Blended Learning Training: Start With a Community of Practitioners?
Teacher Melissa Meyers makes a powerful argument for blended learning in Bob Lenz’s blog post, From the Classroom: What Does Blending Learning Look Like?
Yet, her conclusion does not quite work for me. She sums up her argument with this:
Technology is certainly worth the hype, but it will remain only empty, extravagant claims if teachers aren’t trained to use it effectively and aren’t as enthusiastic — and evolved — as their students already are. It’s time to play catch-up.
I don’t think we can simply “train” our way to greatness.
Yes, teachers need help understanding how to effectively teach in a blended learning model. But I have very low expectations for any kind of formal “training” effort. It seems to me early adopters just need to model the behaviors, share the tools and techniques, and if/when teachers are ready to teach in a new way then the “training program” is an authentic, experimental interaction with the community of practitioners. Most of us learn new things as needed—because they are needed—not by going back to a training class.
Thus, I am with Melissa that success will come with enthusiastic evolution of our practices—but I think that happens in a very different way than a traditional “training” model.
What do you think? Does your school or district offer a formal training program for blending learning or is it more organic? What do you think is most effective? If you incorporate blending learning in your classroom where have you received your “training?”
Tags: education technology, Edutopia, Melissa Meyers, professional development
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at 7:29 am and is filed under 21st century learning, Blended Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
5 Responses to “Blended Learning Training: Start With a Community of Practitioners?”
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I’m doing a “training” tomorrow. This blog post will be the first link on my training page. I think it will be interesting for my MBC users to see what the CEO has to say. I agree with him!
Shawna: You know I always love it when you agree w/ me!
Thank you for the feedback.
Joel,
You’ve accomplished something that I haven’t been able to do in almost 14 years…get Shawna to agree to something I said…just kidding.
On a serious note, I too agree that just having a traditional training type of format will not work. This revolution is not about just teaching someone how to use a computer or a tablet device. This is about revolutionizing the pedagogy in which teachers teach by teaching them (through modeling and sharing how it works for us) how to integrate and embed the technology in the day to day operations in their classroom.
For us (SCSD2), the best format has been small group “training” or even individualized training sessions. That intense attention has helped more teachers catch fire and be willing to try to begin to experiment with tech integration in their classrooms. We feel that we now have a mass momentum movement in the areas where we have technology readily available.
I’m going to brag on our staff here at SCSD2 but I feel like we have a lot going on and are one of the leading districts around in our technology integration and pedagogical changes in curriculum and instruction! That is a hats off to my staff here in Scott County, Indiana!!
Thanks for the feedback, Marc.
Let us know if you or your outstanding team needs any help from our end!
I just came across this post whilst browsing, but it did strike somewhat of a chord for me. In Scotland, over the past six years, we’ve spent millions of pounds on national training, trickled down via our local education authorities, all to try to promote use of the schools national intranet, GLOW. Its been, on the whole, an abject failure for two reasons: Firstly, the technology was fixed in time and fundamentally flawed in design which was so complex, it did actually need a training programme of sorts. To my mind, if its not intuitive and can’t be understood by twenty minutes of playing about with it, then teachers will just give up, as they simply don’t have the time. It needs a Facebook factor ease of use built in to the design as a prerequisite for success. But the second flaw lead on from the first. Teachers need to be able to see a use for the technology. It must add value to learning and teaching. As has been said many times before, its about the teach not the tech! Somewhat of a cliché perhaps, but true all the same.
If the technology really adds value, then word will spread throughout the many communities of practice and professional learning networks. I see this all the time; even do a conference presentation on it. But the best trainers of technology are the kids we teach… that’s my thought for the day on this post anyway