Since Covid-19 brought us experience of Lockdown, and with it all the difficulties of teaching and learning remotely, blended learning is becoming the buzz word and one of the answers to preparing better should another Lockdown happen. As they say, 'prepare for the worst and hope for the best'. Where blended learning is in place and routine, students have clear expectations of the way work is organised. This helps them to smoothly transition if they suddenly find themselves working from home, because what they see in front of them is something familiar in terms of the 'pattern' of learning for which the content is 'bolted on'. Such standardised leaning is not right for every situation, but it can have great benefits when it is appropriate.

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Teaching remotely will never provide the level of experience of having a teacher physically in front of a class. There can however, be other benefits from blended learning approaches that bring added value to lessons in school.  Blended learning approaches can be a 'win/win'. For example, if we provide homework tasks digitally which build students experience of collecting and returning homework through a digital platform such as Google Classroom or Class Charts (not bringing in the usual tatty bits of paper), they will have learnt an invaluable skills for remote learning. 

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Principles of instruction can be enhanced if we think about them in terms of preparing students for home learning. The worksheet template provided here, has been designed with consideration of the Rosenshine Principles of Instruction, taking in to account the cyclical and feedback loops that are a characteristic of lessons built for learning. Videos which model processes can be views repeated times (as well as being socially distanced viewing), unlike the teacher modelling for the class. Modelling for real is always the best. Having a video as well, reinforces learning and of course can be viewed remotely.

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Metacognition strategies can also support blended learning.  In order to do so, students need to be familiar with the organisation of their learning in school, and have the confidence to use that structure of organisation at home. For example, a standardised approach to student sel-evaluation helps learning and saves time. both in school and when learning at home.

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Blended learning - the benefits

• Enables learning and improved quality of outcomes when studying remotely

• Can improve classroom practice

• Links Homework to classroom learning making it more relevant and beneficial

• Enables any students off school with, for example illness, to continue their learning remotely

• Supports students development of metacognitive strategies 

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This page has more information explaining the principles of blended learning.

 

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