According to the Christensen Institute, "Blended learning is defined as a formal education program in which a student learns:
The majority of blended-learning programs resemble one of four models: Rotation, Flex, A La Carte, and Enriched Virtual. The Rotation model includes four sub-models: Station Rotation, Lab Rotation, Flipped Classroom, and Individual Rotation."
Contrary to the misconception about blended learning being a strategy for computers to replace teachers, BetterLesson believes that blended learning helps to sustain and retain them by shifting teaching paradigms and making teaching and learning more personalized. Positive experiences attributed to blended learning are largely attributable to four main features of teaching in a blended environment:
Why it's important
Today, most classrooms, workplaces, and even homes are truly blended environments, in which participants are expected to interact seamlessly with digital, human, and analog tools and resources. The proliferation of educational software, apps, and hardware has made it more important than ever for educators to be supported in making critical instructional decisions around how to best leverage these options in order to personalize instruction and help students develop the digital literacy skills they need to be successful in the 21st century. At the same time, almost none of the 3.5 million teachers in the United States were educated in a personalized learning environment, and a very small percentage of teachers had the opportunity to be trained in blended and personalized learning strategies in their pre-service preparation. Therefore, there is significant urgency for teachers to learn how to integrate high quality human-to-human teaching strategies with technology-enabled learning. Effective blended classrooms hold the potential to revolutionize the way that teachers teach and students learn.
What success looks like
In classrooms in which a blended classroom design is fully implemented:
BetterLesson Blog Posts:
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