Describing and addressing the challenge

Students understanding of conceptual content varies in how much and how deeply they
grasp the concepts. I think, that to some degree it is inadequate to teach the same
concepts, at the same pace to all students at the same time. My challenge is, how do I meet
the diverse learning needs of my students so that they all can access and understand the
content at their own pace, using digital means? My goal in addressing this challenge is to
use a digital learning environment for some of the teaching. To do this, Blended Learning
approaches will be explored as well as online adaptive programs for formative assessment
purposes.

My Context

I teach Mathematics and Statistics in a large (approx. 2400 students) high school which has a
BYOD policy. The school is known for its traditional and historical culture and is focussed
on maintaining high levels of achievement. For the past couple of years, the school has
been a part of a 'Community of Schools' (CoS) as a way for teachers to explore new
pedagogies. As one of the in-school leaders in the CoS community, I investigated Blended
Learning and led a team of 18 teachers (across curriculum areas: Health & P.E., Science,
Maths, Technology, Graphics, English, Social sciences, Business) with various goals around
Blended Learning. In this group, we investigated ways to transfer some of the teaching and
learning in our subjects to an online / digital space.
In 2018, the redevelopment of an existing block to form a physical space for an ILE will
occur. This will be the first physical space lending itself to an ILE context, in a school made
up of predominantly single-celled classrooms. Ideas around pedagogies within ILEs are
currently being discussed, which I am also involved with. These two elements in the school
(the CoS community and the rebuild to form an ILE) have a significant influence on what I
hope to accomplish with using Blended Learning approaches. I want to use this approach
because I believe this to be a better way to meet the learning needs of students than
'traditional' teaching. In a sense, I would like to change how we teach and how students
learn.

Current ways of working towards the goal

A 'Flipped classroom' adjusted model was initially used (2016). This involved the use of
teaching videos, online assessment tools and in-class workshops. Students were given a
schedule at the beginning of a topic which contained links to videos, bookwork, problem-
solving activities, advanced tasks and topics for in-class 'workshops'. Students had choice
over what they did, how much they covered, when they did it and with whom they worked.
The digital part involved the following:
 posting videos of my teaching to YouTube, which students had control over when
and how much they watched.
using online sites (Myimaths.com; manghigh.com) where students could test their
understanding by doing online questions which were marked and graded online.

There was no 'whole-class teaching during this time and the workshops were optional. The
only constraint with this way of teaching and learning was that the students, ideally, should
have covered everything in preparation for the 'end-of-topic test' (a requirement of my
department). Feedback was obtained from the students at the end of this trial, after which
amendments were made to the Blended Learning approach in preparation for the following
term.

During 2017, I delved into exploring the site Edpuzzle.com. Edpuzzle allowed me to see
which students were accessing the videos, for how long, which parts were being re-watched
and the percentage of video being watched. Edpuzzle also allowed me to create quizzes for
students to attempt whilst watching the videos. The quizzes were marked online and I
could see at a glance who was struggling, who needed more advanced work and who was
ready to move on. I also wanted to use an online adaptive assessment program that
students could use to assess their own levels of understanding of concepts. Mangahigh.com
was used explicitly for this, as the program adjusts the difficulty level of the questions
depending on whether the student is getting the questions correct or not. As I have only
touched the tip of the iceberg with these technologies, more research into using them is
required.

Other peoples perspectives

There are mixed views from various people about what I am trying to achieve. The positive
views come from some staff members at Management level, who are future-focussed and
supportive. These staff members are eager to see how Blended Learning could be applied in
the school context and the CoS community is a great way to 'trial' this approach. Others
who are supportive are those teachers who are part of my PLG (Professional Learning
Group) that I was leading. They were keen to move some of their teaching to an online
space. The reasons for them doing this included:

freeing up time in class for deeper learning and group discussion

being able to cater to different levels of understanding among the students
to allow for student-paced learning.
Many of the students also like this way of learning as they have a lot of control over their
learning.

Some people not so enthused about this way of learning, include parents who dont see any
benefit in it and would like their children to receive 'traditional' teaching. There are also
students who don't enjoy watching the videos either, for reasons such as it requires more
effort on their part, not having time outside of class to watch them, not having access to the
teacher if they dont understand the content in the video, preferring to do bookwork
instead and preferring whole class teaching. There are teachers who are sceptical too. They
are 'traditional' teachers and prefer the 'traditional' way of teaching. They question
whether Blended learning and the use of videos is beneficial.

Planning for the future

Going forward, I will continue with my CoS role in 2018 (note: applications are made each
year). I will also need to carry out more research into what is available digitally, this
includes Edpuzzle. Many of the teachers in my PLG are trialling Edpuzzle with their classes.
I think it would also be beneficial to update and improve my current teaching videos.
Feedback from students has been helpful in letting me know how I could improve the
videos. Another area I plan to investigate is finding (or using current) online adaptive
programs like mangahigh.com. Mangahigh.com, for which my department has a
subscription to, whereby students can access the Mathematics content, has been good so
far but more work around using it is probably required.

Things I'll notice if this approach is working

Students are improving their understanding of concepts by attempting the higher-

level content
Students are showing increased levels of agency
Students results are improving (NOTE: I am still required to follow the departmental
scheme of doing topic tests at the end of topics, which I feel may not entirely support
this approach)
Teachers time is freed up from knowledge transmission only, to allow for more in-
depth work with students
SLT incorporate this approach into the pedagogical approaches associated with the ILE
and / or integrate it into the school strategic direction in the future

If the approach is not working, I'll notice

Students becoming disengaged in their learning

 Students not achieving outcomes
The workload for teachers becoming too heavy to maintain this approach (already
experiencing this aspect)
Complaints from parents - as the school is seen by many in the community as a
'traditional' school, this approach may not be what they want for their children.

Kim Orr