Finding the Student/Teacher Ratio Sweet Spot Through Blended Learning

I don't teach technology. I teach rethinking education. Jesus thought that a teacher to student ratio of 12 to 1 was good. I'm of the theory that He should know. If that's the case, what can I do to help teachers find that sweet spot. Leveraging technology in the classroom through blended learning can help do that. 

Let's face it, the higher the student to teacher ratio the lower the cost of education. Less teachers teaching more students is a financial win but not necessarily an academic or emotionally supportive win. Life is about connections. When people connect, magic happens...if you don't believe me watch any movie on the warm and fuzzy Hallmark channel. 

Connecting with others creates a feeling of safety to be one's transparent self. Transparency leads to trust, trust leads to growth, and growth leads to success. Label "growth" whatever you want to- better grades, better skills, better level of adaptability- growth isn't always easy but  it is always rewarding to see it in others or be able to acknowledge it in ourselves. 

I don't teach technology, I teach growth. Technology is often my avenue for this but I didn't come into the world of education to push technology, I came into this world to make a difference in student learning. 

The exponential changes that education could conceivably go through in the next 3-5 years is mind boggling. I remember leading a group of sophomore teachers and department heads a few years back and the last words out of my mouth were "Be mindful that the next big thing is adaptive technology. Keep on the lookout for it. It will have the potential to change education as we know it." 

Cue now... in multiple areas of our school I see the use of adaptive technology for students to practice ongoing learning. If the problem is too hard and they get it wrong, they can see the right way to do it immediately and the next problem will be easier. This creates a feeling of success in learning. Digital scaffolding is better than any "do odd problems on page 27" could ever be. Immediate feedback on results, immediate reteaching on subject matter, immediate second chance to try again. 

So what? This type of technology becomes a teacher in itself. That makes some people scream in pushback "no, you just said education is about connection!" Bear with me... efficiencies in teaching by using technology like I mentioned allows the teacher more time to connect. It allows the teacher more time for small group and one on one lessons. It allows the teacher more time to go deeper. Not only does this type of technology give students immediate feedback but it also gives teachers the efficiencies of knowing what should be next, who is ready to move on, who is not. 

Adopting a blended learning model that includes adaptive technology allows quicker insight for the teachers because of the technology itself but also because small group instruction lends itself to being more aware of individual student needs. 

There is no magic software or perfect way to do this. All blended learning classrooms look differently. I am a firm believer that leveraging blended learning in today's classrooms is creating the type of students that will be successful in tomorrow's real world jobs. The soft skills of self-motivation, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, adaptability, accessing and analyzing information become even more imperative in a world where access of information is always in our back pocket. 

Today's ability to transform a single classroom into differentiated teaching styles by choices like teacher facilitated, digital instruction, gaming, inquiry based learning, hands on, or peer to peer creates an adaptable student that can not only turn a pocket full of information into knowledge but also creates a person that sees the value of progress. And maybe just maybe we empower them to desire to be lifelong learners along the way. 

Why Not Personalization? Why not blend?

As technology creates opportunities for us to be more aware of the cracks that individual students are falling through, the question remains...why aren't we personalizing the education of our students more? Why aren't we using blended learning to better meet the needs of our students?

In a world where intuitive software is becoming smarter and smarter and less expensive, we have the ability to allow students to "practice" problem solving without feeling overwhelmed. What does that mean? When I was in school I remember melting down when I didn't understand a math concept at home but my homework was "do the odd problems on page 82." Everyone knew the answers to the even problems were in the back of the book so even if I had to show my work, I knew I could at least see if I got the right answer when I was done. But what about those nights when I didn't have a clue where to start? I would go to school the next day having done 20 problems all wrong. I would get a zero on my homework and I had done enough problems that I had created a "habit" of how to do it in my head, albeit the wrong way. Intuitive software changes that. It gives students a practice question and if they get it wrong it often shows them the correct way and also gives them an easier question to get back to what they do know and work forward again.

In some classes this is easier than others- math, sciences, anything that can be learned one way can be learned with this method. We all know that there is more to real teaching than this though. The beauty of technology today is this type of environment allows more time for the teachers to dig deeper with their students and help them to think more critically about the subject matter.

Personalized learning starts putting the onus on the student. Students begin to learn how they learn. They see that they can't just skim through things and take a quiz. They start learning how much time it typically takes for them to get a concept. And if students are learning from different modalities (differentiated modes of instruction), they also start to understand which forms of instruction best meet their learning styles. Owning this isn't easy for a student. We have conditioned students to "sit and get." "Tell me what I need to know so I can regurgitate it back to you." But what value it is to show a student how to learn! 

According to NEA, by 1930 multiple-choice tests were firmly entrenched in the education world. The reason being there needed to be efficiency and objectivity (http://www.nea.org/home/66139.htm). And I agree that both are highly valued in the education arena. But as we see a way to have those efficiencies and yet still meet the needs of the individual student, why are we not moving towards this more rapidly? One reason is the time and prep it takes on the teacher's side for this to be effectively managed from their viewpoint. Another reason is no major shift in education happens overnight.

For three years I have been watching personalization on some level start to happen at our school. I hear students learning more about themselves, seeing themselves as having potential when they didn't in the past. I see teachers seeing the value of personalization because they would have never have noticed the gaps in individual student's learning in a traditional classroom setting.

It is my desire to work to find solutions to make this process more mainstream for the educator. It is my desire to create efficiencies using innovation to better meet the needs of the teacher and the student so that personalization can be more of a realtime advantage for our students. I literally lay in bed at night trying to think of ways to do this. Call it passion if you want to but once you see the benefits in action, it's hard to ignore the fact that all students don't learn on the same timeline nor in the same way. Technology has the ability for us to work inside new boundaries...broader boundaries...in ways we have never been able to do before.