These really are exciting times that we are living in. Never before has it been possible to reach so many students in so many ways. As humans, we are very visually oriented. We respond to what we see. We make sense of the world by looking around, making judgements, decisions, based on that information that we perceive.
This is one reason that many classrooms have been so teacher driven. Teachers can provide a focal point. A good teacher directs the attention of the students when and where it is needed. Teachers used the tools at hand to do just that. A blackboard allows for all students to see the same thing at the same time. This eventually morphed into the overhead projector. This allowed the teacher to focus the attention of the students while maintaining eye contact. The teacher was able to direct the learning and evaluate as the lesson was under way. What a powerful concept. However, that doesn’t scale well. It lead to teaching to the middle.
Carol Tomlinson and others made a push for differentiated instruction. Who could argue with that? Well, at least until it came time to actual differentiate instruction. Turns out that creating multiple pathways for students can take a time. A lot of time. A really, really lot of time. That wasn’t time invested, it was time spent. Teachers who do a really excellent job of differentiating instruction (and there are some out there), tend to put in a lot of time. Now, most teachers put in a lot of time. I’m talking about 6:00am-8:00pm at school kind of time. It just isn’t a model that seems to be able to be spread far and wide successfully. Yet, I’m excited about Blended Learning and the ability to differentiate instruction. Why?
Blended Learning allows teachers to leverage work. It still means a lot of work. However, it is work that is invested. Not just in the kids in front of the teachers right then, but invested into the future as well. Blended Learning allows teachers to reuse, remix, share, steal, borrow, leverage, etc, the work of creating resources. This work isn’t just for that one class (or one student), but becomes a resource for future classes and students as well.
Blended Learning classrooms now allow teachers to use video easily. This feeds the visual needs of students. The students who need to see the presentation again, can do so. It has never been as easy as it is right now to create video recording that are available for students. And it will only get easier. This allows teachers to create those resources and provide them to the students. This has been a generating force for “flipped classrooms”. But it really goes beyond that. Visually, we can now easily video conference (and this will get even easier). That means that we can take students to places that we never could before. They can see what a place looks like. They can talk to students from other places with the full visual queues that humans instinctively rely on. It also means that we can use video that others have created.
Blended Learning classrooms can do so much more than that. But that focus alone is super powerful. Creating visually intensive opportunities for kids. Grabbing the attention of a student. Focusing their attention in a biologically supported way. All these are powerful options.
Yes, we are on the precipice of fundamental change. These are exciting times. There will be some struggles as we move forward. But just think about what we can do.
