I’m not sure how to feel right now. After one of my most professional productive winter breaks of unit planning and brainstorming while fighting off turkey comas and overbearing relatives, I came back to school to find out that my grade 12 history class – the same class I had been planning to use as my trial for blended learning – was cancelled. Evidently, this is a part of small schools as the school makes timetable adjustments to help students get the prerequisite credits they need. Such is life, and it’s back to the drawing board as I feel passionate about creating an opportunity to bring blended learning into the class.

So let’s back up a bit… and figure out just what we mean by blended learning. Simply put, it is the coming together of classroom education with at least some part of the delivery of content done in an online setting where students have control over the time pace, path, and place. It’s everything good about the Kahn Academy, blended with the social interaction of class time and  online forums, blended with having a teacher to check in with who can make adjustments as needed. That’s simply put. I don’t know how simply that is done.

As Tom Vander Ark remarks in his TEDxTalk, what blended learning can really offer is customization. Students can work online at their own pace and, as a teacher tracks the progress of students, they can offer “the right lesson, on the right day, in the right mode” for a select group of students.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4sRKlpPp_8#t=42[/youtube]

But what will this look like in a secondary English class? Will this approach help me reach the diverse range of language proficiencies in my classroom? How will I ensure that my “work-at-your-own-pace” course is rigorous enough? Will my school be supportive of an approach to student learning that potentially gives them the opportunity to finish a course earlier than the end of term? These are all the questions that make me nervous in approaching blended learning, but I’m confident that it is an approach that can make my class more effective and my students more successful and more engaged.

It’s time to start approaching these questions. I am eagerly attending a panel discussion on blended learning at Greenwood College School on February 4th and I hope between my own research and experimentation,  the support of my PLC, and the advice of experts in the field, I can find a balance that maximizes the benefits of this approach for my students.

I welcome all insights and questions as I begin to wade my way into these unfamiliar waters.