Tools and Settings
Content
Questions and Tasks
The first question you should ask yourself before embarking on the journey of blended teaching is “Why blend?” Teachers who are still searching for their answer to this question may end up spending a lot of time and energy implementing changes that do not serve any larger goal or purpose.
Teachers must answer the question “Why blend?” It is not sufficient to blend just because it is popular or because others are doing it.
In the two videos below, Megan Wakefield, and Natalie Wilson explain how blended teaching has improved their classrooms. What reasons might you have for blending?
There are three primary reasons why teachers choose blended teaching:
Mary Alice McCarlie explains how blended learning provides both efficiency and personalization in learning.
Oftentime teachers have multiple reasons for blending, but almost always one of these three reasons is primary in their minds. Table 1 below shows some simple FCS examples and how they might help the teacher to achieve multiple purposes simultaneously.
Table 1
Examples of Multiple Purposes for a Blended FCS Activity
Think about why you would like to blend your classroom. In your blended teaching workbook, write your thoughts, creating your own purpose.
Write a brief statement about why you want to blend your classroom. Which purposes and outcomes are you most interested in for your blend? Access your Workbook here. Make sure you save your copy where you can access it as you go through the social studies chapters.
All teachers face challenges. It's part of the nature of sharing a learning journey with a large number of young people. For many teachers like Marianne Beck, below, blended teaching helps them adress and overcome some of those challenges.
Your choice to blend will be more meaningful to you and your students if it helps to address challenges that you and your students face in the traditional non-blended classroom. We refer to these challenges as “problems of practice.”
A problem of practice is a current problem or challenge that you believe could be improved through blended teaching.
Problems of practice can fall under any of the three purposes outlined in section 1.1. However, the most meaningful and powerful problems of practice for teachers deal directly with improving learning outcomes for their students.
Fig. 1
Problems of Practice in Family and Consumer Sciences
Heather Ostler explains how blending allows for better connections with students which in turn makes teaching enjoyable.
Now that you have reviewed the five pathways to identifying problems of practice, it is your turn to look at your own practice and try to identify a couple of challenges that you can consider as you continue throughout these FCS chapters. What student outcomes and teaching practices would you like to improve? What stands in the way of your teaching having the impact you would like it to have?
Identify 2-3 problems of practice (PoP) that you can use as you consider blended options for your classroom.
Note: You should identify several problems of practice (PoP) because not every PoP has a good blended learning solution.
If you haven't already opened and saved your workbook, you can access it here.