Monday, April 18, 2011

Applying Blended Learning to Support Alternate Routes to Teaching

National Conference. Today, I’m presenting at the National Center for Education Information (NCEI) national conference in Washington, DC. My presentation is entitled: "Applying Blended Learning to Support Alternate Routes to Teaching."

Focus. My strategy is to help participants learn how a cohort of 24 school leaders in my Fall 2010 Loyola University Maryland graduate class used a blended face-to-face and online learning model to become skilled in strategies for 21st century learning. I hope the participants will discover how the class used integrated social media and professional development tools to produce and post wikis for: standards-based lessons, data-driven Web 2.0 presentations, professional blogs, and action plans for disruptive and sustaining innovations. Finally, the participants will explore how the class formed six personal learning communities for collaborating in classes and worldwide.

Discussion. And the participants will discuss the following questions to envision how this model can be scaled to alternate routes for preparing teachers:

  1. How does a mix of three face-to-face/online weekends and online coaching between weekends lead to over 100 products and performances for sharing in six online learning communities?
  2. Why are disruptive innovations difficult to create and scale up in higher education and alternate routes for preparing teachers?
  3. What are the most promising 21st century standards and strategies for blended face-to-face and online learning in alternate routes to teaching?
Feedback. Please post your comments about the questions and check back soon to learn about the results of my presentation and highlights of the conference.