Innovation Plan
Proposal

The growth of technology in the field of education continues to impact the way students learn and acquire new tools for learning. The Blended Learning Model facilitates a student’s ability to attain more information while at the same time motivating them to increase their academic performance.

 

The role of an educator is an important one. It requires us to carry many responsibilities on our shoulders. For instance, if we look at what has happened in the last two years in a post-pandemic world, teachers were constantly under pressure to get better results from their students regardless of their background or grade level. Therefore, teachers now need to adapt quickly and incorporate new technologies into their classroom to achieve the required results. Blended Learning is one successful model that can be applied.

 

During the pandemic many school districts decided to invest in new resources for the classroom to adapt to the drastically changed environment. They approved budgets to purchase tablets, laptops, chrome books, and other devices students could use at home, since most schools were forced to close. They also implemented new online resources which most teachers had never been trained for. These events posed even more challenges for teachers and students, and resulted in greater learning gaps appearing in students and more tension for everyone involved.

Even though we have new technologies to put into practice with our students, the Blended Learning Model needs to be understood prior to implementation. For example, if we assign our students online activities to be completed at home but they are not receiving the support they need from teachers, or the data is not used to create individualized plans for their progress, this would not be considered Blended Learning. Face to face interaction with the teacher along with data collection and analysis need to go hand in hand for the Blended Learning Model to be successful (Horn & Staker, 2015, p.37).

 

I am proposing to continue using the softwares that we have at school called MyOn, Renaissance, Nearpod and Epic, that can differentiate reading levels and show areas where students need to improve. Blended learning includes models as station rotation, it is a course or subject in which students experience the rotation model within a contained classroom or group of classrooms. Also I will implement the individualized rotation that I will be using to support my students in class. Using this strategy, students will rotate on an individually customized schedule among learning modalities. This modality sets a daily schedule according to a playlist customized to their specific educational needs (Horn & Staker, 2015, p.45).

One of the many benefits this proposal offers is that every student in the classroom will be assisted in a one-on-one program, requiring more time to be with all students; and at the end of each day they will take a short assessment. Afterward, the teacher will analyze the results generated by the program to determine the resources that best match with each student’s needs for the following day, always keeping in mind what is most effective for each student to increase their fluency and reading levels.

 

Sincerely,

Adonay Jesus Briceno Villegas.

 

References:

Horn, M. B., Staker, H. (2015) Blended: Using DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION to Improve Schools.