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Blended learning, when students larn both from a instructor and from online programs, has become a pop choice for schools around the country.  In 2009, 3 million k-12 students took and online course, upwards from 45,000 ix years prior, co-ordinate to a report by the Clayton Christensen Establish for Confusing Innovation. In large urban districts and rural schools alike, teachers and principals are turning to computers and iPads to requite students a risk to work through material at their own pace.

Blended learning
Anthony Kim

At present that blended learning is more common place, what's side by side for the trend? The Hechinger Report talked to Anthony Kim, CEO and founder of Education Elements, a group that helps schools and districts utilise blending learning models, to find out.

Q: What'southward happening now in blended learning classrooms and what will the next large shift be?

A: In the by, what we've seen are individual schools implementing schoolhouse models. What I call up the side by side evolution of blended learning is districts or networks of schools thinking of how to scale this. Information technology's not merely kind of just replicating the same model, but it's really having multiple versions of that that'due south suitable for dissimilar types of teachers' skills and students' skills, and also building district level chapters to support these implementations.

We're just starting to hear more about, instead of districts saying, 'Hey I want to do this at i school and endeavor it out," we hear from districts saying, 'I demand to do this at ten to 20 schools at a time.' We need to have the sustainability of supporting this kind of scroll out.

What are some of the nearly important factors that a district, when they're trying to do this on a wide scale needs to take into account?

They demand to consider the continuum of teachers' skills and where the teachers are at in terms of their power to have something like this on. It varies. In that location's teachers out there that are doing really intense project-based learning and able to utilise data on ane end of the spectrum.  In that location are teachers on the other end that are lecturing and doing whole grouping instruction and uncomfortable with pocket-sized group instruction. The designs for a district actually need to support that whole continuum.

What would support for the instructor who is uncomfortable with small group educational activity expect like?

Permit's say a school might exist doing classroom rotation, which is breaking upward a class into small-scale groups. If you're uncomfortable, you might get-go with two groups rotation. You have 30 kids in the classroom. You have two groups of xv students. Half of them are working on the computer, one-half of them are working with the teacher and they rotate. That might be an easy fashion to get comfortable.

An elementary school instructor, for instance, that'south already used to doing station-based instruction, they could probably comfortable handle three, four groups at a fourth dimension with students rotating every xv minutes. A high-schoolhouse Algebra I teacher might exist really uncomfortable with having four groups of students doing something unlike in that time.

How do schools make certain they're using engineering science in a worthwhile manner, versus using technology for the sake of using it?

The way we help schools think most it is looking at against Flower'southward Taxonomy [a set of educational goals developed in the 1950s]. The lowest levels are remembering and understanding, and it goes applying and analyzing and and then evaluating and creating at the top. Often times when you ask teachers what are they doing every 24-hour interval, a lot of them practice feel like they're at the lower level of Bloom's Taxonomy, which is helping students call back and empathise. A lot of the technology the online commitment systems of instruction are too at that level of remembering and understanding. They introduce a topic through a video. They ask students to take a test. If you lot get it wrong, there's some practice questions. Very few of them say, 'Hey go out and create this projection, show it to me and I'm going to grade it.'

What we have to practice is help teachers empathize that they have to move their practice upwards on Bloom's Taxonomy so that the engineering tin can actually support what they're doing at remembering and understanding so that they don't have to practice that any longer. The minute y'all are able to explicate that and convince them of their part, they start to capeesh technology as support for didactics and non a threat. There's a lot of folks that talk about, 'We want teachers to be the facilitator and not the sage on the phase.' But that doesn't explain enough about what the teacher is doing. It still degrades what they're doing. What I call back is helpful is when you lot kickoff talking well-nigh teachers actually helping students create and clarify and use.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Sarah Butrymowicz oversees and contributes to The Hechinger Report's investigative and information work covering all levels of pedagogy, from early childhood to G-12 to college education. She has worked at...