Blended Learning Can Be More Than Just Online Learning
Blended learning is helping to unshackle schools from the one-teacher one-classroom model and usher in more creative and diverse instructional approaches. Beyond just restructuring the classroom, blended-learning models are starting to open up new connections and diversify students’ networks. This has huge potential to address not just achievement gaps, but opportunity gaps.
Over the years, we’ve seen many blended-learning classrooms leverage software to differentiate and personalize learning pathways with greater precision and flexibility. Blended learning can be an engine that accelerates data-driven instruction to new heights. But a less-talked-about phenomenon is the possibility of blended learning multiplying the sources of content and experiences students turn to, including adults and experts beyond the four walls of the classroom.
In these models “school” is not just a building anymore and teachers are not the only adults with whom students can learn.
Behind this shift is a fundamental rethinking of the business model of teaching and learning. The rise of online learning marked the first phase of disruptive innovation relative to traditional classes.
In offering offline, networked experiences, blended schools can ultimately evolve from a model that has closed students off from the outside world to one in which students have unprecedented opportunities to connect with experts and mentors. A few examples illustrate this profound shift in architecture.
In one example of the facilitated network model, Summit Public Schools students cover core content knowledge online from a “playlist” consisting of a mix of teacher-created lessons and third-party content from providers like Khan Academy.
Blended-learning schools that are pursuing facilitated network learning models mix and match online content with offline learning experiences. In turn, these models are opening up the possibility for students to forge relationships beyond school as we know it.
Online courses are those in which at least 80 percent of course content is delivered online. Blended (sometimes called hybrid) instruction has between 30 and 80 percent of the course content delivered online with some face-to-face interaction. Blended and online courses not only change how content is delivered, they also redefine traditional educational roles and provide different opportunities for learning.