Instructional strategies in a BL environment include face to face teaching accompanied by online work giving students a choice over time and place.
BL classrooms may have some students online, some student working in groups and other students completing classwork/worksheets/bookwork or projects based upon their Learning Plan. I have a website for Science content that includes videos, powerpoints, games and interactives. Additionally, I use Schoology to provide students with playlists that also offer choices for classwork. If they choose a game or interactive, include in their playlist a 5 question assessment to show their knowledge based on game or interactive. Students have the option to complete book work or worksheets, create diagrams or online/group projects to show me what they know. Lecture time is normally limited to 10 minutes at the beginning of class to give instructions for the day and go over the Please Do Now. I want to make sure students know their objectives for the day.
Students are grouped in 3 or 4’s by ability and character. I move throughout the room asking questions about content to verify learning and helping with projects/bookwork/online learning. We also have a companion website for our hard copy book that includes interactive content and labs. I am always looking for new online interactives that help students learn in fun and creative ways. Initially, when rolling out the BL this year, we had so many website for content, for playlists, for student engagement and it seemed overwhelming.
Each core content area has a different site for classwork. Some classrooms are using google classroom while others are using schoology. After attending iNACOL, I found that too many logins could be an issue. There is software that allows a single login or combines all core content. Unfortunately, we are not moving forward in that direction next year. With that said, my students have adapted quite nicely to the many online tools. We created a single web page the includes the links to all the online resources, which was very helpful. Organization of online tools is a necessity in a BL classroom.
BL classrooms may have some students online, some student working in groups and other students completing classwork/worksheets/bookwork or projects based upon their Learning Plan. I have a website for Science content that includes videos, powerpoints, games and interactives. Additionally, I use Schoology to provide students with playlists that also offer choices for classwork. If they choose a game or interactive, include in their playlist a 5 question assessment to show their knowledge based on game or interactive. Students have the option to complete book work or worksheets, create diagrams or online/group projects to show me what they know. Lecture time is normally limited to 10 minutes at the beginning of class to give instructions for the day and go over the Please Do Now. I want to make sure students know their objectives for the day.
Students are grouped in 3 or 4’s by ability and character. I move throughout the room asking questions about content to verify learning and helping with projects/bookwork/online learning. We also have a companion website for our hard copy book that includes interactive content and labs. I am always looking for new online interactives that help students learn in fun and creative ways. Initially, when rolling out the BL this year, we had so many website for content, for playlists, for student engagement and it seemed overwhelming.
Each core content area has a different site for classwork. Some classrooms are using google classroom while others are using schoology. After attending iNACOL, I found that too many logins could be an issue. There is software that allows a single login or combines all core content. Unfortunately, we are not moving forward in that direction next year. With that said, my students have adapted quite nicely to the many online tools. We created a single web page the includes the links to all the online resources, which was very helpful. Organization of online tools is a necessity in a BL classroom.