The TECHnical Teacher

When trying to master a new skill, it is always important to identify the motivation behind it. By doing this you are creating a clear message of what your intentions are and what your goal is. When exploring my innovation plan, this is something I had to become clear on. Why do I believe Blended Learning is a solution to help teachers increase student engagement and achievement? The COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for a lot of things and showed cracks on the surface of our society. Education was a large rift that appeared. Even though technology was making its way into the classroom, it was not ready to be the axis which the classroom revolved around. Once we returned to the classroom, we were forced into this makeshift version of blended learning. Teachers were still able to create amazing things because there are many innovative educators that passionately put their students first. But as the situation in the classroom starts to normalize, we are sliding back into old habits. Some of the things that were learned are at risk of being forgotten and this is the heart of my why. Technology is something that needs to be harnessed for good and can give us the power to take our classroom beyond its four walls. Teachers were not ready for this and they still are not, this is why we are sliding back into old habits. How can we fix this problem? Well, the obvious answer would be to provide more training for our teachers. This is on the right track, but we can’t just provide more hours, but we must take a look at what is happening during those hours.

The traditional sit and get model of current professional learning is not effective. Research has shown that typical 14-hour workshops that are typically used by schools had no effect on student learning and data showed that 10 percent of teachers took those skills and put them into practice (Bush, 1984, Yoon et al., 2007, as cited in Gulamhussein, 2013). At the beginning of the school year, teachers sit through days of professional learning and then are expected to continue to obtain professional learning hours throughout the year. One thing that is consistent across the board is that teachers are busy and need every second of their day. When the method of professional learning is just to sit and listen to someone talk for a little while and then go work on your three-page-long to-do list, all of those new strategies and ideas that were just taught are not given the support they need to get off the ground. Not because teachers don’t want to implement anything new, but because they don’t have the resources or support to implement the ideas. 

As a teacher, I cannot expect my students to just sit and listen to me talk about the content and become masters without providing additional support and practice. Great teachers would not structure their classrooms this way, so why do we expect professional learning to be any different. Professional learning must provide space to teachers to become successful with the new tools and strategies they are learning about and that is what I plan to do with implementing professional learning about blended learning. By modeling the method through professional learning and support, I hope that it can be carried back to the classroom where it can be implemented.