I’ve wrote before about how my class incorporates a blend of instruction and assessments via traditional classroom and online.  This is one of the best videos I’ve seen about blended learning and what I’m trying to do with my class.  Blending my classroom offers a variety of advantages.  My favorite part of blended learning is the collaboration that my students engage in during class.  I think the game-based nature of Khan Academy helps establish the environment where every student wants to see every other student “beat” their level.  If a student is struggling in a particular concept or skill, students automatically jump in to offer assistance when needed.  We’ve had a lot of discussion about the difference in helping and telling.  Students don’t realize it but when teaching something to another student, they end up reinforcing those strategies and algorithms in their own head.  In addition to blending the class, I also place an emphasis on making my classroom student-led.  My students do most of the talking in class.  They do most of the assessing, most of the problem-solving, and most of the helping.  It may sound like I do nothing in class, but there is plenty left for me to do.  See my grading post or my post about Khan Academy in my classroom.  Most of my job consists of determining the pace of instruction, analyzing data, providing feedback on assessments, being a facilitator, and providing encouragement (my favorite part).

I wanted to include some pictures that represent the online component of the computer-lab setting that my classroom takes on at least 2 days a week.