scheduling benefits, and of course the novelty of "not having to come to class," we can explain why and how blended learning addresses 21st century skills. I also like that Elizabeth put "Teaching in a Participatory Culture" in the center of our skills circle, because developing and nurturing an environment of respect, sincerity, and scholarship is so vital to what we're doing. Henry Jenkins says that a participatory culture (in this case, English Class), has low barriers to expression, utilizes informal mentorship, and makes people feel like their contributions matter to the group. I think the projects we engage in and the work we do really does foster that, especially because kids are making and sharing media with each other and the world.
Mass Media is better and smoother than last semester. In the fall, I was (mostly) keeping my head afloat teaching a senior elective. I'd never taught seniors AND never taught an elective. I LOVED starting over at the semester with a new group of kids. And this is where Moodle has saved my life - I really like being able to reuse the modules that worked well and easily hide or edit those that didn't. I've heard a few complaints that my project-based class is "harder" than the traditional version of Mass Media; however, I think the attendance schedule (F2F Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; online Tuesday and Friday), still makes the course appealing. Next year, all of the sections of Mass Media will be taught in this format - no more comparing the formats in terms of perceived difficulty.
So, all in all, I'm happy and the kids are happy. Bring on 4th Quarter!
