Since I started teaching three years ago, my ultimate ambition was, and still is, to remain teaching among the walls of my classroom and become the best educator I can be. The lack of a traditional American education created a cultural gap among my peers, some of my students, and me. In short, I had to assimilate great changes in my professional life. I was so engrossed in day-to-day tasks that stress made it easy to prey on me. They say that the one who is drowning does not care where he grabs himself, and I accepted any advice I could have. My resolution of doing things the right way, and my desire not to fail my students led me to attend all the training courses that were available for me. It was during these training seminars that I realized that many of my fellow teachers did not take full advantage of the information and communication technology (ICT). I saw ICT as the right tools to impact academic performance of my students and easy my teaching burden.
What could have been done better?
Regarding my innovation plan, I think I tried to cover too many areas when I first design it. In the Bilingual Blended Program, I combined content with ICT, and there is no or very few research that studied them together. Even though ICT will be used to deliver content, I will redesign the project focusing on ICTs, and especially Blended Learning.
What worked?
Blended Learning. I was in the right track when decided to include Blended Learning in my innovation plan. It works because is designed around meeting each student’s needs. It can be implemented in many ways such as differentiated learning, projects, small-group sessions, or other classroom work. All these assignments are performed by data and proof of students showing mastery (Alijani, Obyung, & Yanjun, 2014).
The Flipped Classroom. There is much controversy about the efficacy of flipped classrooms, but, so far, it is working for me. In the beginning, my intention was to flipped as many lessons as possible, but students are the parameter, and they lost interest if they must do many flipped lesson during the week. By usually flipped two, sometimes three, brief lessons a week, I have excellent outcomes.
Devices. The Milpitas Unified School District is an excellent example of how to maximize resources. Milpitas decided to use Chromebooks to reduce costs. Also, they realized that one device per student it is not necessary. Rather, the principals suggested a rotation model, in which learners would take turns on the devices (Lapowsky, 2015).
How to apply the lessons learned?
The flipped model should be used in moderation, and be careful not to overwhelm students with too much homework. The teacher is the key variant it the Blended Learning equation. A well-capacitated teacher is the best asset a school can have. The acquisition of devices must be planned and included in a well-designed ICT policy plan.
References
Alijani, G. S., Obyung, K., & Yanjun, Y. (2014). Effectiveness of blended learning in KIPP New Orleans’ schools [PDF File]. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 18(2), 125-141.
Lapowsky, I. (2015, May 08). What schools must learn from LA’s iPad debacle [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2015/05/los-angeles-edtech/
