Have you ever wondered why certain teaching strategies work and others don't? Educators need to understand how to make good instructional choices for the benefit of their students, and understanding how to blend learning is one way to achieve this goal.
Blended Learning is Not Just Digital
When you infuse face-to-face instruction with technology-based tools, you get the chance to blend learning that engages and inspires. Yet, the success of instruction depends on more than adding technology or digitizing text curriculum into a PDF.
For instance, some primary, secondary, and tertiary educators who desire efficiency find that teaching blended lessons must be carefully coordinated with students' needs and abilities. These educators, administrators, and stakeholders attempt to transform education into extraordinary experiences that challenge students to think critically and excel academically.
So how can you make everyday learning opportunities more meaningful? By incorporating blended learning strategies that go beyond just using technology to conduct learning the same way you did without it, it is possible to increase student engagement, save yourself tons of time, and give students opportunities to direct their own learning paths.
With teachers' guidance, students can control time, place, and pace of blended learning activities while they acquire 21st Century skills, like initiative, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and productivity. Thus, blended learning prepares students for the future as it hones their authentic abilities and goes further than making text-based activities more digital.
Sometimes known as "bricks and clicks," or the fusion of physical and digital instruction, blended learning stimulates students of all ages. If you join students with dedicated educators and stakeholders in these active learning environments, you will discover that the following definitive benefits result:
- Development of technological skills
- Increase in information literacy
- Improvement in media literacy
- Increase in knowledge of web-based applications.
Supporting Students With Flexible Strategy
Since the goal of this strategy is to improve the overall learning experience, blended learning takes exciting, new avenues to reach students. No longer are students passively absorbing information in traditional lecture formats. Now, students are more self-directed and accountable for their own productivity in the classroom.
With this potential in mind, educators can tailor-make lesson plans that leverage students' capabilities. By using technology-enhanced curricular plans, teachers can bolster instructional delivery that supports the different learning styles of students.
Incorporating a learning management system (LMS) at all levels of education allows teachers and their students to embrace technological interfaces, retrieve class materials at any time, and enhance the opportunities for interacting with that material in creative ways. This allows instructors to go beyond the PDF and incorporate a variety of tools—such as computers, iPads, and smartphones—enabling students to show their learning via written, visual, and audio means.
Suddenly lessons can incorporate video conferences made by the instructor with Wikis and slideshows as supplementary resources and a check for understanding quiz at the end, providing instant feedback for both students and teachers. This is the flexible nature of blended learning at its best.