Hybrid High School? Why not?

[Sue Palmer]

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to share this video I created and posted on youYube this week. I created it to express my views and summarize the training I gave this week in Ellicottville, New York. I am a high school social studies teacher of at risk students and am using Moodle to turn my classroom into a hybrid course. I still see my kids the same number of days and my classroom really looks just as it did before. I have added an online component in Moodle and have basically extended learning beyond the walls and class time.


As an inclusion teacher it is critical for me to be able to differentiate and provide additional resources. My Mastery Review Lab has allowed me to do that while transforming my class and teaching into a much more enjoyable and engaging learning experience for my students. I have also incorporated my podcasts and other resources to this online classroom.

I believe this is a good thing for students and education. I also believe that it is going to happen whether teachers are involved or not. Districts are looking at off the shelf programs to provide credit recovery and address similar issues. I strongly believe that teachers should be involved in creating the "hybrid high school" which aligns with their teaching and courses.

As I am sure you can imagine, not all of my fellow educators share my view. It is also amazing to me to see how administrators in many cases would rather spend "big" stimulus bucks to buy these prepackaged products as opposed to creating their "own" programs with their teachers to transform their districts.

This transformation can occur with the teachers we have. It is not that difficult. With a little training we can all do this! If we don't, the face of education will change in any event. We need to be part of the solution.I love my hybrid high school classes and so do my students. Online learning in a hybrid format improves results! Research is available to support it, but if you are teaching this way, you already know it. Students must be engaged, and they are as they have choice and control.

If you have not considered this as of yet, let's talk about it, shall we? This train will arrive, and if we don't get on board, it will leave the station without us!

Thanks!

Sue Palmer
Social Studies Teacher
Global 9 and US History Inclusion
www.spalmeronline.com
www.masterymaze.com
www.educationallysound.com

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Sue, thanks for sharing your video - that was fun to watch; the students all look so happy! I wish we were using Moodle as the course management system at my school - it offers so much more flexibility than the $$$$$ system, Desire2Learn, that we are using.

I really want to endorse your idea of teachers creating the content... and to have the students create content too! One of my favorite things about teaching online is that it's easy to accumulate a big archive of past student work. It seems that in general students really seem to enjoy looking at the work of OTHER STUDENTS far far more than reading a textbook by some author who is not a real person to them at all.

I've got a big archive of previous students web projects online, hundreds of them - ARCHIVE - and it has turned out to be my best tool for inspiring and guiding my new students every semester. They see what has been done in the past, and that challenges them to do work that is just as good or even better. I know that teachers feel really stressed by all the demands made on their time - so let's enlist the students to help us in creating content, too!

I've also been reveling in the Tar Heel Reader project, which is another fantastic way to involve students in the creation of content and then share that content with a worldwide audience online.

So many great opportunities in the online world!!! I'm totally with you here: let's just DO it!