Blended Learning Innovation Update.

“In life not everyone is comfortable with calling themselves a leader”. Drew Dudley

Everyday Leadership [Video file]. (2013, August). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAy6EawKKME&feature=youtu.be

Change Begins With You

This quote was true of me at one point in my career.  To be honest I never really saw myself as a leader of change.  I never saw myself as having an impact on teachers around me.  In 2018, I was asked to become my building’s instructional coach.  This was the first time that I started to see my-self as a person who could invoke change

Passion

I have always been interested in technology and teaching with technology.  I would not call myself a tech savvy kind of person, but a hard worker at trying to develop my craft within teaching.  There is something about blended learning that resonates with my soul.  Everything about it seems to fit within my persona as a teacher.  For that reason I chose to implement blended learning into the classroom.  As I started to implement this into my own classroom I started to share my experiences with other teachers.  In the spring of 2019, I shared a presentation on blended learning.

In the summer 2019, I started my journey at Lamar University.  I was in search of ways that I could help my fellow teachers better understand how they could teach 1:1.  The process prior to receiving our computers was basically here, “teach with computers.”  

Innovation Project

Innovation is not something that is down half hearted. It takes planning and purpose.  In order to have a successful innovation project one must plan.  People must understand the why, how, and what.

As an innovator I needed to be able to explain the why.  Without the why, my innovation plan would surely see failure.  I needed to be able to convey my message to my staff through my why, how, and what statements.

Before I could present to my staff.  I needed to get my principal on board. I wrote a letter to my principal describing a general outlay of what I was proposing. Along with the letter an outline of the plan was created in order to give a better understanding of the general timeline.

Promoting Blended Learning

I was given the green light to pursue my innovation plan.  In order to excite teachers I created a promotion video about blended learning.  If I could go back I would like to clean this video up and work on making it a little more professional.  The message would stay the same but the overall production would be cleaner.

Research – Literature Review

With innovation comes research.  During the research process, I think that I grew more in love with blended learning and what it had to offer.  Blended learning is dynamic in so many ways.  It allows for differentiation of instruction for students.  It allows teachers a wide variety of models that can be used within the classroom.  This research was used in order to help teachers see what is currently being said about blended learning in the educational world.   After looking at the global context of digital learning and blended learning my innovation project was strengthened by an updated version of my literature review.

Professional Development Plan

In order for my innovation plan to be successful planning was needed.  I created a professional development plan for the innovation project. This was one of the most tasking parts of the innovation process and likely so.  Without planning the project was sure to fail.   I have had some experience with leading Professional Development but never creating a plan for something of this magnitude.  I struggled with making sure that each time we would meet it would be done with purpose.  If there is one thing that I know it is that teachers hate to waste their time.  They don’t get a lot of time to learn new things and when they do they want it to be worth their time.  That is what I tried to encompass every time that we would collaborate together.

COVID Changed Everything

In March, Covid 19 changed everything.  To say that things changed in the educational field would be putting it lightly.  In March of 2019 my school district like many other school districts closed for the year.  We didn’t know that it would be for the entire school year, but that was the case.  Teachers were thrown into the world of online learning with little to no experience for some.  As instructional coach I was put into a situation of helping teachers learn how to properly create online learning environments.

For some teachers this was merely helping them set up Zoom and away they went.  The problem that most teachers learned was that you can’t teach the same way that you teach in person.  My timeline of starting professional development starting in August has changed.  Several teachers reached out and because of that they have started to work on changing their classroom.  Due to COVID restriction some blended learning models are not used within the classrooms.  Many of the teachers went to a flipped classroom model.  This was done primarily out of necessity.  Many of the teachers have seen success with a flipped classroom and have been basically learning on the fly.  They are stressed to the max because they not only are trying to learn about blended learning but also implement it at the same time.  Implementing Blended learning takes time and this was something that I had done over the summer prior to myself implementing it into my own classroom.  These teachers did not have the luxury.

In August school started back up, but not in the normal way.  At my school district students were required to come into school but they would not transition from classroom to classroom.  Teaching was still done 100% online.  Many of the teachers that had flipped their classrooms continued to use this model.  With the added stress of the beginning of the year, my innovation plan has been put on hold as a whole.  Some teachers are working on transitioning to blended learning on their own and I am working with them in coaching sessions within their classrooms.

The Future of Innovation

When it comes to innovation its not easy, but most things worth accomplishing are not easy. Through out the process I have learned that planning can be your best friend. I have not always been the best planner. If there is one thing that I have gained from this experience is the power of planning. I have found that the more I plan the more prepared I am. The planning tools UBD and 3 Column strategies really helped in order to be better prepared for the outcomes that I was looking for. These helped me in not only my innovation plan but in my classroom as well.

Another lesson that I learned was make sure that I understand who my audience is. I think that sometimes I was torn between the audience of my teachers and the cohort of students also going through the process. At times I thought it was easier to talk to people who understood what I was going through. I wish that I would have taken more time through out and done a better job of making it clear what I was getting at.

Overall the process has been very stressful, but at the same time very rewarding. I feel that I have grown and look forward to other opportunities to lead in. It really does start with a spark.

Spark your passion. If you are passionate you can do anything. Right now I look forward to continuing my innovation plan. Using technology with in the classroom isn’t something new to teachers. Teachers have learned to adapt and adjust learning over the years. What I hope to instill in teachers is that education does need to change in how we experience it. The innovation has been enjoyable because of COVA & CSLE. I look forward to sharing my experiences with anyone that has time to listen.