How People Learn in K-8 Blended Learning Catholic Schools:
Floating, Failing, and Filling Tetris Gaps
By
Nathan D. Wills, csc
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
at the
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
2015
Date of Final Oral Exam: 9/8/15 The dissertation is approved by the following members of the Final Oral Committee:
Richard R. Halverson, Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis Peter M. Miller, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis Carolyn J. Kelley, Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis Erica Halverson, Associate Professor, Curriculum & Instruction Julie Mead, Professor, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis
i
Abstract
Over the past decade, blended learning has emerged as one of the most promising models of
schooling in the K-12 context to increase achievement and meaningfully engage technology in
the classroom, yet little is known about the pedagogical practices and outcomes of blended
learning schools. The conceptual heritage of blended learning can be traced back to the literature
regarding Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI), personalized learning, and game-based learning
and participatory culture, but there is still a paucity of empirical research regarding teaching,
learning, and the use of technology in these emerging contexts. Given this gap in the literature,
this paper addresses (1) what teaching and learning is like in blended learning schools, (2) how
and to what extent the pedagogical practices in blended learning schools align with the How
People Learn (HPL) framework for the effective design of learning environments, and (3) how
suitable the HPL framework is as a measure of effectiveness in blended learning schools. This
study addresses these questions with an analysis of three qualitative case studies, comprised of
interview and observation data from principals, teachers, blended learning coordinators, and
students in three different blended learning Catholic elementary schools throughout the Midwest.
Results from this study reveal the strengths of the HPL framework in focusing on measures of
effectiveness beyond traditional metrics of success as well as the limitations of the HPL
framework in capturing important data regarding leadership practices, levels of integration of
blended learning software, and some non-cognitive skills. The study concludes with several
recommendations for practitioners and researchers as to the possible future directions of blended
learning.
ii
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study ............................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Review of Literature ..................................................................................................... 5
Definition of Blended Learning .................................................................................................. 5
Effectiveness ............................................................................................................................. 13
Computer-Assisted Instruction ................................................................................................. 18
Personalized Learning ............................................................................................................... 24
Game-Based Learning and Participatory Culture ..................................................................... 31
Conclusion from Review of Literature ..................................................................................... 36
Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................. 36
Chapter 3: Methods ....................................................................................................................... 44
Design ....................................................................................................................................... 44
Site Selection ............................................................................................................................ 46
Participants ................................................................................................................................ 49
Data Collection Procedures ....................................................................................................... 51
Entry .......................................................................................................................................... 52
Instrumentation ......................................................................................................................... 52
Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 55
Trustworthiness ......................................................................................................................... 57
Ethical Considerations .............................................................................................................. 58
Significance ............................................................................................................................... 59
Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 60
iii
Findings ......................................................................................................................................... 63
Data overview ........................................................................................................................... 63
Case 1: St. Mary’s ......................................................................................................................... 67
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 67
Background ............................................................................................................................... 70
Design ....................................................................................................................................... 77
Learner-centered ....................................................................................................................... 82
Assessment-centered ................................................................................................................. 88
Knowledge-centered ................................................................................................................. 92
Community-centered ................................................................................................................. 95
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 101
Case 2: Holy Trinity .................................................................................................................... 105
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 105
Background ............................................................................................................................. 109
Design ..................................................................................................................................... 115
Learner-centered ..................................................................................................................... 123
Assessment-centered ............................................................................................................... 128
Knowledge-centered ............................................................................................................... 131
Community-centered ............................................................................................................... 135
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 138
Case 3: St. Stephen’s ................................................................................................................... 140
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 140
Background ............................................................................................................................. 143
iv
Design ..................................................................................................................................... 148
Learner-centered ..................................................................................................................... 154
Assessment-centered ............................................................................................................... 159
Knowledge-centered ............................................................................................................... 162
Community-centered ............................................................................................................... 166
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 170
Discussion and Recommendations ............................................................................................. 173
Discussion ............................................................................................................................... 173
Toward defining “Powered Learning” ................................................................................ 174
Results of the HPL Framework ........................................................................................... 176
Learner-centered: filling in skill gaps, maximizing time, from floaters to swimmers, and
age-appropriate content ....................................................................................................... 176
Assessment-centered: instant feedback, limited data use, and paper-and-pencil
metacognition ...................................................................................................................... 178
Knowledge-centered: skill fluency, offline heavy lifting, and educational pitching machines
............................................................................................................................................. 180
Community-centered: freedom to fail, failure to connect ................................................... 182
Re-visualizing the HPL framework based on these data .................................................... 183
Suitability of the framework ............................................................................................... 186
Implications for practice ......................................................................................................... 196
Teachers should use interest, fiero, and transformation as a starting point of blended
learning designs and pedagogical practice .......................................................................... 197
Schools should proactively use blended learning to diagnose and fill “Tetris gaps” ......... 198
v
Schools should use blended learning to help students succeed in college and beyond ...... 199
Catholic schools should consider adopting blended learning as a matter of social justice and
inclusion .............................................................................................................................. 200
Implications for research ..................................................................................................... 202
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 204
References ................................................................................................................................... 206
Appendices .................................................................................................................................. 215
vi
List of Tables Table 1: Coding Notations ............................................................................................................ 55
Table 2: Interviewees .................................................................................................................... 63
Table 3: School Demographic Information .................................................................................. 65
Table 4: Data Reflection and Suport ........................................................................................... 179
Table 5: Instructional Outcomes of Blended Larning Use Across Tools and Instructional Types
..................................................................................................................................................... 191
vii
List of Figures Figure 1: Blended Learning Matrix (Staker, 2011) ........................................................................ 6
Figure 2: Blended Learning Taxonomy (Staker & Horn, 2012) ..................................................... 9
Figure 3: Blended Learning Publications (Halverson et al., 2012) ............................................... 15
Figure 4: Student Performance for the Spring-Quarter Final Examination in First-Year Russian
(Van Campen, 1968) ..................................................................................................................... 20
Figure 5: Achievement Distribution for Students Under Conventional, Mastery Learning, and
Tutorial Instruction (Bloom, 1984) ............................................................................................... 24
Figure 6: How People Learn Framework (Bransford et al., 2000) ............................................... 37
Figure 7: Student Learning Trajectory: Grade 6-8 Mathematics .................................................. 79
Figure 8: How People Learn Framework (Bransford et al., 2000) ............................................. 184
Figure 9: How People Learn Framework (modified) ................................................................. 185
Figure 10: How People Learn Framework (modified to represent learning practices in this study)
..................................................................................................................................................... 185
1
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
The number of K-12 students enrolled in online learning courses in the United States has
steadily risen to 1,816,400 in 2011 (NCES, 2011). Fifty-five percent of public school districts in
the United States reported having students enrolled in distance education courses in 2009-2010,
and four states (Alabama, Florida, Michigan, and Virginia) require students to complete an
online course to graduate (Watson, Murin, Vashaw, Gemin, & Rapp, 2013). Amidst these rising
numbers, some have predicted that by 2019, nearly half of the courses that students take will be
online (Christensen, 2008). Yet the staggering attrition rates for online courses, the negligible
gains (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009), and the benefits of socialization and
teacher interaction in bricks-and-mortar schools (Dziuban, Hartman, & Moskal, 2004) have
drawn many school leaders to consider a new model of schooling that incorporates online
courses and the data they report into traditional classrooms to create a data-driven, personalized
educational experience for students. This is called “blended learning.”
The practice of blended learning within K-12 schools seems to be growing, although
whole-school integrations of blended learning are still rather rare, present almost exclusively in
charter and private schools. Yet recently, more public districts are exploring this option. For
example, Washington, D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) launched two elementary schools and one
middle school that use a whole-school blended learning approach for all core content areas.
Further, they hired a “director of blended learning” and rolled out a program at the beginning of
the 2013-2014 school year that gave all DCPS the opportunity to utilize blended learning in their
classrooms (Lautzenheiser & Hochleitner, 2014). This example of the growing presence of
blended learning approaches throughout the nation underscores the need for researchers to
2
explore its affordances, challenges, and effectiveness, yet the nascence of this new model of
schooling and its many iterations has led to a scarcity of empirical evidence and high quality
studies on blended learning (Halverson, Graham, Spring, & Drysdale, 2012; Means et al., 2009).
As this model has emerged, many have proposed new ways of studying, understanding,
and evaluating this new way of teaching and learning. Some, like the Sloan Consortium, have
identified potential benefits of blended learning, ranging from cost effectiveness to faculty
satisfaction (Moore, 2005). But few have yet actually systematically chronicled what are the
actual challenges and benefits of this innovative approach. As blended learning began to emerge,
researchers such as Shea (2007) proposed several frameworks for understanding blended
learning, yet much of the conversation surrounding the understanding of blended learning has
centered around two ideas: effectiveness and the affordances of technology.
The first common way of understanding blended learning regards “effectiveness.” As
with any model of innovation in education, there are always basic questions about how this type
of teaching or learning aligns with what educational researchers currently know about effective
instruction and cognition. Are blended learning schools addressing the needs of their learners? Is
this model of teaching actually helping teachers differentiate instruction or is it simply
cumbersome to them? How are computers enhancing or inhibiting students’ ability to read, write,
and/or demonstrate competency in mathematics, science, and other domains? How do students
make connections with one another and situate their knowledge within broader ideas in blended
learning classrooms? Is instruction in blended learning schools focused too much on the
technology and not enough on interaction? These and other questions as to the effectiveness of
blended learning need to be studied.
3
A second way of looking at blended learning is based on its extensive use of technology.
For some, the “effectiveness” question of blended learning may be the only real question that
determines its relevance and future utility, regardless how technology is used in these schools.
For others, blended learning is a promising model of schooling that has the potential to use
technology to truly “transform teaching and learning” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). But
using technology itself will not guarantee this kind of transformation. Despite the prevalence of
1:1 laptop or tablet programs and their monumental cost to schools and districts, there is little
evidence to prove most schools in the U.S. have moved beyond Larry Cuban’s critique that
computers in schools were being “oversold and underused” (Cuban, 2001). In fact, based on his
extensive research K-16 schools, Cuban concluded that technology in most schools was “used in
limited ways to simply maintain rather than transform prevailing instructional practices” (Cuban,
2001, p. 73). This does not come as a surprise to many of the most innovative thinkers in
educational technology who have moved their interest and research beyond the bounds of
traditional school settings (Gee, 2003; Jenkins 2007) where innovation seems to be contained or
diffused (Collins & Halverson, 2010).
Yet blended learning represents the possibility of using technology to personalize
education for students, give teachers access to mountains of data in an actionable and simplified
way, and release some of constraints of schooling that have shown little change in the last
century in the U.S. (Collins & Halverson, 2010). But in reality, is this happening in these
schools? Are they truly places of innovation and creation that many have hoped they might be?
Are they using the affordances of technology to revolutionize rather than reinforce traditional,
one-size-fits-all instruction and schooling?
To begin this exploration of these questions, I will first discuss how the term “blended
4
learning” has emerged and the research that has been conducted on blended learning. I will then
review three areas that have anticipated the current emergence of blended learning models: CAI,
personalized learning, and game-based learning and participatory culture. I then turn to a
discussion of the methods I use to address my research questions and introduce the How People
Learn (HPL) framework (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999) as a conceptual framework for
understanding teaching and learning in blended learning schools. Using the four characteristics
of effective design of learning environments from the HPL framework as a guiding insight, I
then describe that qualitative interview and observational data I gathered from each of the three
K-8 blended learning schools I studied using these research questions:
1. What are the characteristics of teaching and learning in blended learning schools?
2. What (if any) evidence of the four characteristics of effectively designed learning
environments in the How People Learn (HPL) framework can be found in blended
learning schools?
3. How suitable is the HPL framework as a measure of effectiveness for blended learning
schools?
After exploring these individual findings, I discuss the overall themes that emerged in the data
and then discuss the suitability of using the HPL framework as a way of understanding blended
learning. Finally, I discuss some potential implications for practitioners and researchers as a
result of this study. I now turn to the literature regarding blended learning and several related
fields of study.
5
Chapter 2: Review of Literature
In this chapter, I discuss the emergence of the term “blended learning” and the research
that has been conducted on blended learning. I will then review three areas that have anticipated
the current emergence of blended learning models: CAI, personalized learning, and game-based
learning and participatory culture.
Definition of Blended Learning
The term “blended learning” has only been in use since 2000 (Güzer & Caner, 2014), yet
a lively debate has arisen among those involved in the study and practice of blended learning
regarding the definition of what, exactly, constitutes “blended learning.” In fact, the murky
nature of what this type of learning might be called has presented a challenge to researchers who
are trying to systematically study blended learning.
One of the earliest definitions of blended learning emerged from the Sloan-Consortium
research workshops. An initial working definition developed collaboratively by several scholars
was: “Blended courses integrate online with face to face instruction in a planned, pedagogically
valuable manner; and do not just combine but trade-off face to face time with online activity (or
vice versa)” (Otte & Niemiec, 2005, p. 38). As a follow-up to this definition (also from the
Sloan-C meetings), Picciano defines what, exactly, is meant by “blended.” He states, “The term
‘blended’ refers to this form of instruction that combines online instruction with traditional face-
to-face instruction. Also known as ‘hybrid,’ ‘mixed-mode,’ and ‘flexible learning,’ blended
learning appears to be gaining in popularity” (Picciano in Picciano & Dziuban, 2007). The term
“hybrid learning” has come to be nearly synonymous with “blended learning” (Dziuban et al.,
2004) though it remains to be seen which term becomes dominant in coming years.
6
In their groundbreaking work, The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning, Horn and Staker
(2011) endeavor to classify and organize the many existing models of blended learning. Along
with the work of classification, they also propose a definition for blended learning: “Blended
Learning is any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location
away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student
control over time, place, path, and/or pace” (p. 3). This definition was operative in Staker (2011)
wherein she described 40 emerging models of K-12 blended learning. Staker introduces a simple
matrix in which to locate exactly how blended a school might be (see Figure 1). On the x-axis,
she plots the geographic location of the school from 100% “Supervised brick-and-mortar” to
100% “Remote.” On the y-axis, she plots the percentage of time that a typical student in the
program learns online, ranging from 100% online learning to 100% offline (Staker, 2011). She
then goes on to locate each of the 40 schools that she profiles somewhere in the matrix to give a
sense of the exact type of blended learning that is happening at each of these schools.
Figure 1. Blended Learning Matrix. (Staker, 2011)
7
As the term “blended learning” has developed, it has come to include more than just
content delivery and geographic location. Staker’s definition was updated in Staker and Horn
(2012) where they refined their definition to differentiate it from purely online learning while
incorporating language from the definition of online learning from the International Association
of K-12 Online Learning (INACOL): “Blended learning is a formal education program in which
a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some
element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised
brick-and-mortar location away from home” (Staker & Horn, 2012, p. 3). This evolution of the
definition added the key phrase “formal education” to distinguish blended learning from informal
online learning spaces (such as students using online enrichment tools, playing educational video
games, and after school programs) and “with some element of student control over time, place,
path, and/or pace” (p. 3) to distinguish it from technology-rich instruction. Additionally, some of
the words were reordered to emphasize the importance of the “brick-and-mortar” part of the
definition (Staker & Horn, 2012). This refined definition helps create a shared understanding of
blended learning by eliminating the extremes of educational programs that contain 0% or 100%
online learning. Staker and Horn (2012) note that some researches argued for the additional
phrase “and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are
connected to provide an integrated learning experience” to ensure that programs of blended
learning would link online learning to their face-to-face learning (and vice versa), by definition.
Graham (in Moore, 2013) wades into the waters of the discussion over quantifying what
is and is not blended learning based on a percentage of online content delivery for a student. He
writes,
8
Several authors have acknowledged this issue by defining the boundary between BL and
other modalities as a proportion of content delivered online. For example, Allen &
Seaman (2007) categorized traditional as having 0% of content delivered online, web
facilitated as 1-29% online, blended as 30-79% online, and online as 80% or more.
Similarly, Watson et al. (2010) set a threshold of 30% online delivery of content for an
environment to be considered blended. A challenge with percentage thresholds is the
difficulty in measuring something that is not easily or accurately quantifiable.
Additionally, even if a percentage could be accurately determined, what practical
difference would exist between courses with 29% versus 30% of content delivered
online? (p. 334)
Ultimately, Graham avoids the tangle of percentages and settles on the simple definition: blended
learning is “defined as learning experiences that combine face-to-face and online instruction”
(Graham, 2012, p. 7). Dziuban and colleagues (2004) similarly eschew this discussion of
percentages and define blended learning as primarily a new pedagogical approach that combines
the best of traditional schooling—effectiveness and socialization—with technology enhanced
active learning possibilities. Their definition uniquely includes a shift to student-centered
instruction, an increase in student-teacher (as well as student-student) interaction, and integrated
assessment mechanisms for both teachers and students. This compelling and thorough definition
highlights the revolutionary nature of blended learning for teachers and students and explicitly
states some of the requirements and affordances of interaction, assessment, and a student-
centered focus. While Dziuban, and colleagues’ (2004) definition was still in the very early
stages of blended learning, it is still one of the best because of its bold and thoughtful articulation.
Yet it has not gained the same traction as other definitions, perhaps feeling too prescriptive in
9
defining an increased student-teacher/student-student interaction or perhaps too narrow to
blended learning innovators.
While Graham’s (2012) definition is perhaps the most parsimonious, Staker and Horn’s
(2012) definition (including the proposed addendum that emphasizes an integrated learning
experience), stands out in its succinct statement of student-centered variables (time, place, path,
and/or pace) and their careful delineation between blended learning and other modalities that
share some characteristics with blended learning: technology-rich instruction, informal online
leaning, and full-time virtual learning. Consequently, it has become the preferred definition of
blended learning that many practitioners and researchers have adopted (Watson et al., 2013) and
indeed it will be the operational definition of blended learning used in this paper.
Notably, many researchers predict that any definition of blended learning may become
obsolete in the near future since this way of teaching and learning with technology will simply
become the norm: “blended learning” will simply be known as “learning” (Cross, 2006; Graham,
2006; Norberg, Dziuban, & Moskal, 2011; Patrick, Kennedy, & Powell, 2013).
In an attempt to understand and define blended learning in a more embodied way, Staker
and Horn (2012) created a taxonomy of the different types of blended learning they saw taking
place in schools throughout the nation. As they chronicled these, they saw four predominant
categories of blended learning models: rotation model, flex model, self-blend model, and
enriched-virtual model. These fall within a continuum with “brick-and-mortar” on one end and
“online learning” on the other end (See Figure 2).
10
Figure 2. Blended Learning Taxonomy (Staker & Horn, 2012)
The four types of blended learning are situated within this continuum so that the rotation model
is closest to a brick-and-mortar school where students are using computers as one rotation within
their traditional classroom, while on the other end of the continuum, the enriched-virtual model
is closest to the online learning side of the continuum because students in this model are
essentially doing cyberschooling but use a brick-and-mortar structure when they need teacher
help and support. Staker & Horn (2012) provide these helpful descriptions of each of these
models of blended learning:
1. Rotation model – a program in which within a given course or subject (e.g., math),
students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion between learning
modalities, at least one of which is online learning. Other modalities might include
activities such as small-group or full-class instruction, group projects, individual tutoring,
and pencil-and-paper assignments.
a. Station Rotation – a Rotation-model implementation in which within a given
course or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the
11
teacher’s discretion among classroom-based learning modalities. The rotation
includes at least one station for online learning. Other stations might include
activities such as small-group or full-class instruction, group projects, individual
tutoring, and pencil-and-paper assignments. Some implementations involve the
entire class alternating among activities together, whereas others divide the class
into small-group or one-by-one rotations. The Station-Rotation model differs from
the Individual-Rotation model because students rotate through all of the stations,
not only those on their custom schedules.
b. Lab Rotation – a Rotation-model implementation in which within a given course
or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s
discretion among locations on the brick-and-mortar campus. At least one of these
spaces is a learning lab for predominantly online learning, while the additional
classroom(s) house other learning modalities. The Lab-Rotation model differs
from the Station-Rotation model because students rotate among locations on the
campus instead of staying in one classroom for the blended course or subject.
c. Flipped Classroom – a Rotation-model implementation in which within a given
course or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on a fixed schedule between face-to-
face teacher-guided practice (or projects) on campus during the standard school
day and online delivery of content and instruction of the same subject from a
remote location (often home) after school. The primary delivery of content and
instruction is online, which differentiates a Flipped Classroom from students who
are merely doing homework practice online at night. The Flipped-Classroom
model accords with the idea that blended learning includes some element of
12
student control over time, place, path, and/or pace because the model allows
students to choose the location where they receive content and instruction online
and to control the pace at which they move through the online elements.
d. Individual Rotation – a Rotation-model implementation in which within a given
course or subject (e.g., math), students rotate on an individually customized, fixed
schedule among learning modalities, at least one of which is online learning. An
algorithm or teacher(s) sets individual student schedules. The Individual-Rotation
model differs from the other Rotation models because students do not necessarily
rotate to each available station or modality.
2. Flex model – a program in which content and instruction are delivered primarily by the
Internet, students move on an individually customized, fluid schedule among learning
modalities, and the teacher-of-record is on-site. The teacher-of-record or other adults
provide face-to-face support on a flexible and adaptive as-needed basis through activities
such as small-group instruction, group projects, and individual tutoring. Some
implementations have substantial face-to-face support, while others have minimal support.
For example, some flex models may have face-to-face certified teachers who supplement
the online learning on a daily basis, whereas others may provide little face-to-face
enrichment. Still others may have different staffing combinations. These variations are
useful modifiers to describe a particular Flex model.
3. Self-Blend model – describes a scenario in which students choose to take one or more
courses entirely online to supplement their traditional courses and the teacher-of-record is
the online teacher. Students may take the online courses either on the brick-and-mortar
campus or off-site. This differs from full-time online learning and the Enriched-Virtual
13
model (see the next definition) because it is not a whole-school experience. Students self-
blend some individual online courses and take other courses at a brick-and-mortar
campus with face-to-face teachers.
4. Enriched-Virtual model – a whole-school experience in which within each course (e.g.,
math), students divide their time between attending a brick-and-mortar campus and
learning remotely using online delivery of content and instruction. Many Enriched-
Virtual programs began as full-time online schools and then developed blended programs
to provide students with brick-and-mortar school experiences. The Enriched-Virtual
model differs from the Flipped Classroom because in Enriched-Virtual programs,
students seldom attend the brick-and-mortar campus every weekday. It differs from the
Self-Blend model because it is a whole-school experience, not a course-by-course model.
These four models and the rotation sub-models provide helpful categories into which differing
models of blended learning implementations fit and flesh-out the concept of blended learning in
a helpful way.
While the discourse surrounding a definition of blended learning and its models is
nearing a point of relative agreement among scholars, the effectiveness of this approach in the K-
12 environment remains a topic of vigorous debate. For practitioners and policy-makers, the
question of effectiveness may be the most important one of all.
Effectiveness
The literature on blended learning has gravitated toward discussing and researching its
positive qualities, namely the ones defined by Moore (2005) called the “Sloan Consortium Five
Quality Pillars” (p. 3). They are: (1) learning effectiveness, (2) cost effectiveness and
institutional commitment, (3) access, (4) faculty satisfaction, and (5) student satisfaction. These
14
five pillars regarding the possible advantages of blended learning have led researchers to directly
assess one (or more) of these variables in the online and blended contexts have also served as
organizing ideas for much of the existing research on blended learning (Graham, 2013). While
all of these are potentially helpful ways of studying the promise of blended learning, the first
pillar in particular has captured the attention of researchers in higher education, K-12 education,
and the effectiveness of corporate training programs. This research has revealed varying results
in the effectiveness of blended and online learning in helping students learn.
Assessing whether or not blended learning environments are effective has become
something of a tennis match of educational researchers finding significant gains in fully online
courses (Wu & Hiltz, 2004 in Vignare, 2007), then others disproving or being critical of the
findings (Means, 2009). For many researchers and educators, blended learning seemed to be the
“goldilocks” solution: not completely online and removed from educational professionals and
not simply face-to-face instruction that eschewed the affordances of technology in the classroom
(Dziuban et al. 2004). Yet the question of effectiveness still remains an open question for many
researchers (Vignare, 2007).
Despite the enthusiasm about the possibilities of K-12 blended learning in the media,
private entities (cf. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, The Gates Foundation), and
innovation think tanks (cf. The Clayton Christiansen Institute [formerly Innosight Institute],
Lexington Institute), there is what Halverson et al. (2012) call “a dearth of K-12 research in
blended learning, in nonacademic as well as academic settings” (p. 391). In their meta-analysis
of blended learning, Halverson et al. (2012) found that 66.1% of the publications uncovered in
their research focused solely on the higher education setting, while only 1.8% focused on
blended learning in the K-12 context (see Figure 3). This reveals a true dearth of research in this
15
field, particularly in the K-12 educational space.
Figure 3. Blended Learning Publications (Halverson et al., 2012)
Currently, Picciano and Seaman (2007) provide one of the only publications to collect
data on and compare fully online and blended learning in K-12 schools. The authors devised an
instrument that surveyed 366 school districts and their attitudes toward online and blended
learning. The study revealed that most school leaders saw the advantage of online or blended
learning as (1) offering courses not otherwise available at the school, (2) meeting the needs of
specific groups of students, (3) offering AP courses, and (4) reducing scheduling conflicts. In
responding to the statement, “online and blended offerings are pedagogically more beneficial,”
small and nearly equal number marked not important and important with overwhelming majority
of respondents marking neutral for this statement. Financial benefits were also near the bottom
of the survey in terms of importance. From this work, the advantages and affordances of online
and blended learning are perceived as broadening the course offerings and providing greater
access to students. Additionally, this survey revealed school districts were concerned about
16
course quality, purchasing costs, teacher training in implementing online and blended learning
approaches.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education conducted a meta-analysis of online and
blended instruction. This study, led by Means and colleagues, has become one of the most
widely cited pieces of research on blended learning in recent years (Halverson et al., 2012). Their
meta-analysis considered all of the high-quality empirical studies available from both the
educational realm of K-12 and higher education and the private sector industry that utilizes
blended and online learning for training and learning purposes. Of their key findings, two in
particular seem to have caught the attention of advocates for a blended and online approach: (1)
“Students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the
same material through traditional face-to-face instruction” and (2) “Instruction combining online
and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face- to-face instruction than
did purely online instruction.” (Means et al., 2009, pp. xiv-xvi). However, despite the fact that
many have used this as an argument to advocate for a blended learning approach, the
implications for the K-12 educational setting is not as clear and optimistic as many have
portrayed its conclusions. The report includes an overwhelming number of studies (43 of the 50)
that were drawn from research with older learners (higher education and beyond) and the authors
are clear to limit the generalizability of their finding in a K-12 context. They state, “Although
this meta-analysis did not find a significant effect by learner type, when learners’ age groups are
considered separately, the mean effect size is significantly positive for undergraduate and other
older learners but not for K-12 students” (Means et al., 2009, p. xviii). Given their struggle to
find high-quality empirical studies regarding learning effectiveness at the K-12 level, one of their
key findings was that more research of this type should be conducted.
17
Reports of individual blended learning schools increasing student test scores is often the
way effectiveness is reported to parents, funding agencies, school leaders, and lawmakers.
Kennedy and Soifer (2013) point to examples like Oakland Unified schools that, before
incorporating blended learning, scored 592 out of 1,000 on the state of California’s Academic
Performance Index (API). After a blended learning initiative in 2012, “Oakland Unified’s API
score had risen to 730 out of 1,000 – with significant gains in all student categories including
socioeconomic disadvantaged, English language learners (ELL), and students with disabilities”
(p. 6-7). To be sure, gains like this are incredible victories for the children who are learning as
well as the teachers and administrators who are involved with Oakland Unified and the
increasing number of successful blended learning schools. Yet outcome-based results like this
create a “black box” of innovation that fails to illuminate the specific characteristics of teaching
and learning in these environments that contribute to or detract from effectiveness.
We can draw two very clear conclusions from the literature on effectiveness in blended
learning environments: (1) there is clearly a need for more research in this area. If online and
blended learning will indeed explode in popularity in coming years as Christensen (2008) and
others have predicted, this will be a critically important field of study. And (2) the literature on
effectiveness in blended learning environments focuses almost completely on gains or losses on
standardized test scores. This focus on quantitative data is understandable and important. In the
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability era, these scores are the “coin of the realm” that
allow school leaders to make apples-to-apples comparisons across and among schools. But as
these models of blended learning continue to grow, mature, and adapt, we need ways to measure
the success of these models beyond simply how much they can improve students’ Lexile or
18
computational scores or by defining students by where they are on the performance indicators set
forth by the standards movement.
While research on blended learning environments is rather thin, there is a deep
knowledge of some of the underlying principles from which blended learning has emerged.
Blended learning stands on the shoulders of research throughout the last century in (a) computer-
aided instruction (CAI), (b) personalized learning, and (c) game-based learning and participatory
culture.
Computer-Assisted Instruction
While recent developments in computing capabilities and accessibility have allowed the
blended learning model to emerge, the concept of learning with computers reaches back to the
1950s and 60s. Blended learning stands on the shoulders of the earliest work done in so-called
“Computer-Assisted Instruction” (CAI), which utilized rudimentary IBM mainframes connected
by phone lines to help elementary students learn mathematics (Atkinson, 1968; Suppes &
Morningstar, 1969, 1972). This first instructional program of CAI was developed at Stanford
University in 1963 and involved four sixth-grade students who came to the university campus to
learn an elementary mathematical logic program. They first learned the coding scheme and how
the program worked from the researchers and then were given practice problems on the computer.
The first iteration of this program consisted of two lessons consisting of 23 problems each.
Students were give problems on a screen and then used a code to enter their answer. If they
answered the question correctly, they moved on to the next problem. If incorrectly, they received
an immediate explanation of the correct answer. Suppes’ (1972) hope was to create a system that
used the computer to provide immediate feedback, mimicking a personalized tutor or coach.
19
Students spent several hours on the rudimentary programs that proved successful (though the
students had been hand-picked for their exceptional intelligence).
The program was further developed over the course of the next several years, and by
1965, Suppes and his colleagues were able to create a remotely controlled system that gave 41
fourth-grade children in the Cupertino Union School District daily drill-and-practice arithmetic
lessons. They installed two teletype machines in the school (essentially large electric typewriters)
that were able to connect back to the main terminal at Stanford over phone lines. The students
received their practice problems, typed in their answers, and received immediate feedback.
Notably, this program allowed students to use mathematical proof codes to build a multi-step
argument, so this was not simply a multiple-choice selection. While students were not learning
new content from this program, they were able to drill-and-practice problems for mastery in the
schools themselves, away from the computer labs on Stanford’s campus. This groundbreaking
work expanded into an algebra curriculum for high school students (Suppes, 1972) and
eventually into an exceptionally successful introductory course in Russian for undergraduate
students at Stanford (Van Campen, 1968). The movement beyond teaching mathematics was an
enormous leap in CAI research and the results of the Russian course were striking and hopeful.
The number of errors that regular students made on examinations numbered far higher than
students who were able to practice on computer programs with Cyrillic keyboards. The
significant learning results from this course are shown below in Figure 4.
20
Figure 4. Student performance for the spring-quarter final examination in first-year Russian (Van Campen, 1968)
With striking results like this, the hopes for CAI were high throughout the 1970s. The National
Science Foundation funded the development of PLATO, a CAI system that presented scenarios
with interactive text, graphics, and simple animations (Lacey, 1977). Several large universities
throughout the United States offered CAI courses (chronicled in Suppes & Macken, 1978) and
no matter the content area, the ability to practice skills and/or knowledge and receive immediate
feedback seemed to produce positive results for learners. By the late 1970s, however, researchers
lamented the de-funding of such research projects and the shift of development to the private
sector (Suppes & Macken, 1978). The enormous cost of software development and hardware
installation proved prohibitive for most, particularly in the K-12 space. As a result, CAI did not
receive mainstream adoption at that time.
21
The rise of the personal computer in the mid-1980s and the marriage of CAI and Item
Response Theory (IRT) in the late 1980s produced another generation of computer adaptive
testing. Van der Linden and Glas (2000) chronicle the way IRT (Birnbaum, 1968 cited in van der
Liden & Glas, 2000) was used by learning scientists and computer programmers to develop
computer adaptive testing programs, such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and the
Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). IRT is a psychometric method that uses the
difficulty of each question to deliver appropriately more challenging questions until a weighted
score can be determined (Birnbaum, 1968). As statistical models for gathering and understanding
responses developed further into the 1990s and 2000s, Bayesian approaches of data analysis
were employed and sophisticated simulations that adapted to user input became a reality.
Foremost among them was the creation of Cisco’s NetPASS assessment and training system that
used Evidence Centered Design (ECD) to create a simulation that helped thousands of students
learn how to troubleshoot and fix complex network problems through a computer simulation
environment (Bauer, Williamson, Mislevy, & Behrens, 2003).
Beyond testing, communication technology, such as the cognitive apprenticeship model
of instruction (Collins, Hawkins, & Carver, 1991) helped make metacognitive processes
transparent. Through software prompts that asked the learner to chronicle their thinking
processes, teachers were given a powerful tool to understand student achievement and
misconceptions (Collins et al., 1991). While previous CAI programs used the computer programs
to help students practice and solidify concepts from the classroom, the cognitive apprenticeship
model formed a bridge between student performance and instruction as it gave teachers more
than a student’s score of right or wrong answers, it helped them understand the conceptual gaps
in student metacognition.
22
The next iteration of CAI came when advances in cognitive psychology and brain
development was brought to bear on the ideas of CAI, giving birth to Cognitive Tutors
(Anderson, Boyle, Corbett, & Lewis, 1990; Anderson, Corbett, Koedinger, & Pelletier, 1995).
Cognitive Tutors are computer programs that allow students to practice mathematics skills while
getting immediate and formative feedback on their progress. In essence, they try to mimic two
principal tasks of human tutoring: “(1) monitoring the student’s performance and providing
context-specific instruction just when the individual student needs it, and (2) monitoring the
student’s learning and selecting problem-solving activities involving knowledge goals just
within the individual student’s reach” (Koedinger & Corbett, 2006). The results of this
technology were as exciting as the gains CAI researchers saw in the 1960s and 1970s. Cognitive
Tutors not only improved student performance (when used correctly), but researchers found that
“average, below-average, and under-achieving high-ability students with little confidence in their
math skills benefitted most” from using Geometry Tutor (Wertheimer, 1990 cited in Bransford,
et al., 2000, p. 224). Further, Schofield (1997) talks about the positive effects of using the
GPTutor CAI program for mathematics instruction on students (she cites increased enjoyment
and engagement because of the challenge) as well as teachers. In summarizing the effects of a
study on this program in an urban setting, she states, “Teachers began to devote more time to the
slower students. They also began to act in a somewhat more collegial fashion and to provide
more individualized help. In addition, they weighted effort more heavily when computing
students’ grades” (Schofield, 1997, p. 58). Clearly, a new generation of CAI was producing
effects beyond increased performance on standardized test scores. Yet the push to quantify
educational gains brought about by the No Child Left Behind and What Works Clearinghouse
23
eras of education has reduced much of the conversation about CAI and Cognitive Tutors to one
of efficiency and effectiveness.
A recent meta-analysis of CAI reading interventions over traditional methods reported a
generally positive, though small effect (Cheung & Slavin, 2012), which is consistent with
findings that had a similar focus in the past decades (Kulik, 2003; Kulik & Kulik, 1991; Soe,
Koki, & Chang, 2000). Yet this study, similar to most like it, cautions educators from believing
in the panacea of technology or computer-based interventions. Effectiveness of the technology-
enhanced interventions depend greatly what Cheung and Slavin (2012) call “non-technology
components of reading instruction” (p. 22). They conclude that research shows that simply using
the CAI by itself shows no significant gains for readers, but “uses of technology to support and
facilitate teachers’ instruction could potentially reap greater gains than either technologies or
teaching by themselves” (Cheung & Slavin, 2012, p. 22). Thus, research in CAI for reading
effectiveness points to the possibilities of significant gains through a blended learning approach.
Similarly, the combination of the aforementioned Cognitive Tutors with the recent rise of
powerful educational data mining tools has pushed the field even further in helping make
mathematics software even more efficient and effective (Cen, Koedinger, & Junker, 2007). By
optimizing a geometry Cognitive Tutor used by over 475,000 secondary school students in the
US (2006 estimate), Cen and colleagues used the Learning Factors Analysis data-mining method
to automate question selection. This resulted in a more accelerated rate of learning when the
computer chose the type and difficulty of questions versus the hand-set parameters (Cen et al.,
2007). The authors speak about the results this ability to analyze and then customize learning
activities for individual students in terms of increased efficiency, but this kind of curation and
differentiation represents a movement toward a personalization in education that is
24
unprecedented and truly revolutionary. This is one of the foundations of blended learning and it
is to this concept of personalization that we now turn our attention.
Personalized Learning
Personalization of instruction is certainly not a new concept in education. As Koedinger
and Corbett (2006) point out, individual tutoring was perhaps the first instructional method,
employed by Socrates in the fifth century BC. Nearly two and a half millennia later, Bloom
(1984) and his colleagues proved the efficacy of this ancient method as they set forth “The 2
Sigma Problem.” Bloom cites the work of Anania (1982, 1983) and Burke (1984) that randomly
sorted students into three groups to study student learning (1) in a conventional classroom, (2) in
a mastery-based learning approach, and (3) with an individual tutor. Astoundingly, students with
a tutor performed an average of two standard deviations above the control (conventional) class
(see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Achievement distribution for students under conventional, mastery learning, and tutorial instruction (Bloom, 1984)
25
Additionally, students receiving individual tutoring spent more time on task and exhibited the
most positive attitudes and levels of interest. Bloom states, “the tutoring process demonstrates
that most of the students do have the potential to reach this high level of learning” (1984, p. 4).
So how can researchers and teachers “seek ways of accomplishing this under more practical and
realistic conditions than the one-to-one tutoring, which is too costly for most societies to bear on
a large scale” (Bloom, 1984, p. 4)? This, simply put, is “The 2 Sigma Problem.” Bloom and his
colleagues tried to crack open the black box of tutoring to find what, exactly, produced such
monumental gains. The effect sizes of variables such as reinforcement, cues and explanations,
student classroom participation, cooperative learning, student time on task, homework, and home
environment interventions all produced incremental gains, but none as significant as one-to-one
tutoring (Bloom, 1984). As Horn & Staker (2015) point out, the results of this conclusion have
been revisited by VanLehn (2011) in a more recent meta-analysis which suggests the effect of
human tutoring may be closer to 0.79 standard deviations. Yet even with this revision, the effect
tutoring has on learning is substantial.
The link between the “2 Sigma Problem” and blended learning was made by Patrick,
Kennedy, and Powell (2013) as they critiqued the one-size-fits-all nature of current traditional
education models. They point to the need for learners to be involved in designing their own
learning process (Campbell & Robinson, 2007, cited in Patrick et al., 2013) and claim,
“differentiation is part of personalizing learning, and it is essential in education” (Patrick et al.,
2013, p. 5). Further, they highlight the importance of variety and choice in personalization and
the way it puts the focus of learning on students while giving them agency in their own learning
process. While many have conflated personalized learning and blended learning approaches, they
are careful to draw some helpful distinctions:
26
Simply, blended learning is a delivery mechanism for personalized learning….It is
possible to do personalized learning without technology — but it is very difficult to scale
personalized learning for each student in a classroom and school without effective and
meaningful applications of technology to enable the differentiation and flexibility in
pacing required (p. 14).
So blended learning, when properly implemented, can be the mechanism for personalized
learning at scale and at least a step toward addressing the “2 Sigma Problem” as the combination
of individualized learning trajectories and small group instruction can happen in the context of a
large number of students in a classroom. And while much of traditional schooling presents math
problems, science questions, and language exercises in an environment that is agnostic to the
individual learner, personalized content presented to students on computers has the potential to
give students an element of choice in their learning and situate concepts dynamically in a context
that interests students.
One of the essential aspects of blended learning is located in the Staker and Horn (2012)
definition that blended learning involves “some element of student control over time, place, path,
and/or pace” (p. 3). This kind of student agency allows students the ability to make at least some
choices about their learning and introduces a level of personalization familiar to proponents of
Montessori education. In a word, blended learning involves choice. In her book, Reality is
Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, Jane McGonigal
(2011) writes about work, games, motivation, and happiness. She describes what, exactly, is so
fun and engaging about games and why most people don’t, can’t, or won’t bring the kind of
enthusiasm they have for playing World of Warcraft to their 9-5 job. For McGonigal, it’s not that
work itself is unpleasant or uninteresting. In fact, it is precisely the opposite.
27
McGonigal cites the work of psychologists who use the experience sampling method
(ESM) to determine how people feel during different parts of their day. A common finding
among researchers employing this method is that almost every activity that we would think of as
“having fun” during the day is actually mildly depressing. Subjects reported that after watching
television, eating chocolate, or just chilling out they were “less motivated, less confident and less
engaged overall” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1991, 1989; Kubey et al., 1996, cited in McGonigal, 2011, p.
31). People often seek out these activities to lift their spirits, but when we’re passively
entertained or minimally engaged, it has the opposite effect on us. She says, “We go from stress
and anxiety straight to boredom and depression. We’d be much better off avoiding easy fun and
seeking out hard fun, or hard work that we enjoy, instead” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 32). So what is
the difference between work that is drudgery and work that is enjoyable? McGonigal says that
tedious work is unpleasant because it lacks choice.
When we don’t choose hard work for ourselves, it’s usually not the right work, at the
right time, for the right person. It’s not perfectly customized for our strengths, we’re not
in control of the work flow, we don’t have a clear picture of what we’re contributing to,
and we never see how it pays off in the end. (McGonigal, 2011, p. 29)
Conversely, what McGonigal calls “the right hard work” (2011, p. 29, emphasis added) is
immensely satisfying and exciting for us. We experience physiological and neurological rush of
positively-framed stress, called “eustress,” when we feel capable of facing the challenge before
us. This is why well-balanced and “leveled” video games (like Blizzard’s Starcraft and Diablo
series) are so delightfully engrossing—they present a level of challenge to players that is just
beyond their expertise, but still within their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsgy,
1978). These games present difficult tasks at the right time, for the right person, with a clear goal
28
in sight. In these moments, eustress quickens the pulse and activates attention and reward centers
in the brain (McGonigal, 2011, p. 32).
The resulting sense of accomplishment for overcoming one of these challenges causes a
reaction in three sets of reward circuitry in the brain and causes a rush that few other activities
produce (Hoeft, et al., 2008, cited in McGonigal, 2011). This sense of epic accomplishment that
comes after successfully completing “the right hard work” has no English equivalent. Instead,
McGonigal uses the Italian word for “fierce pride” or “personal triumph” to describe this sense
of victorious satisfaction: “fiero.” This term, first coined by Lazzaro (2004), is an essential part
of what gamers find so engrossing about video games. Lazzaro’s work (primarily with game
designers) focuses on what gamers like most about gaming. She and her team studied 15
hardcore gamers, 15 casual gamers, and 15 non-gamers in search of keys to releasing emotions
in games. They identified “Hard Fun,” “Easy Fun,” “Altered States,” and “the People Factor” as
the keys to emotional engagement and chronicled the emotions that players experienced while
playing a variety of games. While players displayed a number of diverse reactions including fear,
surprise, wonder, naches (pride in one’s child or mentee), and schadenfreude (delight in the
misfortune of another), none was more satisfying than fiero. This emotional state, she concludes,
is not only satisfying and motivating, it’s addictive (as shown through brain scans in Hoeft,
Watson, Kesler, Bettinger, & Reiss, 2008; Griffiths & Hunt, 1998). As such, she suggests “fiero”
should be the ultimate goal and gold-standard for game designers: to provide “opportunities for
challenge, mastery, and feelings of accomplishment” (Lazzaro, 2004).
McGonigal uses this concept as a foil for the modern working environment that is rarely
designed around instilling a sense of fiero in accomplishing choice-driven, right hard work. She
goes on to suggest ways that people can find their own ways to use technology to gamify their
29
lives to create some life-giving and motivating “fiero” moments in the everyday, “broken” world.
The introduction of choice into a learning environment can potentially activate these senses of
emotional engagement as students gain agency over what “right hard work” they might do during
the school day. The sense of fiero might be particularly illusive for students on the top and
bottom quartiles of their classes. When lessons, assignments, or classroom discussions are either
too fast or too slow for students, it is difficult to generate eustress in students. The potential for a
greater sense of fiero in blended learning environments as students are given control over the
“time, place, path, and/or pace” (Staker & Horn, 2012) of their learning is among its most
exciting and potentially revolutionary affordances.
Personalized learning, in addition to providing students with a sense of choice in their
education, utilizes students’ interest in order to increase engagement and deepen learning.
Walkington (2013) provides a thorough overview of the literature regarding the consistently
positive effects of personalization on mathematics education. Her own work tested the
effectiveness of interest-based learning in the context of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS).
Like CAI and cognitive tutors, ITSs present computer-based problems and scenarios for learners,
increases in difficulty as the user gets the right answer, and gives explanations and hints for
students who are struggling, right when they need help. While she found a wealth of evidence
that “the activation of interest is associated with improved learning (Ainley, Hillman, & Hidi,
2002; Ainley, Hidi, & Bendorff, 2002; Harackiewicz et al., 2008; Schiefele 1990, 1991), as well
as with increased attention (McDaniel, Waddill, Finstad, & Bourg, 2000; Renninger & Wozinak,
1985), persistence (Ainley et al., 2002), engagement (Flowerday et al., 2004)” (Walkington,
2013, p. 934), she noticed that few of these researchers have studied interest-based learning in
the context of adaptive technology environments.
30
Walkington (2013) found that personalization based on student interest combined with an
ITS resulted in significant learning gains that persisted months later, particularly for students
who otherwise struggled with algebra. She argues that personalization is a scaffold that allows
students to build competency in their area of comfort so that they can later apply the skills to
more complex problems without the benefit of the personalized content.
Personalized learning based on student interests can also have a significant effect on a
student’s reading ability (Steinkuehler, 2011). In a series of studies that involved students in an
after-school program who were at or below grade-level in reading, Steinkuehler wanted to know
what effect using interest-based texts had on comprehension and Lexile fluency. She and her
colleagues first assessed the reading level of several online texts relating to World of Warcraft
(WoW) from popular discussion boards and found that the most prevalent texts related to WoW
are written at an average grade level of 11.8. Using these grade-leveled texts, she then conducted
a second study to compare students’ comprehension and reading fluency on a passage from a
social studies textbook and a passage from a grade-leveled text related to playing WoW. They
found no significant gains for both non-struggling and struggling readers between the two texts.
A final study asked students to choose three topics related to content in WoW that they wanted to
read more about. The researchers then chose articles based on their area of interest that were at
least two grade levels above their current reading level. This time, non-struggling readers read
texts that were an average of 3.5 grade levels above their competency while struggling readers
read texts that were an average of 6.2 grade levels above their tested reading ability.
The researchers attributed the dramatic increases to the self-correction rates (a positive
reading strategy), which doubled from the previous study where students had simply been given
a text based on their reading level. The ability to choose a topic that interested the student
31
(despite actually increasing the levels of difficulty) resulted in a reading fluency that made non-
struggling readers push up to a college level and struggling readers rocket up to a non-struggling
level. From this, researchers concluded, “interest does matter” (Steinkuehler, 2011, p. 13) in
increasing performance on reading and comprehension.
Personalized learning engages student interest and gives students agency in their
education that not only improves student learning, it has the potential to replicate the success of
1-to-1 tutoring programs and create a sense of fiero in learners. Blended learning’s promising
ability to use computers to personalize learning and allow teachers to focus on small-group
instruction and targeted remediation represents a potential solution to Bloom’s 2 Sigma Problem.
In addition to these ideas about personalization, blended learning draws on some of the same
foundational ideas of game-based learning. We now turn our attention to this field of inquiry.
Game-Based Learning and Participatory Culture
Over the past decade, educators have begun to take video games seriously. Already, there
is an enormous and growing field of scholarship that considers the important lessons that
educational institutions can learn from video game design (Gee, 2003; Shaffer, Squire,
Halverson & Gee, 2005; Squire, 2006) as well as considerations of what can be learned from
playing the video games themselves. The latter is beyond the scope of this paper, yet the former
gives us some insight into one of the building blocks of blended learning: game-based learning
and participatory culture. Gee’s (2003) discussion of what can be learned from video games
posed an interesting question to educators: why was it not uncommon for kids who can’t pay
attention to a math worksheet to be immersed in a good video game for 40-50 hours until they
beat it? Gee eloquently laid out some compelling arguments through the lens of his past
scholarship in semiotics, language acquisition, and cognition. His list of 36 learning principles
32
gave educators in the early 2000s an insight into what makes video games so engaging and
satisfying for players and what could be possible for education. Yet these ideas (for the most
part) have not guided the design of learning environments and curriculum since its publication.
Some of these ideas, while perhaps not possible in a traditional classroom, are possible when
students are engaged in digital learning environments in blended learning classrooms.
Seven of these principles speak to the particular affordances of a blended learning
approach and, ideally, these insights from game-based learning could be incorporated into the
design of blended learning environments. While one would hope to see many of these principles
at-work in the design of blended learning environments, many of these depend on the software
providers that teachers, principals, and administrators choose. For example, Gee’s Practice
Principle encourages the ability to practice skills over and over in an environment that is unique
and engaging. Much of the excitement of the digital world depends on the software designers,
artists, and musicians that create it. His Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time
Principle relies on the software designers to be able to give prompts, hints, and guided practice
as students proceed through lessons. And finally, Gee’s Regime of Competence Principle, where
learners operate at the outer edge of their ability so that they find learning tasks challenging but
not impossible depends greatly on the sophistication of the software to deliver the right kind of
problem at the right time (much like the work of Cen et al., 2007). These principles should guide
the development of educational software and should be used as criteria for the evaluation of
which software blended learning schools deploy.
Yet there are some principles that relate directly to the design of blended learning
classrooms. Four of Gee’s other principles, the “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle, the
Achievement Principle, the Transfer Principle, and the Affinity Group Principle are often built-in
33
to video game environments, but these four principles are also directly relatable to the classroom
environment and the culture of a blended learning school. The “Psychosocial Moratorium”
Principle uses of the Ericksonian concept of a “psychosocial moratorium” where “the learner can
take risks where real-world consequences are lowered” (Gee, 2003, p. 59). In many traditional
school environments, failure has academic, social, emotional, and developmental costs. After
answering a question incorrectly in front of an entire class, a less self-confident student may be
hesitant to do so again. A blended learning environment consonant with this principle would
allow students to make mistakes, correct them, and proceed with relatively low personal
consequences. Gee’s Achievement Principle speaks about the importance of recognizing each
learner’s effort, level, achievement, and growing mastery as they progress. In most educational
environments that are focused on summative assessments, achievement may only look like a
letter grade on a test or a score in relation to peers in the class or nationwide. A well-designed
blended learning environment that incorporates this principle would recognize individual
achievements and celebrate mastery as it occurs. The Transfer Principle is the idea that past
skills and insights are adaptable and solid enough to be able to transfer them to novel concepts
and new challenges. When an entire class is working at the same pace and on the same concepts,
teachers can direct students to build on prior learning. But in blended learning environments, this
is often a significant challenge—how does the work students are doing on their own connect
with in-class instruction? Blended learning environments designed with this principle in-mind
would balance individual pacing with whole group instruction.
Finally, Gee’s Affinity Group Principle speaks as much about out-of-game learning as it
does in-game learning. Affinity groups are collections of players (or learners) who all share a
common interest. In the video game world, affinity groups grow up around those who enjoy
34
playing a certain game and who want to connect with others who share their enthusiasm in order
to glean best practices, mentor and be mentored, share knowledge, and further conversations
about in-game experiences. They gather online in so-called “affinity spaces” (Gee, 2004) on a
voluntary basis and exchange ideas, often with great creativity, interest, and complexity. Jenkins
(2010) writes about four different kinds of “participatory cultures” and claims that these online
spaces are not only powerful incubators for learning. He writes,
Many have argued that these new participatory cultures represent ideal learning
environments. Gee (2004) calls such informal learning cultures “affinity spaces,” asking
why people learn more, participate more actively, engage more deeply with popular
culture than they do with the contents of their textbooks. Affinity spaces offer powerful
opportunities for learning, Gee argues, because they are sustained by common endeavors
that bridge differences in age, class, race, gender, and educational level, and because
people can participate in various ways according to their skills and interests, because they
depend on peer-to-peer teaching with each participant constantly motivated to acquire
new knowledge or refine their existing skills, and because they allow each participant to
feel like an expert while tapping the expertise of others. (p. 9)
These ideas about participatory culture underscore the importance of the social component of
learning (Barton & Hamilton, 1998). Learning happens when we can become part of a
community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), even if participation happens in a peripheral way.
Being a part of a participatory culture is rewarding and motivating because of the
authentic contribution an individual can make to a community of similarly interested people.
Jenkins identifies four different kinds of participatory cultures that young people are already
35
engaged in: affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem-solving, and circulations. Jenkins
(2010) uses these definitions for participatory culture types:
Affiliations — memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centered
around various forms of media, such as Friendster, Facebook, message boards,
metagaming, game clans, or MySpace.
Expressions — producing new creative forms, such as digital sampling, skinning and
modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction writing, zines, mash-ups.
Collaborative Problem-solving — working together in teams, formal and informal, to
complete tasks and develop new knowledge, such as through Wikipedia, alternative
reality gaming, spoiling.
Circulations — Shaping the flow of media, such as podcasting, blogging.
But nearly all of these describe how learners are participating outside of school. One of the
potential dangers of blended learning environments is the creation of silos of learning where
personalization and independent learning lead to isolation and detachment from building
opportunities for social learning practices. Using participatory culture to encourage engagement
in the production and sharing of knowledge has enormous potential to counter this danger by
creating a culture of activated learners within the walls of a blended learning school.
Participatory cultures are places rich with potential for learning and meaningful
interaction. While these have existed primarily outside the walls of schools, blended learning
environments have the potential to leverage the power of these communities of interest-driven
production and sharing within a classroom and school setting.
36
Conclusion from Review of Literature
It is clear from the literature that more research must be conducted in the area of blended
learning. As shown above, while there is a dearth of research on blended learning in a K-12
environment (Halverson et al., 2012), the conceptual shoulders that it stands on are broad indeed.
From 1960s research on Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) to personalized learning and
participatory culture, there is a good amount of literature on the conceptual building blocks of
blended learning.
Additionally, the measures of effectiveness that currently report about blended learning
do not fully capture its potential nor do they give insight into the practices that should be
embraced or avoided in this context. While this is understandable given the rapid rate of iteration
and the relatively recent emergence of these models in K-12 schools, educational psychologists
have a deep and well-chronicled understanding of how to design effective learning environments.
In this next section, I describe my rationale for using one of the most well-researched
frameworks for the design of learning environments—the How People Learn (HPL) framework
(Bransford et al., 2000)—as a conceptual framework for studying and evaluating blended
learning environments.
Theoretical Framework
Given the clear need for more research to be conducted in blended learning environments
and the limited way that most studies on blended learning have been defining effectiveness, I
chose to study blended learning environments utilizing the HPL framework. In this section, I will
first describe the HPL framework itself and then discuss why I chose this framework for
studying blended learning environments.
37
According to the How People Learn (HPL) framework (Bransford et al., 2000), the most
effective learning environments are (1) learner-centered, (2) knowledge-centered, (3)
assessment-centered, and (4) community-centered (see Figure 6). The HPL framework presents
these four interdependent aspects of effective learning environments as a well-researched
foundation on which to build effective learning situations for students. The focus on learners,
well-organized knowledge, ongoing assessment for understanding, and community support and
challenge create an ideal picture as to what a classroom should be. Regardless of the role of
technology in a classroom, these four foci are the hallmarks of effective learning environments
and they provide a helpful basis on which to evaluate and understand the design of Blended
Learning environments. This section details the four foci of the HPL framework and makes some
connections between them and the previously discussed literature related to the conceptual
heritage of blended learning.
Figure 3. How People Learn Framework (Bransford, et al., 2000)
The first characteristic of the HPL framework is that learning environments must be
“learner-centered.” To say that learning environments are “learner-centered means that they are
attentive to discovering where a child is before they try to determine where they ought to be on a
38
learning trajectory. Understanding the knowledge, skills, beliefs, and attitudes that students bring
with them is, Bransford and colleagues (2000) believe, the basis for building new knowledge.
The authors of the HPL framework also include “culturally responsive” teaching practices
(Ladson-Billings, 1995, cited in Bransford et al., 2000) and “diagnostic teaching” (Bell et al.,
1980, cited in Bransford et al., 2000) which attempt to gently reveal knowledge misconceptions
among students and give them scenarios and exercises to adjust their thinking to reframe their
ideas. Teaching practices that are culturally relevant and diagnostic in nature are not simple tasks
for most educators, yet they are critically important conditions for learning: teachers need to
uncover the “incomplete understandings, the false beliefs, and the naïve renditions of concepts
that learners bring with them to a given subject. If students’ initial ideas and these are ignored,
the understandings that they develop can be very different from what the teacher intends.” (p. 10).
Designing a “learner-centered” classroom requires careful attention to understanding these
conceptual starting-points for each learner and proceeding from that point.
The second characteristic of a classroom designed around the HPL framework is that they
are “knowledge-centered.” Learning environments that are simply learner-centered would not
necessarily provide students the opportunity to gain and organize the knowledge needed to
understand and solve problems. Knowledge-centered learning environments are attentive to the
order and content of curricula in order to strike a balance between teaching skills that are
necessary for fluency (reading, writing, calculating) and a deeper understanding of concepts. The
HPL framework emphasizes the necessity of giving students a clear sense of how individual
concepts fit into larger ideas. This avoids the common educational error of emphasizing (or at
least allowing) the production of discrete knowledge and skills without attention to an integrated
and flexible understanding of a discipline. Another common educational problem that
39
knowledge-centered classrooms try to address is the attempt to keep up with the rapid global
expansion of knowledge, resulting a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep” (Collins
& Halverson, 2009, p. 46). By countering this movement by focusing on a depth of
understanding, knowledge-centered classrooms try to focus on a depth of knowledge rather than
a breadth. The HPL authors are critical of pedagogical approaches that guide students lock-step
through a curriculum, comparing this approach to the image of the worn two-wheel tracks that
Roman chariots used. This “rutted path,” they claim, is not unlike dominant approaches to
curriculum in schools into which everyone must fit (National Research Council, 1990, p. 4, cited
in Bransford et al., 2000). Approaches to curricula of this type create a static path for learning
and do not help students build their own connections between concepts, skills, and ideas. The
goal of a “knowledge-centered” learning environment is to create an opportunity for students to
hone skills and build competency and “automaticity” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 139) of basic
skills (which have a well-documented importance in the success of students in school) while
connecting them to ways of thinking in a discipline so students learn how to think
mathematically, scientifically, historically, etc.
A third characteristic of successful learning environments, according to the HPL
framework, is that they are “assessment-centered.” Assessment in an educational environment is
ultimately a way of gathering data regarding how a student is progressing along a learning
trajectory in order to provide helpful and timely feedback. Assessment-centered environments
are focused on providing students with timely feedback in both formal and informal ways
through formative and summative assessments. While the HPL framework authors critique the
scarcity of feedback opportunities in most classrooms, they also caution against assessments that
reward solely memorization over meaningful learning. Another potential issue with assessment
40
can be the gap of time between the assessment and the feedback that the student receives. Often,
students simply receive their grades and move on to another topic, which does not help them
refine their thinking or hone their skills. “Feedback is most valuable when students have the
opportunity to use it to revise their thinking as they are working on a unit or project. The addition
of opportunities for formative assessment increases students’ learning and transfer, and they
learn to value opportunities to revise (Barron et al., 1998; Black and William, 1998; Vye et al.,
1998b)” (Bransford, et al., 2000, p. 141). Additionally, assessment-centered environments
ideally allow students to build meta-cognitive skills of self-assessment, reflection, and refining
their thinking for better understanding.
The fourth and final characteristic of successful learning environments in the HPL
framework is “community-centered.” In addition to being learner-centered, knowledge-centered,
and assessment-centered, classrooms and schools that connect students to the community foster
opportunities for cooperative learning and continuous improvement. Equally important is the
“freedom to make mistakes in order to learn (e.g., Brown & Campione, 1994; Cobb et al., 1992)”
(Bransford et al., 2000, p. 145). This “freedom” is linked to a culture of support and
encouragement within a learning environment that allows students to refine their thinking
without harsh critique or humiliation. The overt and covert rules of a classroom, school, family,
and community have a strong bearing on the ability for a learner to value and comprehend
knowledge in a learning environment. Families can provide key resources for learning and
expose students to activities in which learning occurs. Family dispositions toward acquiring
skills and the value of schooling also influences the success of learners. Further, connections
outside of the classroom and school to community resources can have an enormous effect on
learning. The HPL framework authors state, “an analysis of learning environments from the
41
perspective of community also includes a concern for connections between the school
environment and the broader community, including homes, community centers, after-school
programs, and businesses” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 147). These places can expose learners to
an intellectual camaraderie that can potentially spur-on their interest and involvement in learning.
These four characteristics—learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered,
and community-centered—are all essential parts of a successful learning environment in the HPL
framework. And while Bransford, et al. (2000) point to some of the potential advances in
technology that might enhance some of these characteristics (the authors have a lengthy section
describing late 1990s research on the effect and advantages/disadvantages of television and how
it could be used to enhance learning), advances in big data analysis, cognitive tutors, adaptive
technologies, and charter schooling—all of which brought about the blended learning model of
schooling—might seem to have made these characteristics obsolete. To the contrary, this
framework provides an indispensable way to understand the current research on blended learning
environments and a basis of comparison between traditional schools and blended learning
schools. Inasmuch as they are both designing their learning environments around these principles,
they are doing so in alignment with the best thinking on learning known to educational
researchers. I will now further discuss the rationale of using the HPL framework in the study and
evaluation of blended learning schools.
Shea (2007) first suggested the HPL framework might be used in evaluating blended
learning environments along with several other possible conceptual frameworks. But to date,
researchers have not conducted research on blended learning environments using this concept.
The robust and well-researched body of literature that supports the four characteristics of the
HPL framework lends itself naturally to the study of blended learning environments because of
42
its focus on the tools of technology. Further, there are natural connections between the HPL
characteristics and the discussions of effective digital learning environments stated above. For
example, the HPL framework talks about the importance of community-centered classrooms that
allow students to make mistakes without consequence or humiliation. Gee (2003) resonates with
that point in discussing the “psychosocial moratorium” of video games that lowers the
consequences for taking risks and allows gamers to make mistakes. Gee’s Transfer Principle
(2003), which underscores the importance of applying past knowledge to novel challenges,
aligns nearly perfectly with the HPL framework’s idea of knowledge-centered learning
environments where students are encouraged to build fluency in concepts and skills so that they
can create their own way of understanding a concept and apply it to new problems. While the
software used in CAI and cognitive tutors has changed dramatically over the past half-century,
the one constant has been the instantaneous formative feedback that users receive. In assessment-
centered contexts, the HPL authors emphasize the importance of formative assessment and
timely feedback loops. The rutted-path of education that knowledge-centered environments try to
avoid maps closely to the desire for the “right hard work” in McGonigal’s (2012) writing as well
as the part of Horn and Staker’s definition of blended learning that includes “some element of
student control over time, place, path, and/or pace” (p.3, 2011). Additionally, the HPL
framework’s community-centered characteristic stresses the importance of cooperative learning
and connections outside of the classroom and school, much the same as “affiliations” and
“collaborative problem solving” are at the heart of digital participatory cultures (Jenkins, 2010).
These points of convergence provide a natural rationale for using the HPL framework in
a study of blended learning schools. Note, however, I am not testing the insights of the HPL
theory, nor am I trying to prove that this is the only way of studying blended learning schools
43
(indeed, others can and should be tried). I am simply using the HPL framework to gain analytic
insights and help organize how I think about pedagogical practices and design in blended
learning environments. The HPL framework’s theoretical basis in the literature of cognition and
educational psychology give it a solid foundation for classroom evaluation, regardless of how
new the model of schooling might be. Further, its four concrete characteristics align well with
some of the specific affordances of technology outlined above. Consequently, I chose the HPL
framework to determine what, if any, evidence of these four characteristics could be found in
blended learning schools.
Although this framework provides guidance and an organizational structure to my
analysis of observations and interviews, I remain open to other insights regarding effective
pedagogical practices in blended learning schools. Also, since the HPL framework focuses more
on pedagogical practices than outcomes, I will remain open to observing the presence of other
potential outcomes of blended learning environments beyond the scope of the HPL framework.
44
Chapter 3: Methods
In this section, I will describe the study design to address my research questions and why
I chose this design. In addition, I will discuss site selection, participants, data collection
procedures, archival data processes, entry, instrumentation, analysis, trustworthiness, ethical
considerations, and limitations.
Design
To address my research questions, I rely on a qualitative research design. Qualitative
research is defined as a type of inquiry that “is designed to explore the human elements of a
given topic, where specific methods are used to examine how individuals see and experience the
world” (Given, 2008, p. xxix). This focus on an individual teacher’s, administrator’s, and
student’s experience of a blended learning school will contribute to a broader and collective
sense of blended learning pedagogy and outcomes at the school-level and allow me greater
insight into my research questions. Additionally, as was chronicled above, there is a dearth of
research in the field of K-12 blended learning (Halverson et al., 2012) and consequently, many
individual blended learning schools have self-reported successes to constituents and grant
agencies simply in terms of rising test scores. For example, USC Hybrid High School reported
its second year “successes” in terms of projected growth on the California state assessment,
growth on MAP testing, the number of applications for the school, and a parent satisfaction
percentage (see: http://www.uschybridhigh.org/about-us/Results.cfm). This kind of “black box”
reporting does not give a rich understanding of the pedagogical practices and educational
environment as a whole that contribute to those numerical “successes.” In my research, I employ
a qualitative research approach in order to open up that “black box” of achievement in blended
learning schools.
45
A qualitative approach allows the researcher to study “people, cases, phenomena, social
situations, and processes in their natural settings in order to reveal in descriptive terms the
meanings that people attach to their experiences in the world” (Yilmaz, 2013, p. 312). As stated
in my research question, I am broadly interested in understanding the characteristics of teaching
and learning in blended learning schools. This design is best suited for addressing my research
questions because I want to get a sense of how teachers, administrators, and students understand
and experience blended learning. This requires me to both observe these contexts first-hand and
interact with the people who are working and learning in these environments to get a true sense
of these schools Thus a qualitative approach seems most appropriate.
Within a qualitative framework, I will employ a collective case study method of
researching (Stake, 1995). Collective cases are one of three different types of case studies that
Stake describes. A case is called “intrinsic” if there is something particularly unique or
interesting about a case that merits study, whereas a case is called “instrumental” if it is used to
provide an insight into a certain issue or phenomena outside the actual case (Stake, 2000). A
third type of case study is a “collective” case study, which Stake defines as simply “instrumental
study extended to several cases” (Stake, 2000, p. 437). A researcher employs this kind of case
study in order to investigate a phenomenon, population, or general condition” (Stake, 2000, p.
437). In order to develop a deep understanding of effectiveness and pedagogical practices in
blended learning schools and draw insights on blended learning in general, a collective case
study is the most appropriate form of research design. This involves examining several cases of
blended learning schools in order to determine emerging themes based on the HPL framework.
While some have questioned the generalizability of case studies, I concur with Yin who
contends, “case studies, like experiments, are generalizable to theoretical propositions and not to
46
populations or universes” (2014, p. 21). The goal of this research will be to create a more rich
understanding of practices and beliefs in blended learning environments and “to expand and
generalize theories (analytic generalizations) and not to extrapolate probabilities (statistical
generalizations)” (Yin, 2014, p. 21). Simply put, the goal of looking into the “black box” of
blended learning in these schools is depth, not breadth, so generalizability is not a primary goal
of my study. In my research, I have chosen to compare three different cases of blended learning
schools, which is toward the upward limit of the number of recommended cases by Creswell
(2007) in a multi-case study. Nevertheless, I think this number of cases will afford me the chance
to give a more robust picture of how effectiveness is understood and sought-after across several
schools with similar approaches but with differing contexts.
Site Selection
While there is a growing number of schools employing a blended learning approach
nation-wide, the total number is still rather small. Part of the challenge in identifying such
schools is still emerging definitions of blended learning (as discussed above) and the self-
identification that currently occurs. Efforts to identify blended learning schools, such as the
Christiensen Institute’s “Blended Learning Universe”
(http://www.blendedlearning.org/directory/) are helpful in getting a broad picture of the scope of
the different models of blended learning use within schools, though they do not disambiguate by
partial school adoptions of blended learning versus entire school implementations. While partial-
adoption of some of the insights of blended learning within the context of a traditional school is
an emerging area in need of research and further study, it is beyond the scope of this project.
These are the selection criteria for my research sites: Midwestern, K-8, Catholic, whole-school
blended learning schools.
47
I chose Midwestern schools as a convenience for travel and follow-up. While many of the
first blended learning schools emerged on the west coast of the United States, this idea has since
spread to various sites throughout the nation. I do not find this geographic selection a
limitation—in fact, several of the schools I study have iterated on the design of other blended
learning schools from different geographic contexts and might reflect what educators have
learned from the initial trials. But for the sake of getting a more complete picture of different
contexts, the schools I will visit are each located in different Midwestern states. The three
schools I have chosen have a diversity of context in that one is urban, another rural, and the third
is suburban in order to create a more robust picture of blended learning across several different
types of schools.
I chose not to limit myself to any one model of blended learning since the definitions do
not always capture the nuances of blended learning practices. While two of the schools identify
themselves as using the “station-rotation” model, there is some diversity even within schools that
makes strict categorization less helpful. That said, many blended learning schools are drifting
toward something akin to station-rotation blended learning. Still, there is no monolithic
agreement on which approach is most effective or desirable and a diversity of blended learning
models enriches my research.
The selection criterion of the elementary/middle school context versus a secondary
school context speaks less about the ways in which blended learning might be differently
implemented in a secondary versus a primary school, and more to the paucity of whole-school
adoptions of blended learning approaches in secondary schools throughout the nation. Perhaps as
the blended learning model continues to grow, a study of both elementary and secondary blended
48
learning schools in similar geographic areas will be possible, but such a study is beyond the
scope of this one.
I chose to study Catholic schools not only because of my personal interest in Catholic
education but because they are uniquely qualified to be interesting incubators of innovation.
While Catholic schools are equally susceptible to Cuban’s (2001) critique that schools use
technology to reinforce rather than revolutionize instruction (Gibbs, Dosen, & Guerrero, 2008),
they are untethered from the standards and accountability constraints that often hamstring
innovation in public schools. Further, because of their dependence on tuition for financial
viability amidst a market of free public schooling, Catholic schools are constantly seeking ways
to differentiate themselves from other schools. In certain cases, this desire to innovate has led
Catholic schools to seek out models of schooling beyond traditional ones, just as charter schools
have recently attempted. Catholic elementary schools are particularly interesting sites for study
since they have neither public funding of public/charter schools nor the financial stability of
some elite (often Jesuit) Catholic high schools. This forces them to be shrewd in their technology
investments while being responsive to their parent stakeholders regarding the effectiveness of
these innovations. Finally, when Catholic schools innovate with technology, they often do so in
existing facilities while retaining their current faculty rather than building anew or hiring
handpicked teachers, as is the case in many innovative charter schools. Studying these schools
that are able to innovate, but must do so with financial prudence and accountability while
working with an existing building and faculty allows me to glean interesting insights and lessons
from these sites that extend beyond just Catholic schools.
Perhaps most significantly, I chose schools that are using blended learning approaches in
all (or nearly all) of their grade levels. In many schools, one or two innovative teachers are
49
utilizing a flipped classroom approach or experimenting with a station rotation model. While I do
not want to minimize this kind of forward-thinking pioneering on the digital frontier, a whole-
school implementation of blended learning allows me to research the ways that blended learning
has taken root in different ways under the same roof. Additionally, school-wide implementations
of blended learning often involve significant investments in technology, time spent managing
cultural-shifts in pedagogy, developing and deploying professional development, finding
funding, and thoughtful alignment of the mission of the school with the blended learning
approach. These aspects of a whole-school blended learning implementation add to the richness
of understanding these contexts as a whole school.
Participants
Within each of these schools, I interviewed the principal, the blended learning
coordinator (or equivalent, some are called “blended learning site managers” etc.), several
teachers who are utilizing a blended learning approach to varying degrees, and focus groups of
students who experience blended learning. Studying the leadership level allows me to study the
principal’s role in the transition of a school to blended learning and understand how budgeting,
scheduling, and professional development occur within blended learning schools. Beyond the
pragmatics, interviewing the principal will also allow me the chance to inquire about the
principal’s role (and importance) in managing the cultural shift toward blended learning among
teachers, students, current and prospective parents, and funding agencies. It will also be
interesting to see how the principal’s overall vision of the school and professed pedagogical
practices aligns with my classroom observations.
The blended learning coordinator is usually a person hired from outside the school
(though some have hired internally) to manage many of the technical aspects of transitioning to a
50
blended learning approach. In some contexts, this person might take on the responsibility of
leading or planning professional development sessions, coordinating data analysis, technical
support, and/or being the point of contact for vendors and digital content providers. Interviewing
the blended learning coordinator allows me to inquire about the challenges faced in
implementing a blended approach and their role in curriculum and technical choices. Do they
share the principal’s “big picture” view of the school? How do blended learning coordinators
assist teachers in creating an effective classroom environment? How have they overcome
challenges and why is a role like theirs needed for a blended learning school to function? Theses
insights are key to understanding my research questions.
I interviewed and observed all of the teachers who are involved in blended learning from
each school in order to get their critically important perspective on blended learning in their
school as well as engaging in direct observations of their classrooms. I used open-ended
interviews, which included “having questions emerge from immediate context,” and “selecting
topics in advance but deciding sequence and phrasing during the interview, thereby encouraging
comprehensiveness through probing” (Conrad & Serlin, 2005, p. 422).
Finally, I interviewed a focus group of 5-7 students at each school in order to get a first-
hand account of the experience of blended learning from a student perspective. Giving voice to
students is a rare occurrence in blended learning literature and helps give a more robust sense of
the characteristics of teaching and learning in blended learning schools. Since two of the schools
are in their first year of blended learning, the changes these students witnessed present an
interesting contrast between the affordances and impact blended and non-blended classrooms
have on students.
51
Amidst these interviews, I conducted weeklong classroom observations, which focused
on discovering pedagogical practices at work in these contexts and determining how or to what
extend they reflect the characteristics of the HPL framework and any other interesting practices.
While interview data is the primary source of content for this study, direct observations are an
essential way to confirm and verify what is stated in interviews. The classroom is the place
where theories of pedagogy are borne out and put into practice in a blended learning school.
Careful observations and detailed ethnographic field notes are essential parts of my data
collection process.
Of course, principals, blended learning coordinators, and teachers are not the only ones
who have a sense of teaching and learning in blended learning schools and witness the presence
of the HPL characteristics and technology use. Parents and superintendents all have differing
perspectives on blended learning and whether or not the aforementioned characteristics are
present. While surveying parents, superintendents, and other folks who are connected with
blended learning schools would no doubt be illuminative in its own right, it is beyond the scope
of this study.
Data Collection Procedures
To address my research questions, I interviewed principals, teachers, blended learning
coordinators, and students. I began this process of interviewing by first contacting the school
principals and scheduled meetings to be conducted at an agreed-upon places and at convenient
times for the interviewees. Each interview took approximately one hour. Mishler (1986) believes
the interview method can produce a broader picture of not only the desired information, but also
the context for the information through a narrative approach. I recorded interviews for coding
purposes and took detailed notes to supplement the interview data.
52
In addition to interview data, I conducted several day-long observations of the classrooms
of the teachers I interviewed. I chose to utilize observational research because “the rich
descriptions it generates can result in deeper, fuller understanding of phenomena. It is
particularly powerful when combined with other methods such as interviewing” (McKechnie,
2008, p. 575). As McKechnie (2008) suggests, I also collected data about activities,
relationships, observable sociodemographic information, and instructional practices to
corroborate the interview data I collected. These data were recorded in field notes.
Entry
After receiving Internal Review Board approval from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, I wrote emails to the principals whose schools I wanted to include in my study with a
brief description of my purpose in conducting this survey, the reason their particular school was
chosen, and the time commitment involved in this interview process. I followed up this initial
communication with a telephone call thanking them for their consideration and answering any
questions they might have about the research, methods, or the use of this data. I initially
contacted six different schools and was able to gain access to three of them.
In order to respect the busy academic schedule of teachers, administrators, and students, I
(1) limited the time of the interview and (2) scheduled each meeting in advance. Since my
questions regarding pedagogical practices required classroom observations, these interviews
needed to occur during the school year.
Instrumentation
The interview protocol for administrators (Appendix A) contains four sections: (1)
opening, (2) pedagogical practices, and (3) general questions, and (4) conclusion. This is a more
open-ended interview than the Interview Protocol for Teachers (Appendix B) and through it, I
53
hope to address my first research question about general teaching and learning in blended
learning schools. Each interview with principals, teachers, and blended learning coordinators
begins similarly—with some general introductions to help establish some trust and a comfort-
level between the interviewer and interviewee.
Part two of the interview is an open-ended invitation for the interviewees to talk broadly
about their approach to blended learning. For example, I ask, “Tell me about how blended
learning works for your students during a typical day. What is your favorite/most
interesting/most compelling experience with blended learning?” Several of the questions try to
discern what is unique about the blended learning approach and even touch upon the affordances
of technology. For example, I ask, “What are the differences you observe in student learning or
engagement in the different contexts (blended versus non-blended)? Can you give me a story that
illustrates that from your classroom experience?” This gives me a better sense of how teachers,
principals, and blended learning coordinators contrast blended learning environments with
traditional schools. While much of the data for my second research question emerged as I coded
the more open-ended interview responses and compared them with my classroom observations, I
included several questions in this section that invite the interviewees to speak generally about
their pedagogical approaches and the way they utilize technology in their school. For example, I
ask, “What is the connection between what happens on the computer programs and what happens
instructionally from the teacher?” The questions in this section help me begin collecting data
regarding how technology is being used in the school and give me insight into how, ideally,
blended learning is envisioned at the school.
Penultimately, the third section asks interviewees some general questions about the
challenges that they have faced in making the transition to blended learning and the ways people
54
within the school have, and continue to, address these challenges. For example, I ask, “If a
school were making the transition to blended learning, what are the three most important lessons
you would tell them?” Questions like this are essential in getting a deeper sense of the school’s
history, the challenges that may or may not be unique to their context, and also gives teachers
and administrators at the school a chance to describe the ways they have overcome adversity.
Finally, the fifth section concludes the interview by inviting the interviewees to add any
additional information or provide clarifications to their responses. It also allows them to ask me
questions and seek further explanations of any of the questions on my interview protocol. In
closing, I assure them of future communication regarding the findings of this study, and inform
them of the possibility of follow-up clarification and supplemental interviews. Immediately
following these interviews, I took time to record detailed field notes that consisted of
“remembering, elaborating, filling in, and commenting upon” (Emerson, 1995, p. 39) the
individual interview.
The second interview protocol (see Appendix B) will be an interview for teachers only
and will prepare me to observe the pedagogical practices linked to my first and second research
questions. These questions are created to ask the teacher about their pedagogical practices and to
see if and how they align with the four HPL characteristics. This interview is meant as a lead-in
to classroom observations as it will help me to recognize intentionality in teaching practices that
might be subtle or difficult to recognize.
The majority of the questions are contained in part 2: Pedagogical Practices. For each
question where it is relevant, I also ask about the role of blended learning in aiding or hindering
these tasks. For example, in trying to explore the “Assessment-Centered” characteristic of the
HPL framework, I ask, “How do students know how they’re doing in your class? What’s the role
55
of feedback and formative assessment in your classroom? What kind of ownership do students
have over that data? What role has the blended learning approach played in this?” These
questions try to address the essential elements of the assessment-centered characteristic in an
approachable way. While much of the data I collect on these research questions is based on
observations, this interview is an important way of stepping inside teachers’ thought-processes.
Finally, the “Discussion Questions for Student Focus Group” (see Appendix C) guided
the conversations I had with student focus groups. Every effort was made to use language that is
simple and straight-forward in these questions, for example, “What do you like most about your
school?” Further, the questions were designed to be more open-ended so that students could give
honest impressions. For example, in order to get a sense of their work at blended stations in
particular I asked, “You guys spend a lot of time on computers. What’s that like?” These
interviews began with a review of the release form that each student’s parent had previously
signed and reassured them of their freedom to opt in or out of this focus group as well as their
freedom to speak candidly to me.
Analysis
Given the qualitative nature of my data collection, I analyzed the interview and
observation data I collected in two different ways. First, I assigned codes to my interview
transcripts and field notes using the HPL framework based on the detailed descriptions of these
concepts previously mentioned in my review of literature (and using the coding scheme found in
Table 1).
Table 1
Coding Notations
Notation Description and coding examples LC Learner-Centered: uncovering incomplete understanding of concepts or
56
surfacing false beliefs when students are beginning a course of study. Using culturally relevant examples.
KC Knowledge-Centered: helping students hone skills and build competency while creating a framework for understanding concepts. Helping students connect ideas to larger concepts and frameworks.
AC Assessment-Centered: providing students with feedback based on their understanding of concepts and helping them revise and improve their thinking. Empowering students to build skills for self-reflection on their learning.
CC Community-Centered: building a community of learners (inside or outside the classroom) so that students can challenge each other and learn from one another. Creating a supportive environments where students feel safe to make mistakes and learn from them.
B Background: information or descriptions that give a sense of the school’s history and culture as well as their current demographics, personnel, and challenges.
D Design: descriptions of the choices and rationale that led to the particular design of blended learning that the school implemented. Descriptions of why one type of blended learning was chosen above another or how their model of blended learning emerged.
O Other pedagogical practices or observations of note
In order to include insights not contained in this framework, I did a second analysis of my
interview data based on the constant comparative method of analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967),
which involved the recording of interview data, open coding of reoccurring themes, and axial
coding for comparative analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). These emerging codes allowed me to
flag insights that went beyond the HPL framework and thus informed my third research question.
I also discovered that, as I was thinking about presenting each case, it would be important to give
both background information about the schools and their setting as well as some insights into
why schools had decided to choose a blended learning approach in answering my first research
question. This led me to code parts of the interviews that described the background of the school
57
with a B and parts of the interviews that described the rationale and design of the blended
learning implementation with a D in order to include them in the case study narratives.
Following each interview, I took time (usually around 20-30 minutes) to record detailed
field notes about the interview in order to continually develop major themes that arose in these
conversations. In these notes, I recorded general impressions, observations about the setting,
intangible emotional responses that would be invisible to someone reading a transcript, or notes
for further clarifying my interview protocol. These notes were broken down into (1)
Methodological Notes (labeled in my notes as “MN”) that described any changes that needed to
be made to the logistical process of interviewing and (2) Analytical Notes (labeled as “AN”) that
began the coding process by identifying themes that were present in the interview responses
and/or ones that have reoccurred throughout interviews (Benaquisto, 2008).
At the conclusion of each day of interviewing and observing, I took a significant amount
of time (typically 2-3 hours) to reflect on my notes for the day and to fill in any significant
observation experiences with details that were fresh in my mind. I found this process invaluable
in recording the rich texture of each of these cases and was often grateful for these detailed notes
later in the coding and writing process.
Trustworthiness
The goal of my study is to gain insights into blended learning environments that can
ultimately be helpful for other researchers and schools to utilize in the future. This goal and this
study would be fruitless endeavors if there were not a high degree of trustworthiness in this
study. Trustworthiness refers to the credibility of a study and is the qualitative counterpart to the
quantitative measures of “validity, reliability, objectivity, and generalizability” (Miller, 2008, p.
909). Three common indicators of trustworthiness are “methodological coherence (the
58
appropriate and thorough collection, analysis, and interpretation of data), researcher
responsiveness (the early and ongoing verification of findings and analyses with study
participants), and audit trails (a transparent description of all procedures and issues relative to the
research project)” (Miller, 2008, p. 754). The rigor of my selection process for participants
(outlined above) combined with a careful data collection process will strengthen the
methodological coherence of my study. I will both be recording the interviews and taking notes
to ensure that there is a high degree of thoroughness in the data collection process. In addressing
both researcher responsiveness and audit trails, I will communicate regularly with school
principals before and after the interviews take place. In advance of the meeting, I will make sure
(through written correspondence and phone calls) that I am completely transparent about my
methods, the intent of this study, and the process that will occur. I will now more clearly define
what ethical considerations this study may bring to the fore.
Ethical Considerations
The most important ethical consideration that I faced when compiling the information of
these interviews is simply anonymity. To specifically address this, I employed techniques of
assuring anonymity. I did this by using pseudonyms to disguise the participants’ identities
(Ogden, 2008). Further, when writing on these data, I made efforts to avoid revealing any unique
characteristics of participants that could be traced back its originator (Ogden, 2008). While
needed to include some information on the student demographics and socio-economic make-up
of each school, I was sure to mask the geographic location of each school and use pseudonyms
for the schools, principals, blended learning coordinators, teachers, and students in referring to
my observations. From the most preliminary conversations I had with each interviewee, I
ensured them of this protection of their identity. This assurance of anonymity “can facilitate
59
candid disclosure of sensitive information while also protecting the privacy… of participants”
(Ogden, 2008, p. 16).
Given the descriptive, not evaluative nature of my observations, I was particularly careful
in trying to avoid making teachers feel like their teaching methods or pedagogical approaches are
“wrong” or somehow lacking. I made every effort to maintain a sense of openness during my
observations and a casual friendliness when present in a classroom.
Significance
The goal of this study is to develop a deep understanding of how teaching and learning
are occurring in the blended learning context and to observe how teaching practices in blended
learning schools align with the best of what we know about how people learn. The significance
of these findings are numerous. First, these results will ultimately be published and shared with
other schools who are considering blended learning approaches. This sharing of ideas will
hopefully inform pedagogy in these schools and encourage more schools to make bold
technological and pedagogical leaps, as many blended learning schools already have.
Second, the reporting of successes (or failures) from blended learning schools has been
rather limited. Most schools hold up standardized test scores as the measure of success in these
schools and do not give detailed explanations of the pedagogical approaches used within
individual classrooms. This study has the potential to uncover what kinds of teaching happens on
a day-to-day basis in these classrooms and (perhaps most importantly), how the tools of blended
learning are utilized in the classroom. The results of this study also have the potential to assist
current blended learning schools in making comparisons of pedagogical practices across several
different schools in order to make iterative improvements on the design of their schools.
60
Finally, this study will add to the growing but still quite small body of research done in
blended learning schools. As practitioners and researchers seek to use powerful tools of
technology in increasingly more intelligent ways to educate students, this area of research will
only grow in importance for the future of our country and world.
Limitations
There are a number of limitations in this study, and in this section I discuss these
potential limitations including the sampling of only Catholic schools, my role as a Catholic priest,
the familiarity of teachers and administrators with the software they use, and the kinds of
interviews I chose to conduct. First, all of the schools I have chosen for this study are Catholic
schools. Nationally, a small, but growing number of charter, public, private, and religious
schools are integrating blended learning throughout their entire schools. I chose, however, to
include just Catholic schools in this study. These schools often have different financial,
curricular, governance, and enrollment constraints than do charter or public schools.
Consequently, the challenges these teachers and schools face may not precisely align with those
at other blended learning schools, yet I hope that all schools might find some resonance and
value in these cases.
Additionally, I am a Roman Catholic priest and realize that this fact has the potential to
limit the authenticity of my interactions with teachers and students. Ironically, although for many,
a priest is someone with whom they can be completely honest, I realize that there is some
authority that comes along with this office, and I recognize the possibility that some people
might feel the need to be more positive or optimistic than they might normally be since clergy
often visit Catholic schools in evaluative roles. Throughout the communication process leading
up to my data collection, I tried to mitigate this by inviting principals to simply call me “Nate”
61
and signing all communications similarly. When I conducted school visits, I chose not to wear a
Roman collar so as not to draw attention to my presence or identity as a priest. Further, I
introduced myself without my title to all of the faculty members and students that I interviewed
and tried to maintain a relaxed rapport with them throughout my visits. I have no reason to
believe that students or faculty were anything less than completely candid with me, yet there
were both students and teachers who called me “Fr. Nate” during my visit, and I concede that the
possibility of some distortion of authenticity exists.
This study seeks to understand blended learning from the experience of teachers,
administrators, and students. All of these constituents speak about the affordances and limitations
of the software they are using in their schools, yet I recognize that their perspectives on these
products might be limited by their familiarity or comfortably. My experience of these programs
is limited to their reflections and—in some cases—my own limited exploration of the software.
This study is not meant as an evaluation of these products, nor is it my intention to in any way
promote or disparage them. I mention their names directly because I recognize that the way
students and teachers experience these products often reflects significantly on their view of
blended learning.
This study is limited by the number and kind of interviews that I conducted. I spoke to
the majority of teachers at each school. However, because of my interest in discussing blended
learning, a few teachers decided they did not wish to be formally interviewed because they had
limited involvement with blended learning (in one case a gym teacher and a part-time music
teacher and in another case an art teacher from the local district). While these voices are not
included in the study, they are part of these schools and experience blended learning—albeit
perhaps tangentially—through the students they teach and may have added a richer perspective
62
on blended learning in their schools. Additionally, for the sake of narrowing the focus of this
study, I did not interview school parents directly and am limited by this lack of parental
perspective on blended learning, although several of the teachers I spoke to have children in the
schools where they teach.
63
Findings
In this section, I detail the findings of my study beginning with an overview of the data I
collected and then presenting each of the three cases. I describe these cases in detail, including
the background and design of each case in order to address my first research question as to the
characteristics of teaching and learning in blended learning schools. Each case is broken into
seven sections: background, design, learner-centered, assessment-centered, knowledge-centered,
community-centered, and summary. The first two sections introduce the cases and give the
reader an overview of the setting. The background section orients the reader to the case and gives
historic and demographic information about the schools. The design section explains the way
blended learning is implemented at each of these schools. In the learner-centered, assessment-
centered, knowledge-centered, and community-centered sections, I describe any evidence of the
four characteristics of the HPL framework that I encountered at each school. Finally, I
summarize the case and my findings in the summary section.
Data overview
The primary source of data for this study comes from the 25 interviews I conducted with
teachers and administrators at the three schools as well as the focus groups of five students at
each of the three schools. At each site, I was able to interview nearly all of the teachers that are
involved with blended learning as well as several building level administrators. Their names and
roles are detailed in the Table 2.
Table 2
Interviewees
Name Role/Grade or subject taught School
Sydney Jadin K-5 math, religion, science St. Mary’s
64
Lindsey Sanders K-2 St. Mary’s
Jeff McClure 6-8 math and science, tech coordinator St. Mary’s
Judy Ewing Principal St. Mary’s
Nora Kinney 3-5, 6-8 writing St. Mary’s
Jimmy Burke Blended learning coordinator Holy Trinity
Maria Philips 4K-Kindergarten Holy Trinity
Terri Moran President Holy Trinity
Meggin Krantz 7-8 math, 8 science Holy Trinity
Cathy Rogers 5-8 Spanish Holy Trinity
Keith Lentz 8 ELA, alumni liaison Holy Trinity
Matt Anderson 5 social studies, math Holy Trinity
Shari May 5 ELA, curriculum and instruction Holy Trinity
Alan Lehr 6-8 social studies, dean of students Holy Trinity
Rachele Coyle 6-7 ELA Holy Trinity
Karen Mendota 5-7 science, 6 math Holy Trinity
Pam Rizzo Principal St. Stephen’s
Kristen Cox Learning specialist St. Stephen’s
Kelli Arenz 4 St. Stephen’s
Brenda Rae Kindergarten St. Stephen’s
Denise Kramer 2 St. Stephen’s
Lori Young 6-8 ELA St. Stephen’s
Kathleen Martinelli 5 St. Stephen’s
Rachel Miller 1-8 science St. Stephen’s
Sister Annemarie 3 St. Stephen’s
65
Each interview lasted approximately one hour and included the questions detailed in my
interview protocol as well as some follow-up or probing questions when topics of interest arose.
I observed the classroom of each teacher I interviewed at a time when they were employing
blended learning, mostly to see how the teachers were using blended learning in actual practice
and to confirm interview data. I coded my field notes to flag evidence of the characteristics of the
HPL framework or other observations of interest. The transcribed text from the interviews and
focus groups of students resulted in 468 pages of text, which I then coded and analyzed these
data through the HPL framework. Additionally, I noted the emerging themes from these data
beyond the HPL framework.
Beyond interview data, I collected basic demographic data about the schools, their
students, their blended learning design, and their history. This information came from a variety
of sources—although primarily from the principals—including conversations with teachers and
administrators, the school web pages, parish archives, and news reports on several of the schools.
An overview of the demographic information about each of the schools is presented in Table 3.
Table 3
School Demographic Information
St. Mary’s Holy Trinity St. Stephen’s
Grades levels K-8 K, 5-8 K-8
Number of students 57 109 107
Number of teachers 4 10 14
Year founded 1910 1992 1959
Years with blended learning 4 1 1 Student enrollment qualifying for free/reduced lunch 5% 95% 2%
Student ethnic makeup Mostly white 100% Latino 95% White
66
Location Rural Urban Suburban
Blended learning model Station rotation, modified flex Station rotation Station rotation
These three schools share a religious identity as they are all Catholic schools, but they are
located in different cities throughout the Midwestern United States, and they are situated in three
different settings: rural, urban, and suburban. St. Mary’s and St. Stephen’s are both
coeducational, while Holy Trinity has both boys and girls only in their Kindergarten and then is
all boys in grades 5-8. Enrollment in each of these schools is currently rising. More detailed
information about the background of the schools, the design of their blended learning
implementation, and evidence of the four characteristics of the HPL framework is presented in
the three cases that follow.
67
Case 1: St. Mary’s
From the outside, St. Mary’s looks like a traditional rural Catholic school, but inside its
hundred-year-old brick walls, teachers and students are using blended learning to try to
overcome the challenges they face. This case begins with an introduction to the setting, a
description of St. Mary’s history and background, the design of blended learning that they are
using, and then describes any evidence of the HPL framework at this school.
Introduction
Light classical music floats through the air of Lindsey Sanders’s classroom as a group of
18 St. Mary’s students work quietly at their stations. One-by-one, Ms. Sanders calls each student
to her desk and makes sure they have what they need for the morning rotation. Students return to
their place, pick up their pencil or log back into their laptop, and get back to work. The level of
focus and diligence calls to mind a Washington D.C. think tank or an air traffic control tower.
Yet one is reminded of the reality of the situation at 9:30am sharp when the children retrieve
their snacks from their backpack and eat at their seats while singing along to a video of the
“Roller Coaster Song” by the “Koo Koo Kangaroo Guys” on the wall-mounted TVs: this is a K-2
classroom. The kids know the words to this song, (one of them even knows the beginning
dialogue by heart and lip-syncs it), lifting their hands up and moving them side to side along with
the roller coaster guys. At the direction of the video, they make surprised faces, bored faces, and
even pose for the picture on their imaginary roller coaster ride. The kids giggle at this exercise in
silliness, count along to one more video, and then settle back in to their morning routine.
In Ms. Sanders’ room, students use technology to facilitate the delivery of more
personalized content. Like many elementary school classrooms, Ms. Sanders’ K-2 classroom is
set up around several learning centers. Students rotate around to different activities as they read,
68
practice skills, and are given small group instruction. But unlike some traditional classrooms, at
one of their centers, the students in this classroom login to software called i-Ready that delivers
reading and math lessons to them based on their individual learning profile and picks up where
they last left off. This “station rotation” model of blended learning allows Ms. Sanders to
differentiate her instruction for each individual student, even with a mix of kindergarten, first,
and second graders in one room.
At several points during the blended part of their day (usually for a couple hours in the
morning), Ms. Sanders is working at her desk with small groups while other students in the
classroom raise their hands. Engaged with the students in front of her, Ms. Sanders does not
acknowledges these raised hands, which leads students to either work out their problem on their
own or eventually come up to her and ask. Neither the teacher nor the students raise their voices.
A steady stream of students approach Ms. Sanders’ desk, hand a completed sheet to her or ask
for directions, and without hesitation she grabs another sheet out of the file folder with that
student’s name on it or redirects them to another task in a different center. Like pilots radioing
the tower for their flight path, students look to Ms. Sanders for their instructions, assignments, or
to report any problems they might be experiencing. She keeps each student on course, redirects
them, and makes sure everything is flowing correctly.
Ms. Sanders calls a group of kindergarteners back to sit on the tiny stools around her
half-moon desk where they work on the letter “L” worksheets. She goes through the sounds that
L makes and the kids color in pictures of L words (lion, lemon, and ladder, but not tree). The
other kids spread out evenly around the carpeted room and read on their own. She tells me that
kids are allowed to pick what books that they want to read and that they know what bin they
should pick them from based on the results of their i-Ready diagnostic test. This, she points out,
69
ensures they pick a book that is just above their reading level in order to be sufficiently
challenging. The school has an online subscription to “Reading A-Z” and Ms. Sanders has some
reading-leveled booklets printed out and ready to be read, but the more popular choice seems to
be the books in low bookshelves along the wall which each have different colored, bright stickers
on their spine to indicate their reading level. Students get books by themselves and then do some
out-loud reading with Ms. Sanders when she calls them up. When one student brings his book to
the teacher and can’t read several words in a row, she asks him, “Was that a good book to pick?
Why don’t you pick something a little easier.” While this student’s performance data may
recommend this higher reading level, an experienced and intuitive teacher like Ms. Sanders
knows better. She is able to incorporate computer-generated data into her overall evaluation of a
student’s ability level and guide the student toward a more appropriate selection. This is the
power of the “blended” aspect of blended learning. On their own, students might be beholden to
decisions that are driven by data where they simply follow the results of their performance on
computer-based diagnostic tests. Yet in Ms. Sanders’ classroom, students are not using
technology in isolation. The “blend” in “blended learning” is this mix of computer-based
instruction in a school setting so that, in the hands of a capable teacher, the performance data
produced by educational software becomes a powerful tool for making decisions that are
informed, not driven by data.
This classroom full of different kinds of technology—from cabinets full of neatly stacked
and charging laptops to wall-mounted flat screen TVs and Smartboards—might not conjure up
the image of a school in a bucolic setting. Yet, from Ms. Sanders’ windows, one can see miles
upon miles of fertile farmland where many of the students’ families grow corn, grain, and
particularly apples. St. Mary’s is a small, beautiful brick K-8 Catholic school in the heart of the
70
Midwest. The cornerstone of the school was laid in 1910, and it has all the hallmarks of what one
might imagine a school built around this time would have: solidly constructed walls, old wood
staircases that creak when students walk up and down them, high ceilings, and antique looking
crucifixes on the walls that make one wonder if they are original to the 1910 construction. Band
practice can be clearly heard through the floor above the school office. Yet within St. Mary’s
classrooms, instruction looks anything but traditional in our current view of schooling with high
levels of student independence, personalized instruction on computers, multi-age classrooms,
and a blended learning approach throughout the entire school.
Background
Four years after this school decided to go to an entirely blended learning model, there is a
palpable energy, excitement, and pride among teachers and students about how far they have
come. But this progress was not achieved without struggle. In fact, before it adopted a school-
wide blended learning approach (or as the principal says, “went blended”), St. Mary’s was on the
brink of closing. In 2010, the school felt every bit as traditional as it looked from the outside and
the aging principal, Sister Immaculata, was not pushing for innovation. Ms. Sanders has been
teaching at St. Mary’s for six years and described how the school looked and felt when she
arrived as a young teacher, just out of college.
Our desks were in rows. Students didn’t collaborate. We had probably zero technology. I
think [we had] overhead projectors and that was about as far as it went. We didn’t even
have teacher computers. Everything was done by hand. We were old-school, let me tell
you… I had all these ideas of what my first classroom would be, and it was not that
because it was not allowed. It was very structured, and I don’t think Sister Immaculata
had changed anything since she started because she thought, “It works. Why fix what’s
71
not broken?” She wasn’t super-current. Not that any of it was necessarily bad, but I was
itching to kind of do more.
Sister Immaculata was asked to step down as principal amidst financial woes, caused by a
declining student enrollment and a large teaching staff. The adjoining parish subsidized nearly
55% of the school’s annual budget, and it became clear that at this rate St. Mary’s was not a
sustainable school.
The diocese recognized this situation, and St. Mary’s was among three schools that were
set to be consolidated by the diocese in the fall of 2011. All three were small, losing students,
and not financially viable on their own, yet not one of the schools was enthusiastic about the
merger, and many families flat-out stated that they would not send their children to the other
campuses if the schools consolidated. So a new and creative diocesan superintendent proposed a
different idea: a virtual merger of the schools. In this model, students could remain in their
building, but they would be clustered into several multi-age classrooms under one teacher (thus
allowing for drastic staff cuts) while the administration of the three schools would be centralized.
In order to accomplish the difficult task of having students of varying ages learn at different
ability levels in one classroom, the superintendent proposed using a blended learning approach to
personalize instruction and deliver a differentiated education to each student at his or her
appropriate level. In generations past, this same one-room schoolhouse idea might have been
facilitated by a set of K-8 textbooks where students would have to work on their own while the
teacher attended to students who most needed their attention. The multi-age classroom approach
proposed by the new superintendent involved one teacher using blended learning so that students
could learn at their appropriate level while giving teachers data to make interventions and data
informed decisions about students. The schools jumped at this opportunity, and parents raised
72
money to purchase new laptops, televisions, and other devices they deemed necessary for the
schools to succeed. The school board and superintendent’s office mapped out the virtual merger
and began its implementation.
The first steps, however, toward virtual merger—according to the principal and several
veteran teachers who weathered this transition at St. Mary’s—were wrought with difficulty.
While the new technology had been purchased and installed, and teachers had been walked
through how the software functioned, they were not given the professional development on how
it should be used.
Sydney Jadin teaches K-5 at the satellite partner school to St. Mary’s, several miles away.
She recalls the chaotic approach that initially happened when they consolidated the schools:
When we first started, when we had our other principal, we wanted to do the individual
lessons and things. I started that and so it was a lot of, “Okay, this doesn’t work. Throw
that out. Do this.” It always seemed crazy.
Teachers like Ms. Jadin felt swamped and overwhelmed with the new multi-age classrooms. The
“blended learning” programs that they had been given were untested and unhelpful, according to
another teacher at St. Mary’s, Nora Kinney who teaches 3-5 grade and 6-8 writing. Ms. Kinney
began teaching at one of the smaller satellite schools and eventually was hired at St. Mary’s. She
describes her experience of the initial blended learning implementation:
I started out in getting hired into an impossible job: being a K-7 teacher for 26 kids with
one aide. But they told me, “Don’t worry because it’s blended learning and the
computer’s going to be doing all the teaching and you’re just going to be assisting when
they don’t understand and just monitoring. The computer is going to set up all the lessons
and you’re not going to have to lesson plan.” That’s what I was told in the beginning.
73
But it was so ill-planned. The computer program wasn’t really tested before I got it and
nobody had really seen it before we bought it, so it was a complete disaster. It didn’t
teach at all! It was actually only like reading passages and worksheets—so the kids would
just look at an uploaded PDF and have to read it and then they looked at an uploaded
worksheet and they couldn’t even fill it in cause it was a PDF. So they either had to copy
it down onto a piece of paper and turn it in, or you had to teach kids how to download it
to their computer, then open it up to use it. Super-complicated. So it was a horrible
program. It was so not interactive. It was not teaching and then I had 26 kids and only 8
computers. So I should have just run for the hills at that point.
This first iteration of using static, non-adaptive computer-based material for a multi-age
classroom was disastrous for Ms. Kinney. She felt underequipped with the number of computers
in her room and unequipped to teach across such a wide range of grades and learning abilities.
The technology that was supposed to support this differentiation was unhelpful and she echoed
Ms. Jadin’s feeling of being overwhelmed in the initial transition.
When I first started, I used to always give this analogy to [the former principal] and
anyone who would listen to me cry for help. I would always say, “I feel like I’m running
this big huge ship, and I’m down in the belly of the ship fixing the gears, patching the
leaks, making sure it’s running, and nobody’s steering.” I always said that’s what I felt
like when [the multi-age classroom approach] wasn’t working. I felt like I was so busy
with just the daily maintaining. Does someone have a lesson to work on? Do they have a
book to read? Do they have something to do that’s worthwhile when they get to school? I
guess that’s my thing. I never wanted to waste kids’ time, and as a parent of four kids, I
always think like these are my kids, (because they are my kids in some cases), and I don’t
74
want to waste their time. I don’t want them to go to school and sit there and waste their
time. Their time is too precious as kids. It goes by too fast and there’s too much they have
to know.
As is clear from Ms. Kinney’s experience, St. Mary’s had made the transition to multi-age
classrooms, but the principal had not helped the teachers learn how to use blended learning tools
to help students work at their level. It was quickly obvious to teachers, the board, and the
superintendent that the principal who was hired to do the virtual merger was not the right person
for the job. Ms. Kinney explains,
The principal didn’t know what he was doing. He really wasn’t cut out for this. He had
no vision for it. I don’t think he really believed it would work—I think he sort of wanted
it to subconsciously fail because I think he thought that blended learning wasn’t a good
idea. He was being forced to try it and was sort of going to prove that it didn’t work—
that kind of attitude.
He was removed halfway through the first year of the merger and replaced with a woman who
had been doing part-time consulting for the school. She had experience directing the setup of a
charter school in the region that was using blended learning and was familiar with challenges
that accompanied a school transitioning to this model. This new principal, Judy Ewing, faced
both cultural and technical challenges.
First, she needed to win back the confidence of the teachers for whom the technology
influx had become more of a hindrance than a help. Ms. Ewing took things slowly at first:
I said, let’s set some goals and see what can we do on a short list, some short-term goals,
what can we do to get things up and running. And then helping them see how the
technology could be an asset instead of a time-warp drain on their abilities. Because it
75
was just so frustrating, I think, for most of them that they were like, “it’s not even worth
engaging in because it just sucks so much time.”
Ms. Ewing helped teachers see how the software could help teachers differentiate their
instruction in the multi-age classrooms and helped teacher readjust their lesson preparation to
accommodate this new approach. She also needed to address some technical issues that she
inherited from her predecessor.
From her experience setting up a blended learning charter school, Ms. Ewing also knew
that technical issues can be an enormous hurdle for teachers in a blended learning environment.
If the Internet is often down or computers are not functioning, teachers can easily give up on
blended learning before it ever gets off the ground. Ms. Ewing tried to quickly sort through what
had already been put in place.
Unfortunately, when [parents] purchased the original technology, they had really good
intentions, but they spent way more money than they should have on things . . . and we’re
not even using half of what they invested in. It was unfortunate because they never talked
to the teachers about what they thought they might need or use in the model. They had
parents making the decisions for what they were going to need and use, and so they went
really, really fancy with a lot of stuff. It looks cool, but is it helping us get the job done?
It really wasn’t.
So kind of sorting through, “Okay, what are we going to use? What aren’t we
going to use? How do we make sure our infrastructure is in place?” Because they had had
some volunteer support, kind of setting that up, and then there were issues with the
download speeds. It was just a whole list of things that needed to be taken care of.
76
Ms. Ewing gave her teachers permission to experiment with different software, types of lessons,
and helped her reluctant teachers see how even the most well-planned lesson can sometimes only
catch one or two of the students at their “just right” level. Gradually, the blended learning model
took root with teachers, parents, and students. Ms. Kinney, who previously used the image of
being stuck in the belly of the ship while no one was steering, saw a dramatic change with Ms.
Ewing’s leadership:
Once she came onboard, then it was like, “I’m doing it!” I could do some of the big
picture stuff even more with the computers. It elevates the teacher to being in more of a
captain position where you’re actually kind of thinking more of strategies and long-term
projects. It just frees you up to think of more things like that because you’re not down
there just making sure people have timely feedback, making sure people have lessons,
making sure people have that kind of thing.
For Ms. Kinney, using blended learning effectively to deliver content to her students at different
levels and automate some grading processes allowed her to move from shoveling coal to steering
the ship. She was (and is) very happy about this transition. But not everyone embraced the
change as she did.
Ms. Ewing described the resistance that one of the three schools had to the blended
learning approach. The pastor and teachers at this school saw blended learning as a financial
stopgap that provided a cost savings until the school could “get back to normal” again. They
refused to buy in to the blended learning approach for the long term. Both Ms. Ewing and the
superintendent vehemently disagreed with this stance—this was to be the “new normal.” Yet the
school and its pastor dug in their heels, and the school’s inability to participate in this merger led
to its eventual closing, while St. Mary’s began to thrive. Over the first three years of operation as
77
a blended learning school, St. Mary’s lowered the parish subsidy to 35% of their budget as they
increased enrollment. They began NWEA MAP testing three times each year, and within three
years, proficiency in math and reading among St. Mary’s students went from 50% at-or-above
grade-level to 90% in math and 95% in reading.
Design
Over the four years since blended learning was implemented, St. Mary’s has introduced
several significant changes to the design of their school and curriculum along with the blended
learning model. Ms. Ewing instituted student growth portfolios where students collect the scores
for their NWEA MAP tests (which students take three times each year), significant summative
assessments, and other evidence of growth. They have also changed their daily schedule to
accommodate larger blocks of time for reading and math so that students can dig deep into these
subjects.
The school has embraced a tiered approach to blended learning throughout the school.
According to Ewing and the school’s promotional literature, the K-2 students are on the
computers for 20% of their day, grades 3-5 are using the computers for about 35% of their day,
and grades 6-8 are on the computers for nearly 50% of their day. However, Ms. Sanders
estimated that her K-2 students are on computers for around 35% of their day, and Mr. McClure
said his students in grades 6-8 are on computers for at least 50% of their day. My own
observations resonated with these higher estimates, as did my conversations with some of the
older students.
The lower grades use more of a station-rotation model, but as student time on computers
increases in upper grades, blended learning time looks like an “individual rotation” model, which
is more self-directed and less teacher-guided. K-5 teachers employ online content from Reading
78
A-Z and Raz-Kids.com as well as i-Ready for math and reading content. Grades 6-8 utilize i-
Ready, for practicing some language arts skills, Holt McDougal’s online content for math, and
Google Apps for collaboration and communication within their class.
When I observed the junior high math class, it was clearly more self-directed than the
lower grades at St. Mary’s, yet the teacher remained available to help guide and teach students as
they needed. Students in grades 6-8 have three years to get through the entirety of seventh and
eighth-grade math curriculum. Students in grades 6-8 have their own Chromebook and
headphones, a subscription to Holt McDougal’s online content, and a packet of worksheets that
support their current chapter. Students watch videos of instructors talking through new concepts
and working out problems. Students next practice problems of a similar type on paper, then they
take a quiz on the content. They are given more practice problems, and then another quiz at the
end of the lesson. At any point during this process where students are stuck or confused, they
bring their work up to Jeff McClure, the junior high math teacher, tech coordinator, and 6-8
science teacher. During a 90-minute math block, Mr. McClure sits at his half-moon desk in the
back of the room and essentially runs a help desk, working one-on-one with students as they
need help. This model allows students to go at their own pace, work at their own level, repeat
video content as needed, and get help from Mr. McClure as needed (see Figure 7).
79
Figure 7. Student Learning Trajectory: Grade 6-8 Mathematics
Before he worked at St. Mary’s, Mr. McClure tells me that he taught high school algebra
part-time at a local public school. In particular, he was hired to work with the alarming number
of students (50-60) who were failing algebra at his former school. Mr. McClure liked this
tutoring model of teaching at that school and found success with his students there. He said,
“They weren’t failing cause they were bad kids, they just struggled, and everything was just
taught above them and so they were just at the bottom.” Mr. McClure brought this individualized
mentality to St. Mary’s where the multi-age classroom demanded he abandon large-group direct
instruction. Instead, he opted to allow students to get their introduction to new concepts from the
online videos and then to help correct misconceptions on an individual basis. In this way,
McClure describes himself as more of a “facilitator” than a “teacher” in the classical sense. He
meets with students on a weekly basis to review progress over the past week and to set a new
80
goal for the coming week. The meetings are at the end of the week, usually short (sometimes 30
seconds), and just give him and his students a chance to be on the same page. Often, McClure
uses these opportunities to challenge students to push themselves further.
While the model of blended learning differs between Mr. McClure’s room and Ms.
Sanders’ room, teachers at St. Mary’s seem to have a similar motivation and end-goal of using
blended learning. As Ms. Sanders puts it,
My room, Jeff’s room, Sydney’s room, Nora’s room—it’s the same idea, but probably all
look really different. . . . We all have the same goals. We’re all shooting for individual
learning. We’re all shooting for integrating this technology. We’re all shooting for these
things. But how can I make it work for me in my classroom with my kids?
Ms. Ewing gives teachers the freedom to iterate and adapt their model of blended learning to
their pedagogical style and the needs of their students. Ms. Sanders has adapted her model over
time as well. She originally tried putting all of her kids on i-Ready for a 45-minute math block,
but she realized her younger students had a hard time budgeting their time and staying engaged
for this length of time—they needed more structure and accountability. As she puts it,
They’re more productive when they have more things going on and less time to do it. If
they know “I’m only going to do this for a little bit of time,” their mind doesn’t wander.
They’re much more focused, and so they accomplish more in that time instead of staring
into space because they know they have to do it for the next 45 minutes.
They know they’re only going to be doing it for 15-20 minutes and then they’re
going to be meeting with me, but then they’re going to be going out and reading a book
with the [parent] volunteers, and then they’re going to be working on their math packets
where they get to color.
81
In this way, Ms. Sanders was able to gauge student engagement and productivity and adapt her
model of blended learning accordingly. This more structured approach trades the learner
independence of the flex model in Mr. McClure’s room for greater task novelty and a sense of
urgency to increase engagement and productivity. Ms. Sanders did not feel beholden to a school-
wide prescriptive approach to blended learning or constrained by the model of blended learning
in use down the hall, but was able to take what was helpful from a classroom like Mr. McClure’s
and adapt it for her students.
The multi-age approach grew out of necessity and intentionality as Ms. Ewing and her
team wanted to design a learning environment that would help students build life skills along
with academic insights. The charter school that Ms. Ewing helped to set up was based on
building so-called 21st century skills, and she wanted to bring some of these to St. Mary’s as well.
Mr. McClure talked about how the multi-age school setting mimics a workplace setting where,
“you’re not going to have a lot of people that are your same age,” and adults are expected to
collaborate with coworkers across a spectrum of ages and experience levels. Ms. Ewing echoes
this way in which multi-age classrooms teach these life skills:
It’s preparing them for 21st century, where you’re not going to walk into a workplace
where everyone’s the same age, where you are doing exactly the same job at the same
time. But yet we teach that way, which makes no sense.
It is clear from St. Mary’s staff that while a school consolidation might have forced the creation
of a multi-age school, they have embraced this as a strength and an essential design feature of the
school in order to build skills of independence and collaboration.
Finally, one of the biggest transitions between the way St. Mary’s ran before the
transition to multi-age blended learning and now is the way that the faculty and staff define
82
“success.” Ms. Ewing wanted to move the emphasis of St. Mary’s from grades to growth. She
says,
I want to make sure that every child is getting the right to learn and to grow. We’re really
focusing on growth here—where are kids at and where do we want them to be? And we
say, all of our students deserve a special education, so that every child has goals, every
child is working at their just right level. And we celebrate movement, not necessarily
what level are you working at, but have you grown from where you were a month ago?
Have you grown from where you were six months ago? Have you grown from where you
were a year ago? We focus on growth.
This orientation toward growth further echoes St. Mary’s desire to build an individualized
educational experience.
Learner-centered
A learner-centered educational environment is one that helps teachers to reveal
incomplete understandings of concepts and surface false beliefs when students are first learning a
new concept. Learner-centered environments are also attentive to culturally relevant examples in
helping students learn. At St. Mary’s, creating a learner-centered environment involves using
both the tools of technology available in a blended learning school as well as leveraging the
advantages of their small, multi-age classrooms.
Teachers at St. Mary’s use a variety of tools to assess where students currently are in
terms of their learning and regularly share this data with their students. Teachers utilize the
adaptive and diagnostic pretest built into i-Ready, a school-wide program for math and language
arts to gauge the ability level of their students, even from the beginning of the year. Additionally,
students take NWEA MAP tests to give teachers a solid idea of student learning gaps. Teachers
83
school-wide also have regular one-on-one conferences with students to set goals and assess their
progress. Mr. McClure says he does this once each week—usually on Friday—to make sure kids
are on-track. As he puts it,
On Friday, we do just a quick little, “Where are you at? Where do you want to be in a
week?” And it can be a 30-second meeting. It’s just me checking in where they’re at, how
they’re pacing is. If they’re not meeting that goal week after week, then I see there’s
something happening there as well, so just another way to check in with the students.
Students in his class confirmed that they have these very brief meetings most weeks and that it
allows them to talk to Mr. McClure about their progress. The students I talked to in this class
know exactly how quickly they are progressing through their grade-level texts and when I ask
one boy in this class about his individual progress, he rather proudly walks me to the bookshelf
at the far end of the room. He pulls a binder with his last name on the spine of the shelf. This is
his “growth portfolio,” he tells me. He flips to his NWEA MAP scores from the previous two
years and explains in detail how he has improved on these tests and where he hopes to be by the
end of the school year. Later, I recount this to Mr. McClure who tells me that students are used to
doing this because they have student-led parent-teacher conferences several times each year. In
the younger grade, this is a bit more difficult. I ask Ms. Sanders about these student-led
conferences in her K-2 class and she smiles and says, “It’s like pulling teeth!” She says she tries
to give her students a sense of their progress as they color-in graphs, but their understanding of
their performance data seems more limited. When I ask her if her students understand their own
growth, she replies,
I think kindergarten, not so much. Some of them do. And some of them really understand
it in different ways. I mean, they can’t really always look at a chart and say, “Oh, I’m
84
here and I need to get here.” But they can tell you that they want to be in the “yellow
sticker” books. They can tell you they want to be in second grade math as a first grader.
They can tell you these goals that maybe they have for themselves, that they know
they’re getting close and so they know by this point they want to be there. Or they know
their reading levels. And I’ll share with them how close they are and how much we still
have, especially second semester once they’ve kind of really gotten into things and seen
that they have made these accomplishments. And then it’s not always that I can show you
on the graph and tell you all about it, but I can tell you these are the things that I want: I
want to be able to read these books, I want to be able to work on this math.
This regular goal setting and attention to student performance data helps students monitor their
own progress while giving teachers a chance regularly discuss student progress, challenge
students, and notice when students start to lag behind.
The one-on-one time that students are able to spend with teachers because of a blended
learning approach allows teachers to pinpoint and correct false understandings as they emerge.
Despite some of the differences in how blended learning is implemented at St. Mary’s across
grade levels, one similarity in all of the classes I observed was that teachers used their blended
learning time to set most of the kids working on their own while they pulled out small groups or
individuals work with the teacher. In Mr. McClure’s math class, students practice solving a
series of problems in a packet of worksheets based on the concepts they have just learned
through their online curriculum. He explains, “If they’re getting things wrong, they’ll come up to
me and say, ‘Hey, I got a lot of these wrong.’ And then that’s where I’m kind of jumping in and
helping correct those misunderstandings.” This statement and practice is clear evidence of a
learner-centered environment in Mr. McClure’s classroom.
85
Across different models of blended learning throughout St. Mary’s, the work that
students do on computers—from reading fluency drills to math concept videos—are learner-
centered in that they allow students to control the pace of their instruction. Students in grades 6-8
math can watch videos several times if they need to in order to grasp concepts at their own speed.
Students in lower grades can adjust the pace of their instruction based on their needs. Although
this approach might seem to reward the unmotivated learner, Nora Kinney, the teacher for grades
3-5 (and 6-8 writing), describes the way blended learning has helped her hold students
accountable for their progress in her class:
[With blended learning] there’s no way you can float along. I have seen so many kids
who are “floaters.” They just want to float along. Now, I feel like everybody is so much
more engaged.
I see kids who are at the same spot. And I ask them, “What are you doing?” and
they say, “I’m doing my math.”
I say, “No, you’re not.”
They can’t do that because the program doesn’t go. And that’s why some kids
don’t like our school. I honestly believe we’ve had a few kids leave because they were
floaters and their parents were happy with them being floaters because they were happy.
Some people say they want rigor, but they don’t really want rigor. Some people only
want rigor in theory, but then when you actually have to work hard and your kid actually
complains a little bit, they really don’t want rigor.
Ms. Kinney’s description of the way students might be able to “float along” in a class that is not
giving students individual attention—presumably even in her class in the past—presents a vivid
description of the way that she has been able to make sure every one of her students is working
86
on something with a blended learning approach. Her description of “floaters” is further
interesting because it might seem that this would be a problem in a school with much larger class
sizes where students could go unnoticed or “fall through the cracks.” Yet she saw the problem of
“floaters” even in the small class sizes of less than 20 students at St. Mary’s. This was perhaps
one of the most striking and noticeable attributes to observe when students at St. Mary’s—across
all grade levels—were working on blended learning: when the individual student stopped, so did
their progress. Students appeared to realize that they could not simply wait out the class period
and expect to progress. There was no “tide” of whole class instruction to carry the floaters with
the rest of the group. This is not to say that there weren’t the occasional yawns, stretches, or
stares at the wall, but particularly in math blocks, my observations confirmed Ms. Kinney’s
statement: it seemed that simply floating along did not seem as possible with this approach. This
attention to the individual learner’s progress is evidence of a learner-centered environment.
Beyond the tools of technology, St. Mary’s leverages their small, multi-age environment
by allowing teachers to get to know students over the several years that they have each child in
class. The small faculty size allows teachers to share information about student performance,
needs, and learning styles on a continual basis. Further, twice each semester the teachers and
staff have the opportunity to compare and consider the rich data feedbacks from the programs
students use during “data days” in order to help them see trends, patterns, and gaps in student
achievement.
This close contact with learner data over time has allowed teachers to make targeted
remediations for St. Mary’s students. Ms. Ewing recalls one of St. Mary’s great success stories
that grew out of a blended learning approach combined with skillful educator analysis of
performance data.
87
Jack was a sixth grader, “learning disabled” was his label and [there were] some definite
skill gaps there. . . . The blended model allowed for us to kind of go back and address
some of those skills that he had missed and target some of his struggles in math: like he
just totally missed basic understanding of place value. And because math builds on itself,
no wonder he was constantly struggling as math got more and more conceptual, because
he just didn’t have the basic understanding of what a base ten system was.
When it came up for his three-year reevaluation and we did all the standardized
testing on him, he had worked up to grade-level and no longer qualified [as learning
disabled]. And that was the first time in my career that I had ever sat in a middle school
IEP where a child was exited out of special education services. Typically at that point if
they’re in, they’re a “lifer.”
While this story seems to be an exceptional one, this case represents one of the most important
and compelling use of the data that blended learning programs can gather about student
performance. Diagnosing learning gaps and then successfully filling them in, as in Jack’s case, is
a realization of some of the most lofty and aspirational hopes that educators might have for
blended learning. Uncovering these knowledge gaps reflects a truly learner-centered
environment.
The relevance of the content that students at St. Mary’s receive is constrained by the
limitations of the software available. While programs like i-Ready personalize the level of
difficulty of math and reading exercises, the content does not adapt to the user’s interests or
preferences. The online text book that students in grades 6-8 use for math is even more static and
user agnostic as it simply presents videos, problems, and quizzes to the user.
88
Interestingly, when I asked a group of 5-8 grade students at St. Mary’s what they didn’t
like about blended learning, their first and far most vociferous complaint centered on the cultural
relevance of i-Ready’s animated characters:
Sydney: I think that if maybe [i-Ready] didn’t use the same little kid cartoon characters
for the little kids and the big kids, maybe if the big kids more real-life sort of things, like
a real situation, it would improve everyone’s opinion about it, but because it’s super
little-kiddish, it’s kind of hard to go. If they give you a challenging question, you’re like,
“Seriously?” And if you get it wrong, it kind of makes you feel bad.
Michael: They make you feel bad, they mock you, they’re like, “Oh, sorry, I was thinking
that one too, but now I’m not.”
Colbie: It’s kind of hard, they give a question but it’s still like a little kid thing.
Students clearly sensed the content and approach of the animated characters who guide the user
through questions and give corrections when needed were not age-appropriate for them.
Although this didn’t seem to be an obstacle to students using i-Ready, it seemed as though their
level of engagement with the software was not optimal.
Assessment-centered
An assessment-centered school provides students with regular feedback based on their
understanding of concepts and helps them improve while also teaching them skills for self-
reflection on their learning. At St. Mary’s, students get constant and timely feedback from the
work they do online. In other schools, the turn-around time on formative assessments might be
hours, days, or even weeks. When students are using i-Ready or Holt McDougal online, they
receive immediate performance data and are given just-in-time information, hints, and are helped
to practice skills before bad habits set in. St. Mary’s further creates an assessment-centered
89
culture as teachers meet weekly with each student to review their progress and set new and
realistic learning goals. The one-on-one or small-group contact that are an essential part of
blended learning at St. Mary’s allows teachers to surface metacognition and hear how students
are thinking through problems. Ms. Ewing encourages teachers to look for abrupt slow-downs or
drop-offs in i-Ready progress, to login with the student, and to have them speak aloud or show
the teacher why they are “stuck.” In this way, students give teachers insight into their thinking
process and can then be corrected or helped.
But there are limitations to what can be done online. Mr. McClure points to one of the
issues that he encounters when students are doing their work online. I asked him if he no longer
needed to spend his time correcting papers now that the software could do much of that. He
responded,
The problem that I’m finding with the math is, it has no place for them to show their
thinking—no place for them to write out problems to show what they’re learning. And so
that’s why I like those worksheet packets that I have because that way, they can fully
show their thought process throughout their work.
Mr. McClure addresses this challenge by giving students a variety of formative assessments and
allowing them to show their thought processes as they progress through math problems,
underscoring the importance of the offline portion of a blended learning classroom. Without the
proper mix of traditional pencil-and-paper assessments along with online adaptive and diagnostic
assessments, students can lose the opportunity to reflect on their own learning and make
corrections. Yet in some other ways, students are engaging in metacognitive reflection as they
see their growth toward their goals.
90
Ms. Sanders sees students reflecting on their own learning as they try to achieve new
levels of learning. When I ask her about the times when students have shown outward signs of a
sense of fiero in her class, Ms. Sanders responds that this happens “more.” When I ask her what
she means by “more,” she responds,
Meaning more than traditionally or more than I previously did. Like when a kid moves up
a reading level, they’re like, “Yes!” They’re worried about themselves. Not “the whole
class did this,” but “I did this” and, “this was my goal and I met it.” And even in math,
they get really motivated and they want to pass their tests and they feel really good. They
will say things like, “Can I do another math center? Can I do this? Can I do this?”
And so I think they have more drive for themselves and then because they have
more expectation and drive and they’re putting a little bit more into it, you get that just a
little bit more because it’s not so much the teacher telling them, “You all need to do this”
and “some of you will be successful and some of you won’t.” But they all kind of have
their individual things, and so they all have that opportunity to be successful because
even if they’re not where your “average Joe” or really high learner is, they’re still having
successes and they’re not having to compare that to somebody else and feel maybe not so
great about it because they will never be as good. But they’re passing this, they’re
moving up this level and they’re feeling really good about that.
The constant reflection that Ms. Sanders describes above is evidence of an assessment-centered
culture within St. Mary’s that invites students to regularly reflect on their progress. This
individual reflection on goal setting and attaining has the effect of giving students that fiero
feeling when they have accomplished their personal goals. When I ask students about this,
several replied that they get a sense of accomplishment when they just finish some long and
91
arduous task in school, but one student speaks about a specific example when he felt this sense of
epic accomplishment in school. This student in the 6-8 grade cohort said,
I got that with my MAPS, definitely. Because you want to improve your MAPS score
every year—every time you take the test—and my goal was I really, really wanted to get
into the 250s and I was at 248 last year. And then this year I improved by ten points and
got over 250 and I was really proud of myself for that.
Although this sounded a bit more muted than Ms. Sanders’ description, it seems apparent that
students are engaged in this practice of regular reflection upon their achievement scores and
show signs of motivation to get to the next level. Mr. McClure speaks about his students being
motivated as a result of goal setting as well. I observed his 6-8 grade math students during a 90-
minute math block and, to my great surprise, witnessed just one redirection of his students when
a seventh grade boy was off-task. More often, when a student asked another student a question,
they would quietly answer and then get back to their work. Later, I asked Mr. McClure to explain
the origin of this level of motivation and diligence in his class. He responded,
They motivate themselves I think because they’re setting up those goals, and then they
see each other’s and they’re like, “Hey, they’re working out of this book.” Or they know
the progression of what books that they’re working in, and they’re like, “I want to get to
that book.” So they’re motivating themselves.
Skeptical of this answer, I asked if he thought part of this intrinsic motivation was the fact that
these were “hard-working farm kids.” He shrugged and responded,
I think, it’s just because they have ownership of their learning. Because they know
they’re taking hold of their goals and everything like that. And I think that really helps
out a lot because that way they have something to work for.
92
Although this internal sense of motivation in students may indeed be the result of a number of
factors beyond the desire to accomplish personal goals, this strong assessment-centered culture
seems to be at least a partial explanation.
Knowledge-centered
Learning environments that are knowledge-centered allow students to build skill
competency while situating the knowledge they learn into larger frameworks of understanding.
While the affordances of blended learning help St. Mary’s to build strong learner-centered and
assessment-centered cultures, most of the knowledge-centered learning happens away from
computers or “offline.” The software that St. Mary’s is using is meant to give students a chance
to practice reading and math skills with tight data feedback loops and adaptive levels of
challenge. This is by design, says the principal, Ms. Ewing,
We say the computer will never replace the teacher, but it just leverages the teacher’s
time and talents in a much more effective way. So we let the computer do the things that
the computer can do—basic skills, just kind of the basic teaching—and then the teacher
takes on the role of a learning coach where they’re mentoring and supporting individual
students with what their needs are specifically.
By Ms. Ewing’s estimation, the deeper thinking of problem solving, text interpretation, and the
application of complex literary ideas happen in the teacher-led conversations away from the
computers. Ms. Ewing uses the image of a coach and one might even think of St. Mary’s
approach to using technology like a baseball coach: instead of using their time and energy
pitching to each player on the team, a baseball coach lets a pitching machine help players
practice hitting while he or she might stand beside the player and adjust their grip or stance to
help them in their batting. Similarly, at St. Mary’s, online tools are used to help build skill
93
fluency and provide individualized practice, while the intellectually weighty and higher-level
thinking skills are separately engaged. This was certainly evident in Mr. McClure’s 6-8 math
class where he was simply off to the side, helping individual students as they needed assistance
rather than teaching up in front of the whole class. Like Ms. Ewing’s image of a “coach,” Mr.
McClure speaks about his role as being more off to the side: “Sometimes when explaining it, I
don’t always use the word, ‘teacher.’ It’s more like I’m a ‘facilitator,’ especially when I’m
talking about the math aspect. I’m facilitating their learning.” This description of his role as a
“facilitator” echoes Ms. Ewing’s description of a “coach” that stands off to the side to help
students when they need help, yet they are encouraged to make their own connections between
ideas. This is the heart of what it means to be a knowledge-centered learning environment while
also letting students learn at their own pace. Mr. McClure’s use of his instructional time to guide
students to deeper understandings rather than engaging in large group instruction is a departure
from some common pedagogical practices, and although Mr. McClure seems comfortable with
this given his history in tutoring students who were failing algebra, allowing students to work at
their own pace and on their own material was a challenge for St. Mary’s 3-5 teacher, Ms. Kinney.
The movement to allowing students to learn on their own pace with the blended learning
model was a difficult transition but ultimately rewarding for Ms. Kinney. When I ask Ms.
Kinney what was the greatest challenge she faced in making the transition to blended learning,
she pointed out the adjustment she had to make in allowing students to have more independence
in their learning. She said the biggest challenge for her was
Letting go of control. Letting go of my own ego. I mean in some ways I think teachers
become teachers because we think we know what’s best and we want to talk. I love to
talk. I love to explain why I think something is the way it is. I know that about myself.
94
I’m not going to lie, I loved getting up there in front of a junior high class ten years ago
and giving a lecture on a literary device or something and having all my illustrations to
show it. But I sort of came to the point where I had to think like, I love being the star of
the classroom and feeling like I had all the answers and it’s hard to give up control. But
I’ve learned over the years that I just need to be more the coach for them, letting them do
more and struggle more and fail more and have it look messy more and not have it come
out always the way you want it. But then they’re learning more! So it’s more of a
“student-centered question” than a “blended-learning question,” but with blended
learning, I’ve learned to be a lot more student-centered instead of teacher-centered. I
think maybe in some ways, everybody who gets into teaching somewhat gets into
teaching because they want it teacher-centered. I mean you like giving reports and you
like standing up in front of class and telling what you know and explaining and you think
you’re good at explaining. And you are and that’s why you became a teacher. But now
with student-centered learning and blended learning, if the reason why you became a
teacher is because you love showing off your knowledge, you don’t get to do that very
much. The real reason I became a teacher was because I love kids and I love seeing kids
learn, and I just really see every kid as a little package that you get to just kind of keep
opening and seeing who they are. I love that in my own children, just like watching who
they become and how they grow. I love that.
Transitioning to a multi-age classroom and a blended learning approach challenged Ms. Kinney
to shift the focus of her classroom instruction to the individual needs of her students and allow
them to have more agency in their education by letting them “do more and struggle more and fail
more.” Although this approach is certainly more “messy” than a lecture and test model of
95
instruction, it brings the focus of learning back on students as seekers of knowledge rather than
teachers as keepers of knowledge.
This perception that blended learning software enables students to learn “basic skills,” as
Ms. Ewing explained above, places the burden of teaching deeper knowledge-centered skills on
the individual teacher. St. Mary’s teachers seem to embrace this idea as they consistently have
small-group or one-on-one conversations with students during blended learning blocks. These
are rich opportunities for knowledge-centered conversations that might otherwise occur in a
large-group discussion setting in a traditional classroom. Opportunities to “think mathematically,”
for example, may actually be presented to students in their online work, but there is a perception
among teachers and administrators that this kind of work happens “offline.” When I ask Ms.
Kinney about this, she says that she sees an emphasis on "mathematical thinking in the common
core curriculum, and since i-Ready is common core aligned she thought this might be “built in.”
In all likelihood, these connections might be part of the spiral scaffolding built into the textbooks
and software that St. Mary’s is using. Yet in a completely individualized, multi-age math
classroom, it is difficult to observe exactly how this happens without the class-wide discussions
about the “why” of mathematical thinking.
Community-centered
A community-centered educational environment is one that connects people inside or
outside of the classroom to form a supportive learning environment where students can learn
from each other and their mistakes without fearing negative repercussions. St. Mary’s teachers
speak openly about trying to help students fail well. In fact, with the introduction of blended
learning, a whole new group of students at St. Mary’s began failing: the students at the top of the
96
class. Ms. Ewing describes what happened when several students tested out of their grade-level
on their MAP scores:
We told parents, this will be a transition because probably for the first time in their life,
this child is going to feel what it means to be challenged. And they might say it’s hard
and they don’t like it, but let’s just give it some time because we want to find that just-
right level of challenge that’s motivating and not defeating.
This idea of an appropriate level of challenge leading to engagement echoes McGonigal’s idea of
the “right hard work” that is pleasantly frustrating and challenging. Yet Ms. Ewing and several
of her teachers describe the frustration that “traditionally successful” students can experience in a
blended learning environment. Ms. Kinney described the challenge for students associated with
finding their appropriate level, which often involved students facing failure for the first time.
I’ve seen kids work through it, but they have to work through a rough patch where they
feel like “this is hard” and I’m not passing all the time. Even for the smart kids, this is
hard.
We had a student who transferred into the school and was a very “type A” kind of
conscientious kid. She had a hard time adjusting to the school because she was failing
some math lessons the first time through. Her teacher explained that this was okay,
because it showed her that she was at the right level. We don’t want it to be way too easy
for you. That’s what it means to work hard: to struggle and not get it right all the time.
Teaching students that “failure” is a part of learning is an essential part of creating a community-
centered environment for all learners, regardless of ability level. Beyond math lessons, this
echoes Ms. Kinney’s statement above when she talked about a more “messy” approach to
classroom instruction that allowed her students to “fail more,” which she directly connected to
97
students “learning more.” The fact that all students are allowed to “fail” and are then quickly
given the supports and encouragement necessary to then succeed contributes to an overall feeling
of safety at St. Mary’s that redefines what traditional understandings of “failure” in school. Just
in the way that Gee (2007) lauds the way video games lower the psychological cost of failure on
their player as they are allowed to (sometimes even expected to) “die” and then restart their game,
students using blended learning software at St. Mary’s are able to retry lessons, learning games,
and assessments until they master them. Ms. Kinney has seen this as a particular benefit for
students who are not traditionally successful in school and internalize the idea of failing.
Before this [blended learning] approach, I felt like some kids got in the habit of failing.
Failing became a habit and a learned behavior.
[Imitating a student] “Yep, that’s me, I’m a failure. I fail at math, I fail everything.
I fail every quiz, I’m just a failure. I stink at math. I’m just no good at it.” [Blended
Learning works well], especially at the low end where, even if they’re behind, you’re still
showing them, “‘Well, you were at third grade and now you’re at fourth grade. You’re
still a year behind, maybe, but you grew a whole year.” So they’re still getting a feeling
of success.
In this case, Ms. Kinney saw a direct link between using blended learning as a part of creating a
culture of growth and the replacement and elimination of a “habit of failing” and the self-
identification of students as failures. With the on-screen learning content in programs like i-
Ready that may even look like videogames that students are used to playing and replaying, the
idea of failure seems to be lessening and perhaps the word “fail” in blended learning schools like
St. Mary’s might be replaced with the word “retry.”
98
Ms. Ewing sees the focus on the individual student and the individualization that comes
along with blended learning as contributing to a care for the “whole person” at St. Mary’s. Ms.
Ewing describes the link she sees between a strong sense of community and academic success,
particularly in the midst of failure.
When kids see that you value them as a whole person, it makes it easier to have some of
the tougher academic conversations because they trust you. They know that you see the
value in them and you’re only trying to help. So when the going gets tough, they’re a
little more willing to pull up alongside of you instead of feeling like you’re being cruel
and unjust.
It is difficult to assess whether or not Ms. Ewing is correct in this assumption. There was
evidence to suggest that St. Mary’s curriculum (which includes music, art, and religion) seeks to
educate the “whole person,” but it is unclear as to the effect that has on students’ attitude. The
students I spoke to had a universally positive view of the school and the sense of community at
St. Mary’s. This strong sense of community is both built up by regular individual conferencing
between teachers and students and, at the same time, allows teachers to use these moments to
challenge students beyond their level of comfort.
The sense of community is partially aided by the unique multi-age classrooms at St.
Mary’s. Ms. Sanders, the K-2 teacher, describes the way first and second graders, “grow such
strong leadership skills helping others” as they sit and work side-by-side. Often when she is
working individually with students, I observed students quietly conferring among themselves.
Her policy is to “ask three, then me,” which requires students to ask three of their classmates
before going to the teacher for help. I observed eight times when students put their hands up
during one class period while they were at computers and Ms. Sanders was working with small
99
groups. It was difficult to see how many of them actually asked three of their classmates before
raising their hands, but seven out of the eight students were eventually able to resolve the issue
with the help of a classmate, not the teacher. This is an intentional and essential part of the multi-
age classroom that allows older students to help younger ones and, in the process, “learn by
helping others and teaching them.”
Ms. Ewing sees benefits of this multi-age environment beyond simply the academic gains.
She describes the multi-age classroom as an essential part of serving the individual child: “We
love it. We will never go back. Even if let’s say all of a sudden we had an influx of 200 kids, we
would still maintain the multi-age classrooms.” Part of the reason that she (and her staff) love the
multi-age setting is because of the social benefits for children: “Socially, especially at the middle
school level, we know that one of the biggest needs and biggest drivers for middle school kids is
relationships. This gave them more options to develop friendships.” She recognizes the rather
significant developmental differences that can arise as children are growing and maturing
through school. The multi-age classrooms allow students to interact and socialize with students
who may be their developmental peers, not simply their same age or grade in school. And while
the blended learning approach allows students at St. Mary’s to progress beyond their grade level,
it also allows students to stay in a social environment that is more developmentally appropriate
for them.
Take for example two different first graders who were both in Ms. Sanders’ K-2 class last
year. At the end of the year, Ms. Sanders and Ms. Ewing worked with the parents to discern the
right place for each child. One boy, Kenny, is an avid reader and was testing at a third grade
level in math and was successfully reading books that were normally read by fourth graders. Ms.
Sanders projected that Kenny would probably begin a fourth grade math book in the middle of
100
his second grade year. Yet before they simply moved Kenny up to the 3-5 class, they took into
account his social and interest groups. Ms. Sanders said, “He can do all those things, but when
we talk about … peer-wise? Maturity-wise? [K-2] is kind of where he has friends and has the
same interests.” The decision was made to keep Kenny in the K-2 group for his second grade
year, while allowing him to progress into higher levels of reading and math, using the blended
content.
Ms. Sanders described another child, Vince, who was in nearly the same situation as
Kenny, working on third grade math as a first grader and was well above his reading level.
But all of his friends were the group that moved on to third grade. That’s the group that
he talked to, spent time with, really mixed with. And so we kind of looked at that and
gave his parents the decision, not only academically, but socially. He’s really fitting in
with this group. And so the school and parents made a choice that he would move on to
third grade.
Ms. Sanders finished this story, smiled and sat back a little in her chair, clearly proud of this
ability to differentiate peer settings for each of these students, “It was really cool to see.”
The contrast between these two boys, Kenny and Vince, reflects an approach to
individualization that goes beyond what Ewing calls their “just-right” reading or math level. The
decision to put each boy into a learning environment that would be most conducive to his social
comfort and growth while still educating them at a challenging level lends further evidence to the
way in which St. Mary’s uses a multi-age setting and the affordances of blended learning to
create a more community-centered school.
Yet as strong as this internal community is, technology is rarely used to reach beyond the
solid brick of St. Mary’s walls. Students use the blogging format to express thoughts or share
101
book reports, but the blog isn’t published publicly. Additionally, students use GoogleDocs to
write collaboratively and share written work with fellow students and their teachers, but this is
again an internal form of communication. The only external communication seems to be initiated
by teachers. Mr. McClure and Ms. Sanders created classroom Twitter accounts to communicate
student activity via pictures and text. I asked Mr. McClure to explain his purpose in using a
classroom Twitter account:
[The purpose is to] Communicate with our parents and others to see what we’re doing.
Mostly for our parents because we found that communicating with them is hard. When
every student’s in a different place on math, you can’t say, “Hey, we’re working on
adding fractions this week.” It would be impossible to list what everyone is working on
and make it personal for them. And so it’s hard to make a newsletter to grasp what’s
going on in the classroom. So we found if we do a Twitter account, we’re posting little
things that we’re doing in class, pictures of things that are happening in class—so seeing
the kids working—and that’s been received pretty well.
In this way, Mr. McClure is visually communicating with parents and building stronger ties
between the school and its parents and supporters. This use of technology for communicating
students’ progress, projects, and accomplishments builds a sense of community and investment
among the school parents and beyond, albeit without direct student involvement in content
generation.
Summary
In summary, to avoid a consolidation and potential closure like many other rural Catholic
schools, St. Mary’s underwent a downsizing in staff and moved to a multi-age classroom setting
that was supposed to be supported by blended learning software. Initially, teachers were not able
102
to effectively leverage the blended learning technology and were overwhelmed by the multi-age
approach. With strong leadership, iteration, and new adaptive software, teachers began to
differentiate with blended learning in order to meet the needs of diverse levels of learners in each
classroom. The school now has a tiered approach to blended learning that seeks to allows
students to become more independent learners and teachers describe themselves as more
facilitators and coaches than traditional teachers.
The teachers at St. Mary’s speak almost univocally positively about the learner-centered
affordances of blended learning. Students are allowed to progress through lessons (particularly in
the 6-8 grade math curriculum) at their own pace while seeking help when they need it. In some
cases, the individualized nature of the software has created more accountability among students
who might otherwise be able to “float along” in a classroom. In another case, the data from
blended programs helped uncover a learning gap which, when remediated, allowed a student to
be de-identified as “learning disabled.” The limits of the software also came to the fore as older
students noticed when content was too childish for them.
Regular reflection on assessments by both teachers and students has led to some effective
practices of individual goal-setting which has resulted in students reporting increased motivation
and perhaps an experience of fiero. While the programs that St. Mary’s students use provide
them with nearly instant feedback in building a strong assessment-centered environment, in some
cases it takes a pencil-and-paper assessment to allow teachers to see students’ metacognitive
processes. This reaffirmed the importance of the other (and essential) side of blended learning:
teachers who know how to harness the power of computer-generated student performance data
and when to step in to provide support or challenge.
103
This need is further emphasized when looking at how St. Mary’s tries to build
knowledge-centered learning environments. St. Mary’s principal sees the role of technology as a
tool that builds fluency and automaticity of skills (essential parts of a knowledge-based
classroom), but relies on teachers to help students situate their learning into frameworks of
understanding offline. In this way, the technology allows teachers to coach students in small
groups or individually.
Finally, there is evidence to suggest St. Mary’s has built a strongly community-centered
school where teachers attempt to challenge students to work at their “just-right” level and thus all
experience some amount of failure with new content. This occurs within what I observed to be a
supportive context where the individual is supported and encouraged toward growth with the
help of other students in a multi-age environment. The emphasis on growth at St. Mary’s—even
for those who are behind others their age—has helped deter what one teacher called a “habit of
failing” and the resulting self-identification as a “failure” among students. The personalization of
education at St. Mary’s has allowed educators, in partnership with parents, to put students in
learning environments with their developmental peers, regardless of their grade-level
performance thanks to the adaptive nature of their curriculum. Technology is further used to
communicate school activity to parents and the outside world with teacher Twitter feeds, yet
students themselves rarely (if ever) use their tools of technology to build communities beyond
the school walls.
Over its four years of blended learning iterations, St. Mary’s has developed their own
balance of using technology to assist teachers in their work, and allow students to grow at their
own level while challenging them to achieve their own goals. St. Mary’s has used blended
learning to create a multi-age school without the help of outside funding, consultants, or support.
104
The faculty and staff seem to embrace the affordances of blended learning as they regularly
reflect on student achievement data and encourage their students to do so as well. Their
innovative approach to incorporating technology into their school has allowed them to survive
and thrive despite a small enrollment and staff.
105
Case 2: Holy Trinity
Holy Trinity, an all-boys Latino Catholic middle school in the heart of an urban setting,
has introduced blended learning in order to help meet the needs of all students while seeking to
prepare them for high school, college, and beyond. This case begins with an introduction to the
school, a description of the history and background of Holy Trinity, an overview of the blended
learning design, a description of any evidence I found of the four characteristics of the HPL
framework, and a summary.
Introduction
About a quarter mile from the interstate highway that cuts through a major metropolitan
area, a neighborhood now called “Santa Cruz” sits mostly quiet on a cold December morning,
still a half hour before sunrise. There are no signs announcing the neighborhood’s name or some
clever motto, yet approaching Santa Cruz, “Laundromat” signs subtly change to “Lavadaria,”
and storefronts windows, reinforced with rebar, advertise their weekly specials in Spanish.
Farther into the heart of the neighborhood, the solid brick exterior of Holy Trinity school is
surrounded by cozy-looking, modestly-sized homes with postage-stamp lawns, each delineated
with chain-link fences and many packed with Christmas lights, decorations, and plastic figures.
Students arrive mostly by car and scurry into the school past a bundled-up faculty
member, but not before engaging in a brief conversation.
“Good morning, Diego”
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson.” Diego looks Mr. Anderson in the eye as he responds
politely to his greeting, and although his enthusiasm doesn’t match Mr. Anderson’s enthusiasm,
he smiles as he responds and walks quickly into the warm building. This routine happens every
106
day at Holy Trinity as the faculty members take turns greeting incoming students by name. It is
quickly apparent that nearly every teacher knows nearly every student’s name at Holy Trinity.
Boys in uniformed red shirts and blue pants dig books and lunches out of their backpacks
and find homes for them in their classrooms. Many wear navy blue school sweaters with the
Holy Trinity logo embroidered in crisp white thread. They are careful to tuck in their shirts, and
some meticulously reshape their hair after taking off their winter stocking caps. One seventh
grader sees another fixing his hair by his reflection in a classroom window and jokingly messes it
up again. “There aren’t even girls here, man! Why you care what your hair looks like?” They
continue to joke around and jostle each other before their entire class heads down to the large
school chapel. They make their way to their row of red fabric-covered wooden chairs quietly and
reverently. When they reach their row, each boy quickly genuflects toward the tabernacle as he
makes the sign of the cross with his fingertips, concluding with a kiss on the thumb of a lightly
closed fist—a Latino Catholic tradition.
Students stand for prayer, led by the school’s dean of students, Alan Lehr (who is almost
only ever referred to by students and teachers alike as simply “Coach”). When prayer concludes,
students sit down quietly and Coach begins their morning assembly. The first words he speaks
are, “I made a mistake.” Last week, he apparently misinformed the students as to what the “core
value” of the next week would be. The correct “core value” this week was “open to growth.” He
acknowledges this mistake, apologizes, and moves on by posing a question about this week’s
“core value” to a chapel full of 109 eager 5-8 graders:
“What makes our school different and ‘open to growth?’ ” Students raise their hands and
one-by-one, Coach calls out their name.
“Camp!” one student responds.
107
Coach presses the student on this reply. “Why camp?”
“Because we learned how to fish!”
Every student at Holy Trinity participates in a five-week summer camp designed to help
city-dwelling kids learn about the outdoors, maintain some of their academic skills, and bond as
a school community. Coach continues, “Are there ways we’re open to growth in school?”
Hands shoot up and Coach calls on each one of them.
“Trying a sport we’ve never tried before!”
“Using tutors!”
“Showing our talent in the talent show! “
“Staying till 6:00 p.m.!”
With each response, the student stands, turns around to face the entire student body, and
responds in a clear, loud voice—most with just a touch of a Spanish accent. Holy Trinity’s
president, Terri Moran, will tell me later in the week that the school’s enrollment is 100% Latino.
From the back of the chapel, this is anecdotally verifiable as the only blond or lighter hair I can
see is that of a couple of Trinity’s teachers.
Coach seems satisfied with these answers and then invites the eighth graders to tell the
other students about their “high school meeting.” Several eighth graders stand and name the
various high schools that gave presentations to them and their parents. One student describes the
“upward bound” program and shares where some of the students had decided they were going
next year. Keith Lentz, an eighth grade English/language arts (ELA) teacher stands up and fills
in some of the gaps in talking about the event. Mr. Lentz is the school’s alumni liaison who
coordinated this program for eighth graders and their parents and who supports and tracks kids
through high school and beyond.
108
Mr. Lentz tells the student body that when he was trying to tell parents about a college
preparation program, he used the wrong word in Spanish so they thought this program lasted
two months instead of two weeks. This elicited some chuckles from the kids, and Mr. Lentz
smiles brightly as he admits this mistake.
Coach then presents one student with a “gotcha slip,” a certificate celebrating the
generosity of a student. The student body recognizes this with one loud, simultaneous clap. And
finally, Ms. Moran, the school president, announces a raffle for a statue of Our Lady of
Guadalupe at the end of the week, which causes a stir of excitement. Every student’s name will
be entered into the lottery, so they all have the same chance to win. Students are excused to their
classrooms, and on their way out of the chapel, they genuflect and kiss their hand as they make
the sign of the cross.
In these opening moments of the day, I observed students showed poise and reverence,
respect and initiative. They were encouraged by their peers to think ahead to attend a good high
school and fellow students mentioned the supports that could help them succeed there. They
spoke about things that made their school different: summer camp, their extended day, the after-
school tutoring program, and their extracurricular activities. The students’ culture and language
were recognized and celebrated, an openness to growth was affirmed, and in the span of five
minutes, I (and the entire school of middle school boys) had heard two adults admit mistakes and
correct themselves with a composure that modeled maturity. Without seeing a moment of
classroom instruction, it was not difficult to imagine why Holy Trinity is thriving, over two
decades after the school’s founding.
109
Background
Holy Trinity was founded in 1993 by two friends—a priest and his former football
coach—who both wanted to establish a school for young Latino men in order to educate and
develop them as strong Christian leaders. It began as a parish school with only 14 students but
grew steadily as parents and students alike saw the benefits of a strong Catholic education, high
expectations, and Holy Trinity’s unique features: an extended school day, a strong sense of
community within the school, and a five-week outdoor adventure summer camp.
The school was a great success and soon outgrew its facility. In 2003, Holy Trinity
purchased a much larger building—the former novitiate of a large order of religious sisters. The
building dated back to 1954, but had long been derelict due to a dwindling numbers of sisters
since the 1970s. It had everything Trinity wanted—a large gym, a chapel, a cafeteria, and three
levels of rooms that left space for Holy Trinity to expand if needed. They renovated the building,
and it was ready for students in 2004.
From its inception, the school has been an all-boys middle school, serving students grade
6-8. But recently, school choice scholarships, which 95% of Holy Trinity’s students use to cover
their tuition, allowed Holy Trinity to expand to offer a 4-K classroom as well as a fifth grade.
They are currently planning on expanding the school to include both boys and girls, K-8,
although they will create separate all-boys and all-girls academies within the school once
students reach sixth grade.
Holy Trinity is proud to have a 100% Latino enrollment and Ms. Rogers, the grades 5-8
Spanish teacher, estimates that “about three-fourths of them speak Spanish at home with their
parents, and Spanish is probably their first language.” For the other quarter of students, there is a
wide diversity of language competency and familiarity with the Spanish language because many
110
speak primarily English at home. This leads to three types of students, according to Ms. Rogers:
“the ones who have gone to bilingual schools and are really pretty good at their writing, the ones
who speak [Spanish] but have no idea how to write it, and then the third group that are really
learning from the beginning.” This poses an interesting challenge for Holy Trinity. They require
all of their students to take both English and Spanish courses and show a particular attention to
building reading skills among students. Although the school has always focused on helping
students to build strong reading and writing skills, the relatively new school president, Ms.
Moran, has worked to increase the academic rigor and curriculum alignment across all the school
subjects. Teachers have noticed this difference over the past several years.
Mr. Lentz, the seventh and eighth grade ELA teacher talked about how curriculum was
designed in the past:
When I first started at Holy Trinity, there were no curriculum guides or anything. When I
taught seventh grade reading, for instance, I would just kind of choose the novels for that
year and then come up with a unit plan around the novels. Or we had a spelling book I
guess, that was one thing we did. We had a grammar book, but it was very much just
teacher directed, somewhat probably differing levels of using standards to guide
assessments and things like that.
This approach worked for a while, but relied heavily on the teacher’s preference as to what
content would be covered. Additionally, Mr. Lentz and some other teachers in his department
wanted to differentiate content for the wide range of language abilities with which students were
entering Holy Trinity, yet they felt under resourced and pressed for instructional time. Other
faculty resisted this movement toward differentiation. Those who resisted this change enjoyed
the freedom this approach gave faculty and felt as though most students were succeeding. After
111
all, Holy Trinity had built an incredibly strong reputation in the community for successfully
preparing students for high school and beyond.
Ms. Moran acknowledged the progress that teachers and students were making
throughout the school, but sensed that it was time to make a change. She recalled, “I could sense
that teachers knew that they were doing good, and our program is good, and that we’ve got a
good program in this city—we’re well-respected. But I think we all knew that we could take it
to great. So how do you do that?” Her first year at Holy Trinity, Ms. Moran spent a lot of time
having open-ended conversations with faculty and staff regarding what potentially needed to
change and how those changes might take shape. She and a small team of teachers visited some
high-performing schools throughout their city and saw different models of teaching and learning
in action, including two blended learning schools. Ms. Moran was particularly excited about the
blended learning approach and began to research it. She attended a conference where the
president of the International Association for K–12 Online Learning (iNACOL), Susan Patrick,
and blended learning luminary Michael Horn spoke about the future and possibilities of blended
learning. Ms. Moran and her staff also attended a workshop there and heard from a panel of
teachers and school leaders that had implemented a blended learning approach in their schools.
Ms. Moran recalls the effect these workshops and talks had on her staff:
So I think that just got the teachers interested. They had conversations and said, “Aha! I
see how this is working. Okay, I see how this could impact my classroom.” Then I told
them, “here are some potential programs: check out e-Science, check out Achieve 3000,
check out i-Ready math,” so they could do some of those exploratory things on their own
and learn about how the programs work.
112
Mr. Lehr, the dean of students at Holy Trinity, confirms Ms. Moran’s sense that teachers were
excited about the possibility of blended learning.
We had a full staff meeting saying this is kind of the direction we’re looking to go, this is
why. Look at all this data—look at all this stuff. We had a lot of discussions with Terri . . .
and the faculty saying, “This is what we can do, this is why we’re doing it, this is why it’s
going to help our students.” And again, that big focus on “it’s got to be about the kids.”
We can differentiate for those kids whom we all love, and to know that I can affect my
top student and my bottom student by making a simple change to my curriculum—that is
huge for us.
Ms. Moran and her staff decided that Holy Trinity would continue to pursue a blended approach
over the next several years, but they concurrently applied in December to join a national network
of Catholic schools that were implementing blended learning.
The Catholic Blended Learning Network (CBLN) accepted Holy Trinity’s application in
May, toward the end of the school year. Accepting this network affiliation meant committing
their entire school to a blended learning approach and accepting CBLN’s aggressive enrollment
expansion goals. In return, CBLN would help with professional development necessary for Holy
Trinity to ramp up to a whole-school, blended learning approach, provide Google Chromebooks
for every classroom, and pay for an on-site blended learning supervisor for several years. Ms.
Moran recalls her reaction to being selected as a CBLN school:
I was super excited just because we were then part of a network, and that’s a huge
resource for us. It’s an emerging network, but I think as the program continues and this
model grows, to have like-minded schools and like-minded leaders that have an
understanding of how this works and be able to share best practices, et cetera, is just a
113
great opportunity for us to be leaders in that, but then also to learn from others. So we’re
not alone.
She communicated the news to both faculty and parents that joining this network meant a more
rapid deployment of blended learning across the entire school than they previously envisioned.
Although most of the teachers and staff had gradually become accustomed to this vision of
teaching and learning throughout the past year, there were some faculty members who did not
want to make this transition, as Ms. Moran recounts.
We had three staff members that just kind of self-selected themselves out of working here,
which was I think, in a way, a blessing. I didn’t have to have that conversation of like,
“Well, why aren’t you using the program?” or “Why don’t you see the benefit of this?” or
“How come you can’t do X, Y, or Z?” So I think because of that, everybody that’s here
has a different sense of buy-in. They want to be here. They’re open to doing some of this
new stuff, even though they know it’s going to be challenging—I think it creates an even
stronger sense of community and team because of that.
With a strong sense of buy-in among teachers, the help of a national network that has helped
many other Catholic schools transition to blended learning, a strong school leader with a clear
vision, and an already successful school, Holy Trinity surged ahead in trying to implement a
more complete curriculum that allowed teachers to differentiate instruction for a wide range of
learners.
A final pillar of strength at Holy Trinity is the strong and well-defined sense of a shared
school culture that permeates the school. The “core value” of the week that Mr. Lehr mentioned
at morning assembly is repeated on posters and displays throughout the building. When I ask her
about these, Ms. Moran recites each of them and explains each core value with ease:
114
We have five core values at the school, and we really want our students to be open to
growth, intellectually competent, religious, loving, and committed to justice. And so I
would say that there are some soft skills within each of those values that we really kind of
want our students to develop by the time that they graduate—to be religious, we want
them to understand how to reflect on their actions, to understand how to make good
choices, to be of service to others is a big thing. How are you giving back and being
generous with your time? . . . Those values are where we concentrate a lot of our time
with our students. We help them develop public speaking skills, confidence, grit, and
persistence, but they all fall under one of those umbrellas of those core values.
The core values Ms. Moran mentions are deeply embedded in the culture of Holy Trinity.
Students reflect on these values in their religion classes, they write about them in their
English/language arts classes, and they have conversations about them when disciplinary issues
come up at the school. In the main hallway of the school, there are five Polaroid pictures of
groups of four students (one from each grade) recognizing them as “Value Award Winners” and
labeled “Open to Growth (Entregarse),” “Loving (Amar),” “Intellectually Competent
(Descubrir),” “Religious (Espiritual),” and “Committed to Justice (Servir).” Next to the pictures,
there are questions for reflection for this week’s core value asking students to reflect on the
practical ways that they might or might not be “open to growth.” Most significantly, when I
asked several students if they could name these five core values, each time the student rattled
them off and was able to answer my follow-up clarifications as to what each value meant.
Given the supports and strong school culture described above, Holy Trinity provided a
fertile ground into which the seeds of blended learning could grow and thrive. Yet, as with any
115
substantial change in teaching and learning at a school, a good amount of planning and design
was yet to be done in order to help teachers and students succeed.
Design
As I walk behind Shari May’s fifth grade ELA class and Cathy Roger’s sixth grade
Spanish class, the combined group of boys can no longer contain themselves. They had walked
quietly through the halls of the second floor of Holy Trinity where all of the instruction takes
place, but as they climb the stairs two-at-a-time and reach the third floor ahead of their teachers,
power walks turn into dead sprints toward the library. “Please walk,” Ms. Rogers calls after them,
but in a smiling, half-hearted tone that lets the students know they don’t really have to stop. They
look back and smile as they dash forward. She looks at me, palms turned up. “I mean, they’re
racing toward the library. Why would I slow that down?”
When we catch up to the fifth and sixth graders, they are busily browsing through shelves
of neatly organized, newer looking books. Ms. May tells them to be sure to check out enough
books for the whole Christmas break. While some are looking for the next book in their favorite
series, a select team of students searches for specific books for their “Battle of the Books” (BOB)
competition. They compete with area schools where students read the same list of books and then
answer comprehension questions about them. The entire school is involved in a school-wide
competition that they call TARP (Trinity Accelerated Reader Program). By reading books and
answering comprehension questions about them, students earn tickets, which can then be entered
into a school-wide lottery. This semester, the lottery prizes include an iTunes gift card, a hooded
sweatshirt with a local college logo on it, and (the most popular by far given the number of
tickets in the box) a pair of movie tickets. Teachers remind students about their TARP books
several times each day, and on at three occasions, TARP reminders made it into the
116
announcements at the end of the school day. Throughout the school day, when students finish
with their work in a classroom, they immediately grab their book and begin reading. There is
ample evidence to suggest that Holy Trinity has built a culture of reading and finds new and
exciting ways to cultivate that culture.
From the library, students head down to Shari May’s room. In addition to being the fifth
and sixth grade ELA teacher, she is the director of curriculum and instruction at Holy Trinity. Ms.
May has her students focused and working from the moment they returned from the library. She
leads half of the group of 14 sixth graders in a discussion on the main ideas of a scientific article
they were all assigned to read. The other half of the class is working on the Google
Chromebooks around the perimeter of the room, strategically placed so that the teacher can see
all the screens, even from across the room. When a student at a computer puts his hand up with
two fingers, indicating that something is wrong with his computer (one means “I don’t
understand,” and three means “I have to use the restroom”), Ms. May continues her line of
inquiry with her half of the class while walking over and fixing the problem. She asks another
question and notices a student who is not completely engaged in the back of class. She walks
over to him, puts her hand on his shoulder, and gently asks, “Are you okay?” He shakes his head
no.
“Sick or sad?” she asks.
“Sad,” he replies.
“Sad?” she repeats. “Okay,” she smiles, “we’ll fix that.” Her energy is contagious, and
when she chooses a volunteer, she calls them, “scientist Julio” or “scientist Pablo.” The other
half of the class is logged into their i-Ready profiles and working on everything from basic
phonics, where a student has to match words with pictures and work on identifying “u" vowel
117
sounds, to providing contextual evidence to support a claim in an article about pulleys. There is
clearly a huge divide between students in this class, and it was evident in my conversation with
Ms. May later in the day that, without this technology, she would never have time to remediate at
the levels some of her students needed. As a teacher who is attentive enough to notice an
individual student who is sad, it is not surprising that she likes this ability to differentiate content
for each learner in her classroom.
When it is time for students to switch, Ms. May flicks the overhead lights on and off a
couple times. Students finish up what they are working on and silently stand up. Ms. May
crosses her arms above her head and waits for her students to line up, then she changes to a
chopping motion, like a grounds-crewman signaling an airplane to taxi straight in. Later, she tells
me that she made those motions up because the students were more likely to be quiet if she
wasn’t speaking either.
At the end of the class, the entire group reviews their progress. They had set a goal of 22
lessons completed on i-Ready between all 14 students. When Ms. May pulls up the i-Ready
dashboard on the screen in front of the classroom, it turns out that they actually finished 26! Ms.
May invites the whole class to do a “silent dance party,” but their joy is short-lived as Ms. May
points out their rather dismal 74% pass rate. This model of daily goal-setting is Ms. May’s way
of getting the whole class motivated to keep driving forward through i-Ready lessons, no matter
the level of students’ progress. She assures the boys that they will do better on their pass rate
tomorrow because, as she asks, “You know what tomorrow is?” A chorus of sixth grade voices
responds in unison, “One day closer to college.” From statements like this to college banners
hanging in the hallways, there is a clear emphasis on college-readiness and success, even as a
118
sixth grader. Holy Trinity is hoping that a school-wide blended learning approach will help all of
their students reach that goal.
The shift to a whole-school blended learning approach has coincided with several other
curricular changes at Holy Trinity. Significantly, after years of struggling to find the right
approach for Holy Trinity students, the Leadership Team decided to use the free, online
curriculum from the state of New York called “EngageNY.” This curriculum provided a
Common Core aligned, structured approach to both math and ELA. Practically speaking, the
EngageNY curriculum for ELA involves reading more non-fiction texts, a greater focus on
gathering evidence from challenging texts, using evidence to build written arguments, and
increasing students’ academic vocabulary. For math, EngageNY attempts to dive deeper into
fewer topics, builds on previous math knowledge, emphasizes practicing and memorizing math
facts, and asks students to create a deep understanding of math concepts through having to
provide explanations and using real-world situations. It has been a challenge for many of the
teachers to adjust to this new curriculum, but most seem to find its rigor compelling enough to
justify the shift. Teachers printed the curriculum and some accompanying lessons and materials
from EngageNY’s free website, yet it was far from a complete solution. They would have to fill
in the gaps. Still, Mr. Lentz, the seventh and eighth grade ELA teacher, was complimentary
toward this new curriculum:
It is much more linked with standards and then secondly just much more comprehensive
in terms of lessons, building to assessments, and having that connection. So we all kind
of dabbled in it last year in the language arts team and tried a unit out. And we’re like,
“Yeah, this is good. This is going to work.” And so then we made the shift this year that
we’re doing an EngageNY year and seeing how it works.
119
This change alone sounds significant enough to push most of the teachers to the limit as they try
to grapple with an entirely new curriculum. Yet additionally, Holy Trinity adopted a school-wide
blended learning model as a part of the CBLN. This change not only involved new ways of
teaching, but also some changes to the physical space of Holy Trinity.
CBLN’s typical model for blended learning is a station rotation model where, like in the
story of Ms. May’s class above, half of the students in a class are on computers for the majority
of a class period, and then students switch to spend the other half of the class in smaller group
with their teacher—a mode teachers at Holy Trinity call “direct instruction.” The impetus behind
this model is a desire to make large classes (of maybe 30 students) feel small as they are broken
up between the two modes of learning. Since the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at Holy
Trinity were smaller groups (around 20 students or less per class), this required CBLN to
purchase only around 10 laptops for each of these classes and 15 for the fifth grade classrooms.
Each of these laptops sits on the near edge of a long, shallow table with a chair for each station
tucked neatly underneath. All of the computers have a pair of over-ear headphones plugged into
their audio jack, all are spaced a bit apart (though there is no divider between them, leading to
copious amounts of other-screen gazing), and all are arranged so that, at a glance, the teacher can
see every students’ screen across the room.
This installation coincided with an interesting new classroom arrangement for Holy
Trinity. Instead of having homeroom teachers and students switching classrooms throughout the
day, students stay put in their homerooms and their teachers move from class to class. Ms.
Moran and her Leadership Team came up with the idea of moving all of the teachers’ desks out
of the homerooms and into two staff rooms (one of which houses the coveted copy machine). On
a tour of the school, Ms. Moran tells me that there were several reasons why she and her team
120
decided to move the teachers’ desks. First, it allowed students to “own” their classroom and feel
a sense of “home” in it. Second, it was a practical decision that allowed Chromebooks to remain
stable and plugged in throughout the day instead of being shifted from room to room, thereby
reducing the likelihood of dropping or damaging them. Finally, this was a very intentional school
culture and community-building decision that sought to take teachers out of the silos of their
classrooms and into a more collaborative space where they could share ideas and challenges.
In one of the staff rooms is a desk belonging to a non-faculty member, the desk of CBLN
employee Jimmy Burke. Several weeks before school started, Mr. Burke led a two-week
orientation and professional development for all of the faculty and staff to guide them through
the transition to blended learning. During these sessions, Mr. Burke walked faculty through
school-wide procedures for handling the computers, rotating between stations quickly and
efficiently, and the steps to take if computers hit technical glitches. Additionally, they talked
about the data that the blended learning programs would deliver, what was expected of each of
the teachers as they participated in this program, and some of the technical aspects of the
programs they would be using. They settled on using i-Ready for fifth grade math and ELA,
Think Through Math for grades 6-8, Achieve 3000 for reading and ELA school-wide, as well as
eScience3000 for all science classes.
Think Through Math (TTM) is an adaptive mathematics program that uses an initial
placement test in conjunction with ongoing lesson assessment to determine an individualized
pathway for each student. When a student struggles with a lesson or the test at the end of the
lesson, TTM may insert a lesson to remediate some of the skills that the current lesson is built
upon. TTM is designed to be used in a classroom without much teacher interaction. In fact, one
of TTM’s most distinct features is a “TTM Teacher” button that students can click if they are
121
stuck—and after they have attempted the problem and gone through several “help” tips first—to
connect them with a live, state-certified math teacher. Students can hear an off-site, licensed
teacher employed by TTM through their headphones and respond back by typing in a chat
window. Notably for Holy Trinity, students can choose to chat with TTM teachers in English or
Spanish. Each lesson has a pre- and post-lesson quiz, videos, interactive animations, and word
problems. The information is presented in a very clean and crisp layout without the character
animations, games, or cutesy voices of i-Ready. TTM has an extrinsic motivation feature built in
that allows students to earn points by completing lessons and then convert points to real dollars
that they can then donate to the charity of their choosing.
Achieve3000 is an online repository of over 4 million news and current event articles that
have been rewritten in varying levels of complexity from grades 2 through 12. Students take a
diagnostic placement test to determine their reading level and Achieve3000 curates which
version of the article is given to them based on their performance. Teachers can assign one
article to the class, and it is delivered to each student at their reading level (or just above to
challenge them), or students can choose articles at their reading level on topics that interest them.
They then complete a comprehension quiz or an accompanying writing activity. Achieve3000
can be used for reading and writing practice rather autonomously, but teachers are also able to
see assessment data, use the tool to assign specific types of articles, and comment back to
students on their performance. Science3000 is exactly the same tool, but contains scientific
articles instead of news-based ones.
In order to be a part of the CBLN, Holy Trinity signed a three-year partnership contract.
As a part of this partnership, CBLN and Holy Trinity agree to mutually fundraise the first three
years of blended learning operating costs, which amounted to about $685,000. This provided
122
hardware—Chromebooks, carts, all wiring for additional access points, and server upgrades—
and software licenses for the various programs. It also paid Mr. Burke’s salary and some CBLN
fees, such as professional development and travel costs. Additionally, Holy Trinity agreed to
increase their enrollment over three years, give CBLN access to student test scores and
performance data, and share in the fundraising costs they incurred. Finally, CBLN set a
minimum target goal of 65% of their entire student enrollment achieving 1.4 years of growth on
the NWEA MAP test. But beyond these pre-defined metrics for success and financial viability,
Holy Trinity embraced a blended learning approach for its potential to help their students
succeed in high school and beyond. Mr. Lehr, dean of students and middle school social studies
teacher, talked about how Holy Trinity defines success:
In general, we tend to base our success on how well our students do at the next level, not
as much as what they’re doing here. So how well are we preparing our kids for high
school? How are those kids testing when they’re going to high school? What skills are
they doing well when they go to high school? So in general, that’s that bigger picture.
Then, we break it down into, we need to see reading growth, we need to see math growth,
we need to try to close that achievement gap between our marginalized students and the
students that they’re going to compete against—that’s not the right word—but compete
against from all the private schools. I think in general a lot of our really, really bright
kids have gone to the most competitive high schools and have been somewhat successful,
but not as successful as other schools’ brightest kids. So how can we kind of shrink that
gap so that we are on the same footing? We already know our students are coming in a
little behind because most of them are ELL [English Language Learner] students, so how
do we bridge that gap between us and the other schools?
123
This sheds some light on the varied ways that Holy Trinity is defining success for their students
in not only traditional measures like reading and math growth, but in helping students reach their
potential and preparing them to succeed beyond middle school. This echoes back to the “soft
skills” of “confidence, grit, and persistence” that Ms. Moran spoke about helping students
acquire and practice. Although these skills were not explicitly designed into the blended learning
approach that Holy Trinity has implemented with CBLN’s help, as I used the HPL framework to
gather data about teaching and learning at Holy Trinity, there was ample evidence to suggest a
blended learning approach supports these goals.
Learner-centered
A learner-centered educational setting is one where incomplete understandings of
concepts and false beliefs are surfaced while a student is still forming their ideas about a new
concept. In this way, a learner-centered classroom responds to the needs of individual learners.
At Holy Trinity, much of the evidence of learner-centered surrounds responsiveness to learners
on the top and bottom quartiles of the learning spectrum, who teachers say they often have a
difficult time reaching.
Mr. Lehr (“Coach”), the middle school social studies teacher, dean of discipline, and a
member of the school leadership team, visits most of Holy Trinity’s classrooms on a regular
basis as he functions as an instructional coach and (less regularly) as a faculty evaluator. He
admits that he doesn’t use the blended learning software as much as many of the other teachers
in his own teaching, because he has had difficulty finding historical texts on Achieve3000. He
prefers assigning students to read primary historical sources, many of which he takes from
Stanford University’s “Reading Like a Historian” website. Still, he sees how blended learning
software has given him and others tools to make a more learner-centered classroom. He reflects,
124
The differentiation that you can use in a blended classroom is amazing compared to a
traditional classroom—even if it’s just something as simple as, I can break the kids into
two different groups so the discussion can be at a higher or lower levels while the other
group is working at the blended stations. Or the fact that all the articles they’re reading
are based on their Lexile level, so you know the kid’s getting the right level. Or the fact
that I can bump it up and make them struggle and work through it by maybe printing off
one with a higher Lexile and working on it in groups or individually. It’s a huge asset to
have to be able to differentiate where you might not have been able to in the past. To
find 18 different articles for kids to read is impossible, but with the technology you have
the ability to do that. Real time assessment, real time data is huge, so we can use that to
kind of guide our instruction. So the fact that I can have a kid in the back at the computer
working on a main idea activity and I’ll know within seconds where he is on that scale
and then be able to say, “Okay, we need to go over this again. I need to reteach it. We
need refreshers before we can move onto something else.” That’s huge.
Even as Mr. Lehr is using blended learning software (specifically Achieve3000 in this case) in a
rather limited way, it is still significantly complementing his pedagogy. As Achieve3000
collection of texts grows more robust, one might expect a teacher like Mr. Lehr to further utilize
the blended learning software.
Holy Trinity president Ms. Moran similarly speaks about the blended learning approach
helping struggling students, not just in terms of differentiated content, but giving them the time
they need to work on skill improvement. She points to one young man in particular who has
struggled with English language acquisition. This is a challenge for Holy Trinity because by the
125
time they enter the school, students can already be quite far behind if they haven’t received the
remediation they need. Ms. Moran says,
I would say that it definitely helps the students on the lower-end. We have a student in
the fifth grade, but who is reading at the first grade level for us, and he is a student who
needs additional intervention time to help him progress and get more on grade level. So
he’s definitely spending more time on a program like Achieve3000, and his [content] is
much more around phonics and around basic reading kind of skills, whereas maybe a
peer in his class is at grade level. And it doesn’t slow down the teacher in the way that. If
it were a full class, they’d be spending so much time with this young student. This way
allows that student to continue to grow at his own pace.
Ms. Moran points out the importance of content differentiation for this student as well as the
pacing of the adaptive software that allows students to work at their own level without the threat
of holding other classmates back.
Antonio, an eighth grader at Holy Trinity, describes how he sees a blended learning
approach benefitting his classmates. After describing one of his classmates who has flown
through all of the eighth grade lessons on TTM, Antonio pauses and says,
It’s about what kind of person you are. If you’re not a really slow person but you take
more time on things, then blended learning goes to your level and goes with you, it
doesn’t go against you. And if you are a fast learner, it goes fast. It’s on your level pretty
much, that’s what I’m trying to say. And it’s challenging, but it’s not challenging enough
that you can’t complete it, it’s just pushing you as far as you can and knows that you can
complete it.
126
This description represents the ideal of what should be happening for students as they use
blended learning software—it meets them where they are and challenges students at every level
to the point of pleasant frustration, not overwhelming resignation. Significantly, Antonio states
that the computer program somehow “knows that you can complete it”—a statement that reveals
his trust in the legitimacy of the blended learning software and its ability to adapt to the user.
This is no small amount of praise for the way TTM has contributed to a learner-centered
environment, at least from Antonio’s perspective. But this benefit has not simply benefitted
students on the lower end, as Antonio points out. It has helped his classmates who traditionally
have done very well in school too.
One of the main reasons Holy Trinity pursued a blended learning approach was in the
hopes of helping struggling students. But as several teachers at Holy Trinity expressed, it is
(rather unexpectedly) also really helping kids at the top of the class. Ms. Moran articulates how
this is happening:
I would definitely say that the teachers are able to better meet the needs of the students
that are kind of those higher-end students. They’re able to progress much faster through
different programs and be challenged in a way that, when you have a class of 25 students
or so, and you’re teaching to the whole class . . . differentiation for the higher end can
sometimes look like, “well here’s an extra set of problems to work on” or “oh, here take
this one problem a few steps farther,” but it really doesn’t keep pushing the kids at their
pace that they could be able to do. In a class like math that definitely [benefits] the higher
students or even language arts—or any other subject really. Those students are getting
more challenging vocabulary words, more challenging comprehension questions, and
more challenging texts to have to grapple with. So those students—honestly, they get
127
frustrated sometimes because things are so challenging, but they also are like, “Oh, wow,
okay, I see that I’m much farther advanced than maybe some of my peers, and I’m not
being held back now.”
Differentiation, in this case, allows students to progress beyond what they would normally be
able to reach when they have to throttle back their learning to keep pace with their classmates.
As Ms. Moran points out, challenging these students is sometimes rather perfunctory and
minimal. Ms. Krantz, the seventh and eighth grade math teacher, agrees with this difficulty. The
previous year, she tried giving her high-performing seventh grade students an eighth grade math
book so that they could keep progressing. It was challenging for her to maintain two sets of
lessons for one class. She says, “I just knew these guys needed more. They were able to do more
and I couldn’t. I said, ‘I’ve already got you working in two different books and trying to do
harder things!’ ” With TTM, she has enjoyed seeing her students continue to be challenged
individually while the whole class is progressing through the challenging lessons of the
EngageNY curriculum.
Beyond academic achievement, several teachers at Holy Trinity mentioned the ancillary
learner-centered effects of the blended learning approach. Matt Anderson, a fifth grade teacher,
points out a particular type of student who is benefitting from this different way of learning:
students who are often a bit quieter. Sometimes students hesitate to speak in class because they
are embarrassed that their English is not as sophisticated as their classmates, but other students,
such as Tommy, are just a bit shyer than his classmates. As Mr. Anderson describes, “Tommy
does fairly well and gets his work done, but doesn’t engage a lot in full group discussion. But
there’s really not that option when you’re one-on-one with a program. So he’s definitely engaged
more fully I would say.” Another teacher described some of the ancillary benefits a student who
128
is struggling to learn English is experiencing. Ms. May, an ELA teacher and the director of
curriculum and instruction, describes this student:
We have a fifth grader, Juan, [who is] functioning at about a kindergarten/first grade level,
and when he’s on his i-Ready, it’s all letter sounds, phonemic awareness, things of that
sort. And I decided to pull him from his Spanish and religion block and put him on the
Chromebook for an extended chunk of the day so that he could get that catch-up
instruction. Now is it working? Good question. He’s building more self-esteem around it,
but it’s self-esteem towards his own abilities. He’s like, “I’m getting smarter!” He’ll say
those things. He’s also getting the one-on-one tutoring twice a week with a
paraprofessional. There’s an intention behind what we’re doing, so there’s a lot of
variables that even play into him. But he too is a student who is on it longer than anyone
else in fifth grade, and I don’t see the growth that we should be seeing within the program
yet. And so again, I would want to become a little more familiar with the data [from i-
Ready].
While Ms. May has not seen leaps in Juan’s progress that she hoped she might by putting him on
i-Ready for a significant part of his day, she attributes Juan’s increase in confidence as a
learner—at least in-part—to his work and progress at his ability level on i-Ready.
Assessment-centered
Students in assessment-centered learning environments receive regular formative
feedback as they form their understanding of concepts while growing in self-reflective,
metacognitive processes. Outside pre- and post-testing, students at Holy Trinity experience very
tight data feedback loops with the blended learning software they utilize. For example, in Ms.
Rogers’ Spanish class, students use WordPlay.com as an adaptive flash-card system. Ms. Rogers
129
entered her textbook name and level into the site, and the site automatically loads all of the
vocabulary from her current chapter into her students’ profiles. Ms. Rogers likes the adaptive
nature of the site, the different modes it gives her students (some are multiple choice, others
require typing the word in question), and the fact that it includes audio pronunciations of the
words so students can hear the words in their headphones. Ms. Rogers describes the system:
[Students] identify the words and match them correctly, and then it keeps track of how
they’re doing, and it keeps giving them the ones that they get wrong and adapts to how
they’re doing. Each time that they’re clicking, it’s adapting it and giving them ones that
they’ve gotten wrong again. And then it starts to get harder and harder and harder, until
finally it says, “you’ve mastered this lesson.” And then they can go on to the next one.
Each word that appears also has a timer arrow that starts at the top of the screen and rapidly
moves down to the bottom. I watch as 13 of Ms. Rogers’ students work on these vocabulary
words with what seems to be a high amount of engagement at a surprisingly quick speed, despite
the fact that all of them are using the “hunt-and-peck” method of typing. A small battery icon on
their screen starts empty and red and begins to fill up as students progress, giving them a visual
cue of their progress toward mastery. Later, it will fill in blue as students return to those words
and continue to successfully reinforce them in their memories. Ms. Rogers describes the
immediate feedback students receive from WordPlay.com:
After they’ve reached the program’s mastery for that lesson, then it will say, “You
mastered this lesson, go on to the next one.” So they get a lot of feedback that way. And
also it’s set up so if they’re misspelling a word it goes like, “doink,” and then they know
that they got that one wrong. So it’s constant feedback in that sense. The sounds either go
like, “doink” if they get it wrong, or “cha-ching” when they get it right.
130
The seemingly highly-engaged 13 students on Chromebooks in the back of the room allows Ms.
Rogers to have an extended conversation with four students in the front of the class. As she does
so, she corrects their pronunciation, grammar, and asks them follow-up questions, all in Spanish.
For an entire class period, I saw nothing but immediate feedback for the students in Ms. Rogers’
class. It would be difficult to imagine how a classroom could possibly be more assessment-
centered (in the sense of real-time formative feedback) than this one.
But not all of the classes at Holy Trinity are this closely aligned in terms of computer
work and direct instruction. The fifth grade math and social studies teacher, Mr. Anderson,
expresses frustration that the work his students are doing on i-Ready does not coincide with his
direct instruction and therefore reinforce the content he teaches.
I would love it if I could get them more practice directly related to what we’re doing as a
class. So if we’re working on dividing decimals, I would love them to get some practice
in that. I think it’s still very much possible to get them at their appropriate levels, but
within that specific strand.
Mr. Anderson refers back to his teaching experience at a previous school where he became
familiar with a math practice program called iXL. He liked the fact that this program allowed the
teacher to assign practice problems around a certain topic. “It will just throw you problem after
problem of adding fractions, say,” Mr. Anderson describes, “and then when you get one wrong,
you can look at ‘well, here’s why you got it wrong,’ and they’ll give an explanation for it.” To be
clear, he finds the lack of real-time help in iXL to be a limitation, but wants this kind of practice
for his students. Mr. Anderson is not alone in feeling frustrated at the fractured nature of his
math class. Another math teacher at Holy Trinity, Ms. Krantz, expressed a similar frustration and
went so far as asking the administration if students could work on TTM in their after school
131
tutoring program, which is mandatory for all students at Holy Trinity. She sees the merit in
adaptive math content on computers and the gap remediation that is possible through it, but
simply questions when the most appropriate time to utilize that kind of program might be.
Interestingly, in several classes within Holy Trinity, teachers have used logbooks or
journals in order to have students be explicit about their metacognitive processes that can often
be hidden on computer work. These metacognitive skills of self-reflection and idea refinement
are key parts of an assessment-centered educational environment and teachers like Ms. Krantz
have instituted this practice of students logging what they are working on so that they can reflect
on their work with the teacher and create a pencil-and-paper accountability system.
Knowledge-centered
Knowledge-centered classrooms help students build skills and deep understanding of
concepts by constructing their own mental frameworks of meaning. Using blended learning
software to contribute to a knowledge-centered classroom can be a difficult task for schools in
their first year of a blended learning implementation. The skill automaticity aspect of a
knowledge-centered classroom is often much more attainable than the deep, synthetic thinking
that is the other hallmark of knowledge-centered learning environments. In their first year of
blended learning at Holy Trinity, the CBLN set very simple goals for using blended learning in
the classroom. The first month, the goal was to simply just make sure that every teacher was
using the blended learning software weekly and to ensure that students could accomplish the
rotation process in under 30 seconds. According to Mr. Burke, the blended learning coordinator,
after that first phase is complete,
then you start to look at, “Okay, how does this connect with what I’m doing in the
classroom?” So that’s kind of like the Phase 2 part of it, and then along with that is “how
132
do I motivate students?” So then Phase 3 would be like finding a total integration, so that
things line up: “This is what I’m teaching in class and this is what they’re doing on
blended learning.”
Rachele Coyle didn’t want to wait for Phase 2. She teaches sixth and seventh grade reading and
writing and each grade has a 105-minute block of time. In these large blocks of time, Ms. Coyle
wanted to utilize the blended learning software—Achieve3000, which she and many others at the
school just refer to as “Achieve”—so that she could engage students in meaningful work while
she worked in small groups or one-on-one with students to help struggling readers or focus on
improving their writing skills. When she saw that her students mastered the station rotation
transition within a few days, she grew impatient of this slow roll-out of the phases and started
exploring the software on her own. She began by assigning students articles on Achieve3000.
I started using a lot of the different features that Achieve offered so to me. Like
Achieve’s “article” feature, which is where the students take a pre-poll, and it will ask a
question like, “Do you agree or disagree with this statement?” And the statement might
say, “It is important to maintain cultural traditions?” So something like that and they’d
have to agree or disagree, and that pre-poll would lead them into the reading of the article.
So they would read an article and based on the beginning of their Lexile score, that article
would be a certain length, it would include a certain complexity of word choice, etc., etc.
Some guys would have a feature where they could listen to the article if their Lexile was
lower. If their Lexile was very high, they would not have that option, and in the sidebar
they would have a list of important vocabulary that was included in the article that was
highlighted and underlined. They could click on that and hear the definition, hear how the
word was pronounced. So there were some really great features with the articles, and it
133
was going very well, I thought. It wasn’t going perfectly, but for the beginning of the
year, the students seemed to be engaged.
Following each article, Achieve3000 presents a student with an activity and eight “thought
questions” that they are asked to answer based on the content of the article. Ms. Coyle set a
classroom goal of 75% on these “thought questions.” Students seemed excited to try and reach
that score, but Ms. Coyle anticipated they might soon get bored of this task. She recalls,
I didn’t want them to burn out on these articles. I didn’t want them to dread going into the
blended station if this was going to become somewhat monotonous. So I started looking
at Achieve’s other features and noticed they had a writing center, which was really
exciting for me. I started including some of the writing activities and writing prompts,
etc., into my lessons so I would use it as a way to, not necessarily supplement, but to give
them extra practice in their writing. So if we were working in direct instruction, if we
working on an argumentative essay, then I would set up beforehand a writing lesson on
Achieve that would involve them taking a stand and arguing a certain claim using
relevant evidence just as they were doing in direct with me to see how well they could
now do this independently without any sort of guidance from me.
Ms. Coyle found success with this approach, but soon became a bit overwhelmed with all of the
data feedback pouring in from Achieve3000 and the double or even triple amount of correcting
that she found herself doing each night. She slowed the process down a bit, especially when she
noticed that students were rushing through the assignments just to get to the end.
Ms. Coyle went exploring in the program again and found that Achieve3000 had its own
internal email program where she could send messages back and forth to students based on their
writing assignments. Her students immediately became excited about this kind of feedback.
134
I noticed that students who were less likely to talk to me at all in class or just were shy or
maybe too timid to talk in front of their peers were responding with all sorts of wonderful
ideas and questions to me about what I had said about their writing. Normally . . . when
you receive your paper and it’s got red, or whatever color the teacher uses all over it, you
might glance at it and just look at how much red there is, but you don’t actually read the
comments, and of course, middle school boys aren’t going to take the time to read their
comments unless you make it a lesson, and we don’t have time for that. But I had guys
writing me back paragraphs! “Thank you, misses, for grading my work. I saw what you
meant about my run-on sentence. Here’s how I fixed it.” And they would send me back
their revised sentence. I was very excited. In fact, I started copying and pasting their
comments and sending them on to other language arts teachers and showing them how
excited I was.
Further, Ms. Coyle noticed that with each article she assigned, Achieve3000 deployed a generic
graphic organizer to help students read the articles. Using the EngageNY curriculum, Ms. Coyle
created her own series of graphic organizers that she gives out with each article to help students
compare or contrast information or contextualize vocabulary.
In the first half of the first year that Holy Trinity has integrated blended learning, Ms.
Coyle has found masterful ways of leveraging Achieve 3000’s features to transform simple
reading comprehension assignments into self-reflective writing exercises that help build to
knowledge-centered conversations and textual analyses while engaging all students in thoughtful
critiques of their writing.
On a more macro level, Mr. Burke, the CBLN data and blended learning expert at Holy
Trinity, looks at school-wide data in addition to doing classrooms visits around the school. As he
135
assists teachers in improving their integration of the blended learning tools, he has noticed an
effect that a blended learning approach has had on students’ sense of independence as learners.
Mr. Burke explains how this is a new skill for many of Holy Trinity’s students:
Independent thought for a lot of these students—discovering or looking for something by
yourself—is a completely new concept. In the past when they didn’t have the blended
piece, a lot of times the teacher would teach the material, the students would understand
it, and then they’d do well. Now they’re sort of exploring new topics that they’ve never
seen before and having to learn it on their own. Not necessarily hear it, intake it from a
teacher, process it, and then do it again.
This kind of self-guided and independent learning helps students form their own learning
pathways and make sense of new information in their own way. Building upon this skill is clear
evidence of a knowledge-centered learning environment.
Community-centered
A community-centered learning environment is one that connects learners with the larger
community while also being internally supportive, particularly when learners fail or make
mistakes. Given the fact that students spend nearly 11 hours each day of the school year at Holy
Trinity in addition to their summer camp where they are with each other all day, every day, for
five straight weeks, it is not surprising that there appears to be a strong sense of community
among the students and faculty at Holy Trinity. When I ask students to describe their school to
me, one student, Alejandro, tells me that he likes the fact that Holy Trinity is a “smaller school.”
“We really get to know each other here. We really get to see who everyone really is and we
spend a lot of time with each other and we basically live with each other. We’re a family.”
Another student, Marco, chimes in,
136
It’s like a 1.5 family. We have our first family and then it’s like Holy Trinity. So
whenever you can’t rely on your family, or if you have a problem, you can just come to
one of your friends and stuff. And the teachers are great. You can talk to them, or you can
have a one-on-one kind of meeting with them about your studies or about just whatever
you want to talk about.
From conversations like these, it is evident that Holy Trinity is a tight-knit community where
students see teachers as advocates, mentors, and caring adults. And as was modeled in the
morning assembly described at the beginning of this chapter, adults at Holy Trinity readily
model equanimity even as they public admit mistakes. This does not go unnoticed by students, as
evidenced by this conversation with Holy Trinity seventh grader, Ben. When I ask him what it
feels like to make mistakes at his school, he responds with a surprisingly mature answer:
Oh, it actually feels like you’re not making a mistake. It feels like you’re improving,
because like again with the family environment, it’s just like you and your family. Sure,
they’ll make fun of you in a funny way like, “dude, come on,” or something like that.
But you know that they care about you and that they’re going to help you in order to
succeed. That’s how you grow into it here.
This sense of caring that Ben speaks about is further evidence of a culture where there is a low
cost of failure, which points to a community-centered learning environment. Interestingly, while
there is strong sense of community among students, there is not much evidence to suggest that
students are using technology to connect with their community or the world at large. While the
blended learning program at Holy Trinity hones in on reading, writing, and math skills, other
skills that involve technology may be underdeveloped. Mr. Anderson, the fifth grade teacher,
points out the tension between keeping students safe and allowing them to explore the larger
137
world through technology, a skillset that he sees as essential in creating independent learners
who will succeed in high school, college, and beyond:
In order for them to be totally independent, they need a little more freedom, versus saying,
“Go to this website, do that.” It takes a little more teacher work to monitor what students
are doing . . . . It’s easier from a tech side: you don’t run into as many problems with
firewalls and inappropriate content and all this. And I understand that, especially because
I have some responsibilities and experience from the tech side, but I also know there are
points where I have kind of needed to be like, “Well, I’m not totally ready for this in
terms of the security or limiting the students, but it’s not fair to them to keep limiting the
possibilities just because this element of it isn’t ready or we still haven’t rolled it out.”
It opens up a can of worms with appropriate use and all that, but then we’ve got to
say, “Look, we’re preparing them for the future, and we can’t keep it from them because
they’re going to need it down the road.” We’ve just got to teach them to use it well. . . .
[We need to say to students], “There’s inappropriate stuff. There’s stuff that doesn’t help
you as much as it should even if it’s not inappropriate. It’s just not good.” I mean, that’s
my take on it, and that’s why I would love to see us pushing to use the Chromebooks for
more stuff.
Mr. Anderson’s desire to give students more freedom and independence with the tools of
technology that students are using daily brings up an interesting challenge for Holy Trinity. The
way the CBLN has limited the functionality of the Chromebooks and narrowed the available
websites students can access to just a few “whitelisted” sites limits their ability of a blended
learning program to help students become informed navigators of technology. Yet this narrowed
focus ensures students stay focused while on the Chromebooks and develop good habits of using
138
technology for work-related tasks. In this sense though, despite the fact that Holy Trinity has the
infrastructure and potential to connect students with affinity groups and communicate with the
world at large, they have chosen to limit this interaction—at least for now.
Summary
Holy Trinity, a very urban, 100% Latino Catholic school entered into a unique
partnership with CBLN in order to transition to a whole school, blended learning approach. They
were already an incredibly high-performing school that has had strong leadership, teaching, and
school culture. Yet they pursued a blended learning approach in order to further strengthen their
ability to meet the needs of their students—many of whom are coming to Holy Trinity in need of
language remediation—and prepare them for success in high school, college, and beyond.
Teachers at Holy Trinity report that students on the high and low end of classes are
benefitting most from the personalization that a blended learning approach affords. Teachers
who would not otherwise have time to spend on skill remediation speak positively about the way
this is happening through the blended learning software, and there are several reports of some
ancillary effects, such as engaging quieter students and building confidence as learners see their
own discernable progress. All of these data point to a growing sense at Holy Trinity that blended
learning can strengthen its learner-centered environment.
The immediate feedback that students receive on formative assessments, as a part of the
blended learning software they are using, contributes to a strongly assessment-centered
environment at Holy Trinity. In Spanish class, students use online adaptive flashcards for
vocabulary practice while their teacher gives them guided practice in their language use.
Although students’ use of Think Through Math (TTM) adaptive mathematics program allows
students to get real-time help and immediate feedback on their work, several teachers expressed
139
a desire to more closely align in-class work on computers with direct instruction topics. Even
though these are still strongly assessment-centered classrooms, the content alignment is less than
ideal for some teachers at Holy Trinity.
During this first year of implementation, much of the work on computers at Holy Trinity
is adaptive skill work. Yet teachers like Ms. Coyle have surged ahead in using a tool like
Achieve3000 in a way that promotes thoughtful writing exercises, self-reflective critiques, and
deep textual analyses—truly knowledge-centered practices. The blended learning coordinator
spoke about the way that students are building skills for independent learning as they work on
programs like TTM away from the teacher’s direct control. This skill, he claims, will benefit
students beyond middle school and prepare them for future success.
Finally, there is ample evidence to suggest that Holy Trinity is a strongly community-
centered school, although much of that is due to the extended school day, family atmosphere, and
5-week summer camp in which all students participate. There is no evidence to suggest the
blended learning approach has had either a positive or negative effect on this aspect of Holy
Trinity, yet one teacher in particular spoke about a desire to allow students to unlock some of the
potential of the laptops in use for blended instruction. He sees the potential risk in doing so, but
believes allowing students to explore, teaching them digital citizenship, and helping them
communicate effectively beyond the school walls is essential in preparing students for life in
high school beyond Holy Trinity. This type of communication is one aspect of a community-
centered learning environment and a potential area for Holy Trinity to grow.
140
Case 3: St. Stephen’s
St. Stephen’s K-8 Catholic school boasts small class sizes and a demanding curriculum
amidst high-performing, suburban district. They decided to introduce blended learning across
their school curriculum as a way to get to know and use each student’s performance data to
improve instruction for every individual student. This case begins with an introduction to the
school’s setting, a description of St. Stephen’s history and background, the design of blended
learning that they implemented, and then describes any evidence of the HPL framework at this
school.
Introduction
Science teacher Rachel Miller walks me through the brightly lit hallways of St. Stephen’s
Catholic school. To get to the third grade classroom, we walk by repurposed classrooms, where
daycare workers are rocking babies to sleep, and then up a staircase to bypass an entire floor that
has been leased to a small startup charter school. Within moments of being in St. Stephen’s
school, it is clear that the school is using some creative thinking to stay afloat financially. The
staircase is adorned with colorful pictures made up of small protruding pieces of paper. Each
piece of paper is carefully colored on both sides and then folded so that one sees a caterpillar on
one side coming up the stairs and a butterfly on the other side when going down. Each of the
students we pass in the hallway is neatly dressed in their tucked-in, blue and green uniforms. Ms.
Miller greets each of them by name, and they politely greet us and smile back. St. Stephen’s is a
small enough—only 107 students in the whole K-8—that Ms. Miller and, indeed, nearly all of
the teachers get to know not just their students, but their students’ entire families.
For most Catholic schools, enrollment means tuition, and tuition means financial survival.
A small enrollment like St. Stephen’s would be worrisome to most Catholic schools, but at St.
141
Stephen’s they have turned it into a selling point, proudly advertising small enrollments along
with their rigorous curriculum, outside activities, faith formation, and blended learning as unique
characteristics of their school. In St. Stephen’s incredibly competitive and successful school
district, Catholic schools are trying to emphasize what makes them unique and attractive to
potential students and their families beyond academic achievement. And while each of the
aforementioned aspects of St. Stephen’s school may indeed make it unique, the challenge of
managing a declining enrollment as students move to public schools is the story of many (if not
most) Catholic schools in the United States. It remains to be seen if blended learning can help
schools like St. Stephen’s distinguish itself from its public school peers and pique the interest of
potential students in a high-performing district.
From the third grade classroom, Ms. Miller shows me to Kelli Arenz’s fourth grade
classroom. Ms. Arenz is among the newest and youngest members of the seven full-time and
seven part-time faculty at St. Stephen’s. Her classroom is well-organized and inviting with
clustered islands of desks in the middle of the room and a cozy reading corner on the far side of
the room. The entire room is superhero-themed, and every bulletin board is neatly decorated in
bold primary colors. Most of the wall space is utilized, but it doesn’t feel cluttered—as if
everything on the walls aligns to some invisible grid running through the classroom. A
description of different types of texts hang on the bulletin board that proclaims, “Reading gives
us superpowers.” Students track their progress on a board that says, “Write like a superhero.”
Even the assignment of classroom jobs fits the theme. Next to the list of student names a clothes
pin is clipped with the name of the job, which proclaims, “This looks like a job for. . .” What Ms.
Arenz lacks in experience, she makes up for in enthusiasm, professionalism, and organization.
142
Her room has a couple more laptops than an average Catholic school might have, but
otherwise, it looks like typical fourth grade classroom, with one exception that Ms. Arenz
explains: “I don’t have a desk. I got rid of it this year.” Instead, she has a file cabinet and a half-
donut shaped table with several bright red, kid-sized stools, where small groups of students join
her, while their classmates work on other things. Ms. Arenz does have her own, school-issued
laptop, but she counts it among the other computers that students can use during the day for their
blended learning rotations. While other teachers might shudder in horror at the idea of a student
using their computer, Ms. Arenz sees it as a pragmatic solution to a challenge that nearly every
teacher at St. Stephen’s mentions: a scarcity of computers. Ms. Arenz describes an elaborate and
dizzying schedule of lending and borrowing among the teachers on her floor based on other class
schedules and availability. Colleagues are generous in helping each other out and sharing the
technology freely, but nearly all are facing this same challenge.
The teachers at St. Stephen’s have encountered many of these growing pains in this first
year that St. Stephen’s has adopted a blended learning model. Each teacher in the K-5 wing of
the school has found a way of incorporating blended learning into their weekly routines. They
deftly maneuver around the potentially frustrating laptop shortage with a flurry of weekly emails
to each other. They convert the students’ reading-level scores that the blended learning programs
report to another system that is the school-wide and library standard. They spent their first few
months of this school year constantly asking each other questions and finding ad hoc ways of
addressing these challenges. But most of the solutions they have found have taken the better part
of a year to evolve. And while teachers in the K-5 wing of St. Stephen’s are integrating blended
learning into math and English/language arts blocks in a regular and systematic way, the
adoption rate among teachers in grades 6-8 are significantly lower. This disparity may point to
143
some of the technical, cultural, and curricular challenges facing the school, but it is also reflects
of the organic way that blended learning has been seeded and cultivated at St. Stephen’s.
Background
Not far from a major metropolitan area, the cozy and well maintained suburban town of
Knollwood has been a destination for generations of city dwellers who want to escape the
busyness of downtown and relax by one of Knollwood’s many lakes. St. Stephen’s parish church
was founded in the late 1940s and the parish school was built in 1959. Over the decades, this
area has become less of a vacation community and more of a residential stronghold for the upper
middle class. Just a block down the street from St. Stephen’s wooded campus is an intersection
that underscores this reality as it houses a boutique jewelry store, a coffeeshop, an upscale Italian
restaurant, a yoga and Pilates studio, a cigar bar, and an athletic club and spa. In recent years, St.
Stephen’s zip code has flirted with the edge of Forbes magazine’s “America’s 500 Most
Expensive Zip Codes” and actually made the list in 2011.
Along with rising property taxes, the quality of schools in Knollwood has steadily risen
over the decades. St. Stephen’s is just a mile away from a public elementary school that
prominently displays the national blue ribbon status it earned in 2013. Ms. Miller, a 14-year
veteran teacher at St. Stephen’s, talked about the difficulty that this small Catholic school has
faced in trying to keep up with area public schools:
I don’t know if “keep up” is the right word. And “compete” is not the right word
because we’re obviously not winning that way. . . . I mean out here, there’s
money on top of money and the Knollwood school district is one of the best in the
state. They have everything, and we don’t have to have everything, but we have
to have some of the tools that they have. And they don’t do blended learning, but
144
at the high school I think the kids either get an iPad or a laptop—I want to say it’s
an iPad. I think they have an iPad for all four years of high school.
This technological “arms race” among schools in this area puts pressure on schools and
administrators to achieve a 1:1 student-to-laptop (or iPad) ratio, just to keep up with what other
schools are offering. This is a costly endeavor, to be sure. And beyond the technology that
Knollwood schools offer their students, there is also a Spanish immersion school and a Chinese
immersion school that offer intense dual language environments for students. For the highest
performing students, the district offers an academically challenging magnet program called
“Explorers.” “That’s for the super, super high flyers,” says Ms. Miller. “We actually lost a
couple of kids a few years back to that program because their parents felt like we weren’t
meeting [students’ needs at] the top end.” This increased competition has challenged all of the
area schools to think creatively about what distinguishes them from other schools. Parents in this
high-performing district simply expect academic excellence and want to know what unique
opportunities sets one school apart from the others.
Amidst these challenges, St. Stephen’s school has faced its own internal difficulties. For
decades, the school was able to weather a series of administrative transitions including a rapid
succession of principals in the 1980s, a short-lived shared-principal model in the late ‘80s, and a
transition from religious and lay leadership (and then back again) throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Under the leadership of several dynamic and ambitious pastors, the original 1950s school was
expanded to include six more classrooms and a science lab in 2002, and key upgrades to the
facilities were made the following year. With this increased capacity, enrollment continued to
grow and the school thrived in the following years.
145
However, a series of leadership changes at the school and parish in the early 2010s led to
a rapid departure of families. Two principals were fired—one in the middle of the year—and
another was brought in temporarily. In one year, St. Stephen’s lost 100 students and continued to
hemorrhage students as a suitable replacement principal was difficult to find. Finally, in 2011,
the outgoing principal asked a learning specialist, Pam Rizzo, who has a background in special
education, if she had ever considered school leadership. Ms. Rizzo had been working part time at
St. Stephen’s for the better part of a decade and had really grown to love the school and its
mission. She applied for the principal position and became the fourth principal in three years for
St. Stephen’s.
Ms. Rizzo is still in position as principal and has added some consistency and stability
through her presence. Yet with all of this transition, St. Stephen’s began to lose touch with its
core mission, and this began to affect the culture of the school. “With all the principal changes
and everything,” Ms. Miller said, “we had this mission statement that, I’m pretty sure we wrote
at some point in time when I’ve been here, but we hadn’t updated it or anything.” She succinctly
summed up the way these transitions impacted the school: “nothing was consistent as far as—
well, anything.”
As a new principal, Ms. Rizzo had to make a series of difficult decisions based on the
financial realities that follow a decreased student enrollment. Ms. Rizzo recounts this experience:
Probably one of the toughest things I had to do that first year was do some
reductions and really right-size—I hate that term, but that’s what I was told—the
staff. . . . We’ve been at risk a few times for closing. We’ve been threatened that
if we didn’t have a certain number that we weren’t going to continue, so we’ve
146
done a lot of work in trying to create a system that makes sense and that’s
economical and efficient and still good for the kids.
The last part of that statement is a key caveat that stuck with Ms. Rizzo, even as she reduced the
staff. The new reality for St. Stephen’s would need to be consonant with her background as a
learning specialist who wanted to find the right solution for each child. Simply staying afloat
financially and being “economical and efficient” wasn’t enough. Rizzo worked creatively to
maximize the additional space St. Stephen’s now had with fewer students. They transformed
some classrooms into a daycare and preschool, and they leased an entire floor of an older wing of
St. Stephen’s to a small charter school. Ms. Rizzo also began to search the Internet for ideas as to
how other Catholic schools were dealing with smaller enrollment and staff while not sacrificing
academic excellence. She came across a school that was using “blended learning” with multi-age
classrooms and soon contacted the principal. While she was considering the merits of this idea,
the diocesan superintendent was working with a local foundation to introduce innovative models
of learning in Catholic schools. The superintendent invited a speaker to talk to a number of
schools in the area about blended learning, and after hearing about the potential and promise of
this approach, Ms. Rizzo was convinced that blended learning could attract students and
maintain academic excellence at St. Stephen’s.
Ms. Rizzo excitedly recounts the next steps toward adopting a blended learning approach.
I thought, this just makes so much sense. And then gosh, it was like a whirlwind.
[The diocesan superintendent] Barb said, “Okay, if you’re interested, we are in.”
So next thing we knew, Rachel and I were on a plane to visit a blended learning
school and how their classrooms work. There was no turning back from that point
on.
147
The foundation that was working with the superintendent and the diocese offered to pay for a
pair of consultants from a Midwest Catholic University to conduct a readiness assessment and
then lead the faculty training and professional development necessary to introduce some of the
concepts and structures needed to implement a blended learning model. These consultants
reported that they focused on seven areas in helping St. Stephen’s integrate blended learning into
their school:
1. Leadership capacity strengthening
2. Intentional school culture
3. Data driven instruction
4. PLCs and high yield PD
5. Instructional coaching
6. Enrollment management and staffing ratios
7. Blended learning facilitation
They also reported that they conducted six professional development sessions at the beginning of
the year with the entire faculty and staff in order to familiarize them with the blended learning
software, the models of rotation, and understanding and interpreting data. In addition, the
consultants did two site visits each semester, gave separate training workshops and toolkits to the
leadership team, and had weekly phone calls to support and coach the principal through the
transition to blended learning. Despite these supports, one of the consultants described their
intervention at St. Stephen’s to me as a “light touch,” meaning that he considered their help as
fairly minimal and mostly focused on empowering the teachers and leadership team at St.
Stephen’s to take a sense of ownership for this transition to blended learning.
148
Design
Ms. Arenz’s 16 fourth graders are approaching the end of their hour-long morning math
block, with just five minutes remaining until the daily agenda in the front of the room promises,
“snack.” Yet there is no indication that students are counting down the minutes. They are
scattered to the corners of their classroom, busily working on one of the activities that Ms. Arenz
has assigned to them on the Smartboard at the front of the room. Each student’s name is listed
under one of the three headings: “Teacher,” “Independent,” or “i-Ready.” Seven students work
independently, reading on comfy chairs or working on worksheets throughout the room, four of
them work along with Ms. Arenz around the half-donut shaped table, and the remaining six are
logged into i-Ready on the laptops or desktop computers throughout the classroom.
Four of the six students working on i-Ready sit in one corner of the room. Their screens
glow with colorful characters and pictures that illuminate their math lessons. They all have
headphones on, although the two girls in the corner have their headphones cocked to one side so
they can hear each other. One girl, Tasha, sits on a stool next to her classmate, Anna. She is
particularly chatty and perhaps even a little bit bossy as she points to objects on her screen and
then some on Anna’s screen. Tasha’s screen displays a cluster of brightly colored buttons on one
side and eight birdhouses on the other. The word problem on her screen reads, “We have 40
buttons and 8 birdhouses. We want to put the same number of buttons on each birdhouse. How
many buttons will go on each birdhouse?” Below the question in a large blue band, white text
directions read, “Fill in the multiplication equation that describes this problem.” Above the
colorful buttons, the equation reads “8 x ? = _____” and the blank is highlighted, waiting for her
answer as she types a 4 then a 0. This is typical of the questions that Tasha works through on i-
Ready during this math block. She listens to the questions read to her, takes her time, and fills in
149
her answer, occasionally discussing it with Anna. At one point, Anna reaches over and types
something into Tasha’s computer, ostensibly giving her the answer to an on-screen question.
There is no paraprofessional or teaching assistant in Ms. Arenz’s class (as there are in several
other classes at St. Stephen’s), so moments like this can happen while the teacher is engaged
with a group of students on the other side of the room.
The tradeoff for this type of independent work where teachers might not have their eyes
and ears attuned to all students at all times seems to be a lack of the “grand silence” that might be
the norm for some classrooms. The learning specialist at St. Stephen’s, Kristen Cox, mentions
this among the differences she has noticed around the school—particularly in the K-5-wing—
since they have adopted this blended learning approach:
Discipline isn’t as important anymore because you don’t have to worry about,
“Shh, we’re doing homework now. No talking.” There is going to be some noise
level, and I think everybody’s gotten used to that and is happier.
Ms. Cox sees this as a healthier environment for both students and teachers where they can focus
on learning and not shushing.
By contrast, just a couple feet away two other students are locked-in to their content with
what appears to be a an intense focus. Their headphones are secure on both ears and both
students work unaware of Tasha and Anna. One girl is working on her math problems, while the
boy to her right plays a math game—a reward at the end of the lesson he just completed. They
focus intently on their screens until one boy looks up, raises his arms and quietly blurts out, “I
saved the castle!” He quickly glances around to see if anyone was listening to his triumphant
declaration (no one else was, even the chatty girls). Then he looks at me, knowing I heard it, and
I give a little nod and wink. He looks back down at his computer, shifts back in forth in his seat a
150
bit, smiles warmly, and gets back to work. For students like these two, no paraprofessional or
accountability seems necessary—a task or game that is pleasantly challenging holds their
attention without the need for external accountability.
In Ms. Arenz’s fourth grade class, some part of every student’s day includes work on i-
Ready and iXL, ranking the level of blended learning adoption in her class among the highest at
St. Stephen’s. Because Ms. Rizzo and the school in general have taken a less aggressive, less
mandated approach to blended learning—even though it was clear from several teacher
conversations that there was an expectation and sometimes even “pressure” to use the software
the school purchased—there exists a wide variety of integration throughout the school.
Additionally, although i-Ready and iXL provide full math and English/language arts curricula,
every one of the K-5 teachers identified their use of these programs as “supplementary.”
When deciding exactly how St. Stephen’s might utilize blended learning, Ms. Rizzo took
several realities into account: “It was all about helping kids learn, helping teachers work with the
standards, working with multi-age groups, and making it possible for every child to get what
they need with only seven full-time teachers.” Ms. Rizzo, in consultation with her leadership
team, decided on a Station Rotation model for St. Stephen’s. On their visit to another blended
learning school, Ms. Rizzo and Ms. Miller had seen a station rotation model in action and
thought that this might fit nicely within the existing structures that were already taking place in
several of the classrooms in grades 1-5. Ms. Rizzo recounts,
[The teachers were already] familiar with the “Daily Five,” and we had a good
station rotation system going already in a couple of our grades. And so we
thought, well, this technology piece would make the perfect station, and that
would make sure the kids are really getting the content that they need.
151
They acquired several more laptops and distributed the fairly new desktop computers from their
computer lab to classrooms throughout the school. Ms. Rizzo and her leadership team along with
the consultants determined that i-Ready and iXL were both affordable and the most effective
software choices available for St. Stephen’s. Before school began, all teachers were trained on
how they might utilize these programs in their curriculum in order to differentiate instruction,
begin collecting real-time performance data, and move to a more school-wide model of data-
informed instruction. Although nearly all of the teachers were “on-board” with this vision of
blended learning at St. Stephen’s, toward the end of their first year, some classrooms are far
more “blended” than others. Particularly in the upper grades (6-8), teachers have run into several
challenges that have stymied a more robust adoption of blended learning.
In explaining this disparity, one 6-8 teacher mentioned that with a large eighth grade
class and a school-wide ratio of three computers to one student, she found it difficult to get
students—even half a class—all on computers at the same time. Another told me that as students
progressed on i-Ready, the problems became more time-intensive, such as reading a several-page
passage and then answering comprehension questions, and their schedule did not allow for a long,
sustained amount of time to complete these activities. A third mentioned that she found her
students didn’t connect with the rather cartoony and childish characters that they encountered in
these programs. The confluence of these issues led to a far lower adoption rate of blended
learning in in 6-8 than K-5, at least in this first year. Still, these classes all participated in the
mandated i-Ready diagnostic tests throughout the year, and many found assigning iXL problems
for homework was a useful and quick way to assign formative assessments. Ms. Rizzo hopes that
over the next year or two, blended learning will get a bit more traction at these grades when
teachers, students, and parents realize how lower grades are benefitting from this type of
152
teaching and learning. Until then, the K-5 classrooms continue to model how this can be done for
the rest of the school.
During rotation time in Ms. Arenz’s classroom, the fourth graders are split into three
ability groups that are typically working on similar skills and topics on the i-Ready and iXL. She
made these groupings after reviewing the students’ i-Ready diagnostic tests to decide which
students might be at similar reading and math levels. Ms. Arenz then uses the data from the
previous days or weeks to determine if she can remediate a skill that students are struggling to
comprehend or if she can move forward and cover new material with that particular group.
If I’m pulling a small group, I can find five kids who are all working on finding
the main idea and details, and they’ve all struggled with it. It’s putting all that
data right in front of me instead of me having to decipher through worksheets or
whatever we’re doing in class, so I really like it telling me for the most part
exactly what they need to work on.
In Ms. Arenz’s class, there is a two-way flow of reinforcement and remediation based on the data
that is collected through i-Ready and iXL. This circular process of using the computer programs
to remediate learning gaps and practice skills and then using performance data to then make
targeted remediations or introduce new concepts in small ability groupings is an ideal use of the
power of data-informed instruction in a station rotation model. Interestingly, while Ms. Arenz
seems to both utilize and value the work students do on i-Ready and iXL, when I ask how
student work on the computers ties in with the broader curriculum, she replies, “It’s mostly
supplementary. However, when I get the chance—especially in reading—I kind of break away
and I try to do units based off a genre so that they’re writing the stuff they’re also reading.”
Although Ms. Arenz identifies her use of the blended learning programs as “supplementary,”
153
because there is not a direct curricular link, a more accurate description might be
“complementary,” as she and the programs work to return to concepts that need work, strengthen
current skills, and introduce new concepts when students are ready.
Ms. Arenz seemed to be in the minority of K-5 teachers who use the formative data
feedback on a regular basis, even though several teachers referred to the initial i-Ready
diagnostic test results as a helpful compass to guide whole class instruction. Whether teachers
are using the blended learning software in a truly supplementary way that is unconnected with
other classwork or, like Ms. Arenz, they are using it in a complementary way to aid data-
informed instruction, it is notable that all of them view the role of blended learning as
“supplementary,” not connected to or part of the primary curriculum. Several teachers found
creative ways of using the software to encourage skill practice and others used it to remediate
learning gaps. Interestingly, none of the teachers factored the blended work into students’ grades.
Though it is difficult to extract meaning from this fact (much of the work students do during a
given day is ungraded), it may lend credence to the overall feeling toward blended learning at St.
Stephen’s: it is a tool, albeit a powerful one, for practice and remediation, not a fundamentally
different approach to education.
Yet a fundamental change in pedagogy assisted by technology was not the goal of
adopting a blended learning approach at St. Stephen’s. They worked within an existing building,
with nearly the same staff, a small investment in technology, and a modest amount of
professional development and coaching. St. Stephen’s is a small school, and although smaller
class sizes can encourage greater attention to individual students (as they advertise to distinguish
themselves from other area schools), small does not guarantee a deep knowledge of student
performance data or the ability to diagnose and remediate learning gaps. In one short year with
154
blended learning, St. Stephen’s seems to have made notable progress on this front, and Ms.
Rizzo summed up her feeling about blended learning well: “I love it. I love that kids are getting
what they need. I love that we know, even when you have a class of 15 kids, you can say we
know all our kids.”
Learner-centered
A learner-centered educational setting is one where incomplete understandings of
concepts and false beliefs are surfaced while students are first learning a new concept. Learner-
centered environments are also attentive to culturally relevant examples in helping students learn.
Creating a learner-centered environment at St. Stephen’s involved using blended learning tools
to differentiate instruction, fill-in skill gaps, and help all students succeed.
Kathleen Martinelli is only a couple years out of college and quite a bit younger than the
parents of her students. This is Ms. Martinelli’s second year at St. Stephen’s, but it is clear that
she has well-established classroom management expectations and routines, as her students know
exactly what they should be doing during their “Daily Five” time. She is a down-to-business and
focused fifth grade teacher who also teaches pre-algebra and algebra in the middle school. Ms.
Martinelli sees the adaptive blended learning software as a way to turn the constant of
instructional time into a variable. In telling me about how blended learning works in her
classroom, she gives me this hypothetical scenario:
In sixth grade, let’s say that they’re having trouble with concepts like place value,
which is a fifth grade concept. We don’t have time to cover that as a class as a
whole. Not everybody is struggling with that same concept, so it’s nice that I can
send them to i-Ready and say, “Here. We need to build you up in that area of
numbers and operations. You’re still getting what the whole class is getting and
155
we’re still moving-on, but you’re kind of weak in this area. We gotta build you up
so that everything is kind of level and brings it together.”
Ms. Martinelli also sees the utility of using i-Ready to challenge students at the higher-end of her
class:
Likewise you have those students who are flying through the lessons at night, and
they’re grasping the concepts. Maybe you need more of a challenge. Well, hey,
you’re doing sixth grade work in i-Ready, perfect. That’s where you’re going to
get the challenge from and you can move on to different concepts.
This second scenario is “learner-centered” in that it is helping to create a learning environment
that is responsive to the learner’s individual needs while maintaining engagement.
At the beginning of the year, Ms. Martinelli’s pre-algebra and algebra classes would do
20-minute rotations between small group instruction and i-Ready. As the year went on, students
encountered more difficult lessons in i-Ready that took more time to complete. She didn’t like
the idea of her students starting a problem, rotating to another idea, and then coming back to it
the next day after they had forgotten much of the context. Her solution was to split her class into
two groups and switch to 40-minute blocks of time where students were either with her for the
whole time or on i-Ready the whole time. The next day, the groups would switch. This seems to
have worked well for most students, and Ms. Martinelli was pleased with the small-group
instruction time and the individualized practice that resulted in actionable data from i-Ready.
Although this approach seems to work well for most of her students, for one transfer
student, it was clear that a deeper intervention was necessary. Courtney transferred to St.
Stephen’s from a local public school this year as a sixth grader. Ms. Martinelli’s sixth graders are
split into two groups: one is learning pre-algebra and the other is tackling algebra. It was unclear
156
which group Courtney might fit into, so they initially placed her in the pre-algebra group. But Ms.
Martinelli noticed she was having trouble even as they were reviewing past concepts at the
beginning of the year: “I’m looking at her homework and I’m like, wow, we’re really off base. I
need to cover this with you again.” Soon after arriving for this new school year, students took the
i-Ready diagnostic test over several days. The results confirmed Ms. Martinelli’s suspicions:
Two weeks into school, I looked at the i-Ready data and went, “Whoa, you’re at a
fourth grade level for some of this data. No wonder this isn’t making any sense to
you!” It would be like me picking up a book in Chinese and being expected to
read it. I’m sure she had no clue, and I felt so bad.
It was clear to Ms. Martinelli that Courtney needed help on fourth grade foundational math skills
before she could even get close to working on the pre-algebra content. But moving to a new
school is hard enough, and Ms. Martinelli didn’t want to send Courtney to the 4th grade class for
math (even though she could have because of their common math time). She called Courtney’s
mom and left the decision up to her:
I said [to Courtney’s mom], “Here’s what I want to do, I think she should strictly
be in our i-Ready program.” I was honest and said, “You’re going to be our
guinea pig with it—this is our first year. I’m not trying to send you back to a
fifth/fourth grade class because I don’t feel like that’s beneficial confidence-wise,
but we really need to build those foundational skills.”
Courtney’s mom agreed, and Ms. Martinelli set Courtney on her own learning path. During class
time, she would work on i-Ready and then have homework at the fourth-grade level on iXL so
Ms. Martinelli could get instant feedback on her progress. Courtney progressed well throughout
her first several months of school, and they decided to manually set her at a higher level in both
157
i-Ready and iXL. Courtney started to struggle again with individual lessons, so Ms. Martinelli
met with her several times per week after school to give her some extra help with the lessons
with which she was struggling. By April, Courtney took the i-Ready diagnostic and had
progressed from fourth to early sixth grade in less than one full school year. Her mother was
thrilled, as was Ms. Martinelli:
I felt like it just worked really well for her. It was a nice option without saying,
hey, we’re going to have to send you back to a fourth grade math class. That
doesn’t do anything for your confidence. She had a little bit of that perception to
begin with where she didn’t want to work in the classroom—she didn’t want the
kids to know what she was working at. And I said, I totally understand that, I can
accommodate that, that’s not a problem. . . . I just loved to show her, “This is how
much you’ve progressed. You’ve grown so much. I’m really proud of you for
putting in the hard work.”
This mix of diagnosis, skill practice, progress monitoring, and targeted remediation gave
Courtney an academic boost while being sensitive to her social-emotional needs to stay in class
with her developmental peers. In using a mix of computer adaptive content and in-person
instruction, Ms. Martinelli found a successful mix of learning modalities that helped Courtney to
accelerate her learning and catch up to the sixth grade content.
Denise Kramer, a 15-year veteran teacher at St. Stephen’s, sees blended learning as
simply a way to accomplish true differentiation in her classroom of 23 second graders. When she
was first introduced to the concept of blended learning, she asked, “Isn’t it really just
differentiated instruction?” It took a good part of this first year for Ms. Kramer to feel
comfortable with the station rotation model and integrating technology into her classroom. She
158
recalls vividly when all of the pieces final came together for her and her students as she told two
of her colleagues, “You guys, 74 days into school and I think I finally got it!” After this point,
she sees this approach as a way of truly doing the differentiation she had hoped to achieve in past
years. Ms. Kramer says, “It’s differentiation, but with a lot more tools available to have 23 kids
in the classroom do 23 different things.” Ms. Kramer does not dig into the individual student data
like Ms. Arenz does. Rather, she took some of the initial diagnostic information as a whole and
found that nearly her entire class of second graders struggled with finding the author’s purpose in
their language arts assessment. So throughout the semester, she has been hammering on that skill
with every reading assignment they do with her. It is notable that Ms. Kramer’s second graders
are only using the i-Ready or iXL about 10-15% of their day. Still, while arguably not using the
whole potential of this software or a blended learning model, Ms. Kramer is getting the
differentiation she wants and feels as though the technology is being utilized meaningfully for
students. She speaks effusively about how much of a difference this has made for her class,
particularly those students who struggle:
This [blended learning] program has been a game changer. These kids are doing
so much individual work, individually set for them, based on their level. Even the
kids who struggle with our basal reader—it’s still at their level and we still can
offer questions of comprehension and all that. We can still do that. . . . I’m still
asking them the same questions that I would ask the higher group but just at a
lower level for them to understand what they’re reading.
Although it took a while for this “game changer” to take shape in Ms. Kramer’s class, it is clear
that she is beginning to unlock the potential of what she sees as a powerful tool for
differentiation.
159
Assessment-centered
Assessment-centered learning environments provide regular feedback for students to help
shape their understanding of concepts while also teaching them to be self-reflective on their
learning. In their first year of blended learning integration, the teachers at St. Stephen’s have a
rather wide range of assessment-centered practices. Because all of the students at St. Stephen’s
have computers and Internet access at home, many of the teachers have opted to assign lessons
on i-Ready or iXL for homework. This serves several purposes including (1) allowing students to
go at their own pace on this work, (2) providing immediate feedback to both the student and the
teacher, which eliminates the need to correct homework using class time or the teacher’s prep
time, and (3) it gives parents exposure to some of the programs that students are working on at
school. Using data in real-time during class is a bit more rare to encounter at St. Stephen’s. One
of these rare exceptions is Lori Young, a second-career teacher with a background in
communications and child psychology. Prior to arriving at St. Stephen’s two years ago, Ms.
Young worked for 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry teaching adult training courses. Ms.
Young teaches middle school English, writing, and English extension (where students work on
writing projects for other subjects, such as their reports for a science fair). Ms. Young recognized
early on that the normal, station-rotation model that the K-5 classrooms had adopted would not
work for her middle school English class. She wanted to allow students to read novels, discuss
them in class, and develop skillful writers, not simply increase reading fluency and build broad
vocabularies, which is what she saw as the affordances of programs like i-Ready and iXL. Yet
she valued the data that the programs gave and could see the utility in some of the immediate
feedback she could get by using a blended learning approach. Ms. Young has found her own way
of using the blended learning software and the resulting data.
160
On a day-to-day basis, Ms. Young likes the way that iXL allows the teacher to assign
specific lessons that align with what she is doing in class. She works with one group on writing
and another she assigns practice problems on iXL so that they can put this knowledge into
practice right away.
I use iXL to get instant feedback. I can assign them “J1” which is, “identify the
gerunds in the sentence.” Then they can go through, and in that class period they
have to show me their score when they leave. And I can see immediately, did they
get 90% on it? Did they get 50%? Then I can figure out if I have to reteach that or
do that again. So that’s where I was able to incorporate blended learning, and I
really enjoyed having it for that small group breakout to get more instant feedback.
In this way, Ms. Young is building an assessment-centered classroom to give students immediate
feedback on their work while shaping her own pedagogy in response to student performance.
This might not be utilizing the software for personalization and differentiation, but certainly for
data-informed instruction.
Although Ms. Young doesn’t use i-Ready on a regular basis because she finds some parts
of it onerous or not helpful for students, Ms. Young found that the i-Ready diagnostic results
from the beginning of the year revealed class-wide learning gaps. In particular, she saw that the
eighth grade class scored low on identifying context clues and critical thinking based on a text,
so she adapted her course content to help eighth graders work on these skills.
I really changed my whole curriculum based off the i-Ready diagnostic so that we
would hit the numbers on the reading comprehension. So for Twelfth Night and all
of that, I went back through . . . my writing and grammar units every month tie to
the literature that they’re currently reading, and the vocabulary words come out of
161
the novels that they’re reading, and they’re all Greek and Latin root based so
everything ties together. . . . So what I did is after I got those diagnostics in
September, I went back through and I figured out we had to do more with reading
comprehension and just that whole critical thinking skills. Like maybe you give
them less direction on their writing and see if they can figure out exactly how to
get the answer. I mean not so much handholding. I took away study guides from
some of the books and said, “You have to make your own study guide based on
what you think the author finds relevant.”
The changes that Ms. Young made to the eighth grade English curriculum reflect a thoughtful
and assessment-driven adaptation made on a macro, class-wide level. Given her narrow approach
of using just class-level diagnostic information to adapt her curriculum along with immediate
assessment information she has gleaned from iXL, one might conclude that Ms. Young is a
blended learning novice. On the contrary, when I asked her what advice she might give to a
teacher who was starting a blended learning integration, she replied with the authority of a
knowledgeable power-user:
Don’t be afraid. You’re still the teacher, you can grab the stuff and manhandle it
however you want and make it work with what you have. You don’t have to be
afraid that you’re going to have to abandon everything you’ve ever done and let i-
Ready direct you. It’s a program—just rip it apart, shut things down, turn things
on. I mean, just take control of the technology and make it a benefit. Don’t be
afraid that it’s telling me they need to do these things. Who cares? I know a lot of
teachers started to follow the i-Ready and it was like, don’t do that. Just grab
ahold, wrestle it to the ground, and just do as you want.
162
From these comments, it is clear that Ms. Young is making the technology work for her in
precisely the way she wants. Beyond the causal user, she has used these programs enough to get
into the nuances of switching preferences on and off and gleaning what utility she finds from
them without being beholden to their direction. Yet, curiously, Ms. Young is toward the lower-
end of blended learning adoption at St. Stephen’s. Her students are only on computers once each
week, and at one point, she had a literature unit where they didn’t touch the computers for three
weeks straight. Ms. Young debunks the idea that if teachers were more familiar with the
technology, they would use it more. She is not opposed to a blended learning model, and she
knows these programs well, yet she finds limited utility. So instead, she is using the blended
learning software in a very precise, focused, and limited way as a support to her existing
curriculum and teaching methodology. Her experience and insight make a strong case for
reevaluating the software that is currently in use for 6-8 grades and adopting something that she
and others find less restrictive and more relevant and helpful to students. With software like this
in place, Ms. Young would likely lead the charge for blended learning in the upper grades.
Knowledge-centered
Knowledge-centered classrooms challenge students to build skill competency while
allowing students to mentally organize new knowledge in meaningful ways. It is easy to observe
students working on skill competency on blended learning programs at St. Stephen’s, especially
in the K-5 classrooms. The repetitive and tireless nature of computer-based problems allows
students to drill and re-drill on skill gaps until they get it right. But blended learning is not
simply multiplication tables or spelling quizzes that happen to be online. St. Stephen’s students’
work while on programs like i-Ready also require concentration and thoughtful responses. As I
spoke to teachers throughout St. Stephen’s, it became apparent that they were surprised at the
163
rigor embedded in the blended learning programs. For the first part of the year, Ms. Miller taught
in the combined first-and-second grade classroom during their afternoon rotation time—with
both groups together, it was only 18 students. The grades were combined so that teachers could
work with individual students while others were on i-Ready. Miss Miller expressed her surprise
at the types of questions that i-Ready was asking these students:
With the second graders that I was working with—just seeing some of the stuff
that they were doing on i-Ready, some of the problem solving, the word problems
that they were having to read, in multi-step problems—I was like, “gosh!” We’ve
been using Saxon math for probably 5-6 years now and I really like Saxon. I liked
it a lot when I was teaching it, and I could see the kids improving with Saxon. But
i-Ready is like Saxon on steroids—just the way it asks questions, and it covers
such a breadth of material even at the lower grade levels.
Ms. Miller’s surprise at the level of complexity and breadth of i-Ready’s content was a common
reaction among teachers at St. Stephen’s. Many saw the work students did online as
supplemental work that just supported the real curriculum while remediating learning gaps. This
vision of blended learning as “supplemental” trickled down to students as well. A sixth grade
student that I spoke to reinforced this impression:
Some of the stuff that we just never learned, we just go right past it. And then it’s
summer, and you totally forget everything. But if you do i-Ready or i-XL in
between it, you can learn and fill those gaps with stuff that you need to know.
Interestingly, when I asked teachers like Ms. Martinelli what types of intellectual tasks students
were doing online, she said, “Well, I wouldn’t call it ‘heavy lifting,’” because she saw students
mostly encountering material that was at their level. But she noted that students couldn’t just
164
mindlessly click their way through content or work half-heartedly: “You’re going to have to pay
attention.” The wide-ranging uncertainty as to the limits and affordances of the online content is
understandable, given that this is the first year of using these programs at St. Stephen’s.
Contrary to this impression that the complex tasks were accomplished offline, when I
observed the combined first and second grade reading/English rotation, the teacher was leading a
spelling game with one group while another group of students was engaged with varying reading
comprehension tasks on i-Ready. So despite Ms. Martinelli’s perception that students do not
tackle “heavy lifting” while online, the students were actually engaged in the difficult task of
reading comprehension. Furthermore, by mixing up these modalities, students seem to get into a
knowledge-centered mindset where they are trying hard and constantly evaluating how to make
sense of their new knowledge, whether at an online or offline station.
Ms. Arenz sees limits to using the online content when it comes to her fourth graders,
particularly when it comes to mathematical problem solving. She considers it particularly
important to have a teacher there to be able to surface the students’ thinking (an assessment-
centered skill) and guide them to context clues:
I feel like some of the tricks I can teach them aren’t going to be on the computer.
For example, I’ve been working with a student on the “magic words” in word
problems that help you figure out if you need to add or subtract or multiply. I feel
like a teacher’s going to teach it better than the computer, as much as the
computer can point out, “here are the words you can look for,” and stuff like that.
But there’s something about being one-on-one and saying, “Oh, did you find the
magic word? Oh, there it is. What does that tell us?”
165
That, I think, makes a huge difference with a teacher [rather] than on the
computer. Also with problem-solving, narrowing down our options or like trial
and error isn’t going to happen with the computer. The teacher can say, “What do
you think? Do you think it could be we’re going to draw a picture?” Talking
through that and having that conversation about here’s why we wouldn’t draw a
picture for this problem is really important. On a computer it’s going to give you
the explanation, but there’s no back and forth with that and with problem solving.
There’s a lot of trial and error in learning, and you don’t get that conversation
with a computer.
Throughout this example, Ms. Arenz points to the importance of having a conversation in order
to shape a student’s ability to solve complex mathematical word problems. The give-and-take
that can occur with a teacher or tutor in this moment gets to the very core of knowledge-centered
learning. What she is describing is the formation of mental frameworks into which students can
organize their knowledge. Activities like the mathematical conversation she describes give
strong evidence of a knowledge-centered learning environment. It is clear that although several
of the teachers at St. Stephen’s recognize the rigor of the computer-based content students are
using, few see this content as contributing to the deep kind of knowledge-centered thinking that
is possible in small group or one-to-one contexts with a teacher. Consequently, the K-5 teachers
at St. Stephen’s consistently valued the blended learning content insofar as it enabled a
pedagogical model that allowed them to have more individual contact with students amidst a
large class setting.
For older students like Ms. Young’s 6-8 grade English/language arts students, that level
of guidance might not be as necessary. In fact, she takes nearly the opposite approach. When she
166
is working with one group on writing, she will send another group to complete English and
grammar lessons on iXL. Instead of helping them situate the knowledge within a larger
conceptual framework, she has them do it on their own.
There are some days that I’ll just set them off on their own, ‘cause they are the
clicker generation, and I’ll say, “Try it.” And they’re like, “Aren’t you going to
teach it to us first?” And I say, “Do you read the directions before you play a new
video game?” And they say, “No.” And I say, “Well, here’s your new video
game! Go see how quick[ly] you can teach yourself.”
By this approach, Ms. Young is acknowledging and engaging students’ well-honed discovery
skills and natural ability to figure-out the meaning of online content without much (or any)
direction. Her rather fun-lovingly flippant approach to letting students teach themselves shows a
more open-ended way of creating a knowledge-centered learning environment. She admits that
she only does this “when it’s a simple concept,” but it allows more mature students the
opportunity and freedom to practice building their own meaning for new concepts.
Community-centered
A school that is community-centered helps form interpersonal connections inside or
outside of the classroom while building a supportive environment where mistakes are corrected,
not condemned. The sense of community among members of St. Stephen’s is particularly strong.
I encountered only a handful of parents during my time at St. Stephen’s, but every one of them
knew who I was because they had read a brief notification of my presence in the principal’s
newsletter. It was immediately apparent that this was a school where the parents took the
principal’s newsletter seriously and read it with interest—a well-informed and invested
167
community. But this sense of community has been thriving for a while. Perhaps more interesting
was the way that using blended learning has affected the St. Stephen’s community.
Ms. Arenz noticed a difference in her own approach to her fourth graders since adopting
a blended learning approach:
This year with the blended learning, I don’t really care about their grades as much
because I know exactly what they need to work on and that they’re working at
their just-right level. I’m not as concerned about the grades they get on certain
things because I know they’re working and improving and I can constantly see
that data.
This emphasis on mastery, learning, and improvement over individual grades and even particular
assignments points to a great advantages of having truly differentiated learning paths and a large
pool of performance data to draw upon. Ms. Arenz’s confidence that students are growing and
learning allows them (along with Ms. Arenz and their parents) to focus on an overall upward
learning trajectory instead of individual assignment or test grades. This is building a much
healthier community-centered learning environment that is truly concerned about growth, not
obsessed about grades.
Some of the differences that blended learning has made at St. Stephen’s are a bit more
subtle, but no less important. Science teacher Rachel Miller mentioned that she senses this
generation of children are sensitive about correction for wrong answers and do better when they
can make mistakes quietly and without public embarrassment. She says,
I think this era of children is willing to take an incorrect from a computer more
than from a person. If it’s wrong on the computer, I don’t know, I guess maybe it
doesn’t feel as personal if it’s a computer telling you no versus a teacher saying,
168
no you didn’t get that right, try again, because nobody wants to hear you’re wrong.
But if that tells you you’re wrong, you know you’re going to get another shot at it
somewhere down the line.
Interestingly, in the same breath, she hopes out loud that this is not limiting students’ resilience
and social acumen: “You still have to interact with people. You still have to be able to hear that
‘no.’ You still have to be able to pick yourself up and go ‘alright, no big deal, I made a mistake, I
have to carry on.’” This statement adds a fascinating nuance to the perceived advantages of
making mistakes on-screen that could be concerning at a school where a larger percentage of
work was done online. This points to important future research (beyond the scope of this paper)
about the effects of blended learning on social skills. Yet it is clear from Ms. Miller’s comment
that she perceives a lower social and emotional cost for making mistakes when students are
working on the blended learning software. In this way, the blended learning implementation at St.
Stephen’s is contributing to community-centered learning environment where it is acceptable to
make mistakes.
Ms. Arenz, the fourth grade teacher who is among the most eager adopters of blended
learning at St. Stephen’s, noted the way that blended learning has affected the sense of self-
confidence of the students in her class who often struggle academically.
I’ve seen huge improvement in some of my kids on the lower end—they’re a lot
more confident too. . . . I think for the most part the kids have kind of finally
realized that it doesn’t matter if you’re in a “high group” or a “low group,” it’s
just whatever you’re working on, it’s your just right level. And so they’re not as
concerned about it.
169
Ms. Arenz attributes this confidence boost that she has witnessed in students on the “lower end”
to the fact that all of her students have adopted more of a mindset where they’re just concerned
about moving forward at their level, not being ahead or behind their peers. Going further, Ms.
Arenz thinks that this mentality and spirit has spread beyond her classroom as the teachers at St.
Stephen’s have embraced this idea over the course of this first year of blended learning: “I think
just the environment and the community in both the classroom and the whole school is just, ‘It’s
okay. You’re working at your just-right level. So just worry about that.’” Her perception that this
mentality has taken-root across the entirety of the school reflects a strong community-centered
school culture that lowers the stakes for failure and values the individual growth of each student
above all.
Finally, second grade teacher Denise Kramer saw the move to blended learning among
her K-5 colleagues as a point of unification that allowed them to communicate, share ideas, and
help each other out. Much of this, according to Ms. Kramer, was facilitated by the professional
learning communities that Ms. Rizzo and the consultants set up, the workshops that they
conducted at the end of the last year and throughout this year, and the shared reading they did
during the school year. All of this led to a greater sense of community and collegiality among her
colleagues. Ms. Kramer states,
This year was the first year that I felt that I could go to my colleagues and get
some help . . . now that we’re all doing iXL, i-Ready, we’re doing Saxon, we’re
all doing the same thing but at different levels. So I would go to them [and ask],
“Okay, how are you doing this?” or “How are you doing your word work? How
are you dividing up?” And they’re able to tell me how they’re doing it, and I can
apply it to what I’m doing in here. So taking what I got from them, what we
170
learned from reading the book, and from the blended learning people that provide
us the workshops, I’m able to incorporate these things.
Although the collaboration and shared problem-solving among faculty that Ms. Kramer mentions
is not a direct result of the blended learning integration, it is clear that the supports that Ms.
Rizzo and the consultants put in place for blended learning to succeed have proven fruitful in
building a more community-centered environment among St. Stephen’s faculty.
Summary
The move to blended learning at St. Stephen’s this year was motivated by two goals: to
distinguish themselves from other schools in the area by offering a blended learning approach
and to know their students more deeply and provide personalized, data-informed educational
supports. With a modest initial investment and outside funding for consulting fees alone, Ms.
Rizzo and two consultants from a large Catholic university were able to plant the seeds of a
blended learning program that took root most firmly in the K-5 classrooms. With these minimal
supports and an organic—not mandated—approach to implementing blended learning, there is
significance variance in how much blended learning is being used throughout St. Stephen’s. And
although teachers identify their use of blended learning software as “supplementary,” several
teachers have reached far beyond the basic level they are giving themselves credit for as they use
the blended learning software (and resulting data) to fill learning gaps, differentiate instruction
for diverse learners, and practice data-informed instruction.
In building a more learner-centered environment, teachers have used blended learning to
challenge students at their individual levels. Particularly in the K-5 classrooms, teachers who had
already been using the “Daily 5” model of rotating learning tasks have now integrated i-Ready
and iXL in a station rotation model to fill in learning gaps and give students the time they need to
171
work on the skills they most need to practice. In the rather exceptional case of a sixth grade
transfer student who had not mastered a fourth grade level, working on i-Ready allowed her
teacher to find the right mix of diagnosis, skill practice, progress monitoring, and targeted
remediation to bring her up to grade-level in just one year while keeping her in class with her
developmental peers.
St. Stephen’s students in classrooms that are regularly using blended learning experience
the immediate feedback that is the hallmark of assessment-centered learning environments. But
many teachers are using the data feedback from these programs in mostly general and macro
ways. The middle school English/language-arts teacher made significant changes to her
curriculum and learning supports based on the results of the eighth grade i-Ready diagnostic test
results. Yet she (and most of the 6-8 grade teachers) use the blended learning software on a
rather limited basis to do instant feedback in check-for-understanding exercises in-class or as
homework.
The skill practice that students in the K-5 station rotation model of blended learning get a
lot of skill practice on blended learning programs that can lead to one of the goals of a
knowledge-centered classroom: automaticity. Yet there seems to be a rather stark division of
opinion as to the depth of thinking that students do online. While some see the curriculum as
challenging and difficult, others see the limitations of the software and leave the intellectual
“heavy lifting” to direct instruction by the teacher.
Finally, teachers attribute a reduced focus on grades, an emphasis on individual growth, a
boost in confidence among struggling learners, and an increased collegiality and collaboration
among teachers to the work the leadership team and the consultants have done throughout the
year to bring about the blended learning implementation. These have helped to build a more
172
community-centered learning environment where students can succeed without fear of failure
and everyone at St. Stephen’s truly knows their children better.
While this first year of blended learning posed a good number of challenges to St.
Stephen’s, there has been significant buy-in by teachers who see data-informed instruction,
assisted by blended learning, as a positive step forward for St. Stephen’s. The learning specialist,
Ms. Cox saw this year as an attempt to “incorporate technology in a mindful way, not just throw
in some iPads so kids can take pictures of each other or play silly games.” The outside help that
St. Stephen’s received seeded, supported, and encouraged the growth of blended learning
throughout the school, and this has produced promising results and greater confidence in a
school that has experienced some rocky years of leadership and direction. Fifteen-year veteran
second grade teacher Ms. Kramer optimistically sums up the school’s progress: “I’ve gone
through a lot here: three principals . . . changes in curriculum, some that made sense and others, I
don’t know. . . . Now after so many years it just feels like we’re on the right path.”
173
Discussion and Recommendations
In this final section, I first consider the data findings in light of the research questions of this
paper and then make several recommendations for practice and further research. I begin with the
discussion section.
Discussion
In the discussion section, I relate the data findings to the research questions of this paper,
namely,
1. What are the characteristics of teaching and learning in blended learning schools?
2. What (if any) evidence of the four characteristics of effectively designed learning
environments in the How People Learn (HPL) framework can be found in blended
learning schools?
3. How suitable is the HPL framework as a measure of effectiveness for blended learning
schools?
In the previous three chapters on each of the three blended learning schools I studied, I sought to
answer the first research question by relaying a sense of the characteristics of teaching and
learning in blended learning schools. In this section, I first propose the term “powered learning”
as a point of clarity based on some of the challenges posed in my data collection. I then address
my second research question in the “Results of the HPL framework” section by discussing the
evidence I found of each of the four characteristics of the HPL framework across all three cases.
In the next section, “Suitability of the framework,” I address the third research question by
discussing the affordances and limitations of the HPL framework, including any significant
findings that were not captured by the HPL framework. Following that section, I draw two
174
conclusions from the data and discussion. And finally, I include implications for practice and
implications for further research based on my findings and analysis.
Toward defining “Powered Learning”
I began my literature review with a discussion of the embattled definition of blended
learning. Throughout my research across all three schools, I found the broad and rather nebulous
nature of the definition of blended learning to actually be one of the central sources of confusion
(and sometimes tension) among teachers and administrators regarding what is and is not blended
learning. Some teachers referred to work that students did on the computers as the time when
kids were doing “blended work.” In my interview protocol, I asked teachers, “what percentage of
your school’s instruction is blended?” and most teachers responded to this with a percentage of
time that students were in front of computers. This confusion leads me to consider a redefinition
of the term “blended learning” in order to truly reflect what is a meaningful use of technology for
students and teachers.
The Staker and Horn (2012) definition states “blended learning is a formal education
program in which a student learns (1) at least in part through online learning, with some element
of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace; (2) at least in part in a supervised brick-
and-mortar location away from home; (3) and the modalities along each student’s learning path
within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience” (p. 3).
This definition has been operational throughout my research, yet it seems too broad of a
definition in that it does not help practitioners know when they are (or are not) “doing” blended
learning. While I think part one of this definition is helpful in its aspiration to give agency to
students, this seems to be limited by the constraints of the software students are using. The
second part of the definition is useful in creating a separation between blended learning and total
175
cyberlearning. Yet the third part of this definition is critically important and often not fully
considered by practitioners. Several teachers across the three schools thought they were using a
blended learning approach when they were actually just sending students to use adaptive
computer programs as part of a rotation and trusting that something useful was happening when
they did so. When teachers are not reflecting on the rich data feedback that these programs are
collecting in a thoughtful and regular way, this is more appropriately called using technology as
simply an engaging digital babysitter. Perhaps this could be called “cybersitting.” The third part
of Staker and Horn’s definition attempts to address this very problem, yet the language is
perhaps too broad or esoteric to be useful. Further, the umbrella term “blended learning” covers
such immense ground in its description of the different types of learning that it seems there may
be room for a more specific definition that captures the kind of teaching and learning that
leverages the affordances of technology in the classroom.
I propose the term “powered learning” to mean: a form of learning where students use
adaptive software in a classroom setting to personalize their engagement with content while
teachers employ high yield instructional practices and optimize their role, including utilizing data
from the software in regular and thoughtful ways to make targeted interventions. This type of
learning might be thought of as being “powered” by the affordances of adaptive software to
personalize instruction on the student side and give teachers actionable, helpful, and timely
performance data on the instructional side while also freeing them up to do less of the mundane,
low-level, and clerical work (such as grading and developing worksheets) and more personal
engagement with students and other high yield practices. This more narrow and focused
definition is not meant to stifle innovation or limit the bounds of what is possible, it is simply
meant to create a baseline and shared understanding of what it means to leverage the affordances
176
of technology in a classroom setting while avoiding getting lost within the broad taxonomy of
blended learning.
Results of the HPL Framework
The following section gives a comparative analysis of the evidence found across the three
schools in each of the four HPL areas. Following this discussion, there is a visual re-
representation of the HPL framework based on the data collected.
Learner-centered: filling in skill gaps, maximizing time, from floaters to swimmers, and
age-appropriate content
In my observations and discussions, I found that in every classroom that is utilizing
blended learning across all three cases, there is evidence of learner-centered practices in that they
are beginning with the individual learner’s ability and appropriate learning level in mind. In
some cases, this is evidenced by the use of diagnostic tests that students take before using i-
Ready, Achieve3000, or TTM. These programs use the results of these diagnostic tests to curate
the content and learning path for students based on their internal algorithms. Although the
accuracy of these tests can fluctuate, even students at St. Stephen’s who initially thought the
content was too easy or too hard found that the program was able to self-correct as it amassed
more performance data from students. In other cases where teachers are more directive in
assigning the content that students engage (as with iXL or other assignable programs), the
content becomes learner-centered as it allows students to practice skills and concepts as needed
and progresses when students show content mastery.
In several instances, a strong learner-centered environment allowed teachers to use
blended learning to diagnose and remediate important skill gaps. At St. Mary’s, Ms. Ewing
described the way that they were able to use assessment data to uncover and remediate learning
177
gaps for a sixth grade student named Jack. At St. Stephen’s, taking a blended learning diagnostic
test revealed that a sixth grade transfer student named Courtney was working at a fourth grade
math level. In both of these cases, teachers working closely with blended learning software
allowed them to diagnose issues, practice needed skills, monitor student progress, and provide
targeted remediation for students who might otherwise have fallen behind.
Using the lens of learner-centered educational environments also uncovered the way that
teachers and students alike talk about maximizing instructional time as the blended learning
software keeps pace with students and allows for differentiation of content. At St. Mary’s, Ms.
Kinney described the way a blended learning approach helped her give individual attention to
students so they could no longer be “floaters” in her class who let other students answer
questions while they simply rode the tide. Holy Trinity eighth grade student Antonio spoke about
TTM keeping pace with students and particularly helping those who can find the pace of whole
group instruction too fast or too slow. At St. Stephen’s, Ms. Kramer, a 15-year veteran teacher
said that she saw the value in blended learning software for allowing her to do true
differentiation in her instruction. In all three of these examples, using blended learning to create
a radically individualized learning environment allowed students to learn at a pace and level that
was right for them, not one that was dictated by a need to keep up with the rest of the class.
Another aspect of a “learner-centered” environment that was not as evident across all
three cases was the cultural responsiveness to individual learners. In the focus groups of students
at St. Mary’s and St. Stephen’s, one of the most common critiques of blended learning was the
disconnect between students’ own maturity level and the intended maturity level of the online
content. Older students felt the characters who interact with them—particularly in i-Ready—
were too childish. There was also a fear that a student who needed remediation that was several
178
grade-levels lower than his or her classmates would be embarrassed to be seen working on
activities or learning games that were clearly designed for younger users. However, in several
cases, teachers reported allowing students to stay with their developmental peers while working
at a different academic levels because of the differentiation afforded by the blended learning
content.
Assessment-centered: instant feedback, limited data use, and paper-and-pencil
metacognition
Among the four characteristics of effective learning environments in the HPL framework,
evidence of assessment-centered practices in blended learning classrooms seemed to be the most
prevalent. These data, gathered from classroom observations and interview data, reveal tight
assessment feedback loops while students are on blended learning computer programs. Receiving
regular formative assessment is just as important for students’ learning as it is often onerous for
teachers who have to correct every assignment that they give out. But when students were
working on blended learning programs at St. Mary’s, Holy Trinity, and St. Stephen’s, the
feedback students receive is effortless for the teacher and nearly always instant—with the
exception of diagnostic tests or summative assessments—for the student. Most of the programs
that students used had hint prompts to guide students in the right direction if they answered
incorrectly, and at St. Stephen’s, TTM even has a “live help” feature that allowed students to
connect to an off-site teacher to assist them if they had exhausted the online help.
Although these assessments were graded instantly and the resulting data were instantly
accessible to teachers, there appeared to be a rather wide range of data usage among the teachers
in the three schools. By “data usage,” I mean the number of times that the majority of the
teachers in the school accessed and reflected on the student performance data that blended
179
programs collected, either as a whole faculty, as PLCs, or in student conferences. This may be
related to the school’s number of years of experience using blended learning and/or the amount
of support that they were given (see Table 4), but this connection is merely speculative.
Table 4
Data Reflection and Support
School Data Reflection Years Blended Data support
St. Mary’s Weekly 4 Internal expertise among teachers and administrators
St. Stephen’s Twice per year 1 Off-site consultant support
Holy Trinity Monthly 1 On-site data and blended learning manager
Teachers spoke about student performance data being helpful, but for most of these teachers,
using student performance data on a regular basis was a new experience. Most of the teachers at
St. Stephen’s and Holy Trinity were aware of student performance on a more macro-level, like
Sr. Annmarie, the religious sister who had been teaching at St. Stephen’s for 34 years. She
proudly showed me a printout of her third graders’ fall i-Ready diagnostic test scores—neatly
color-coded into a spreadsheet with the help of their consultants—that she was using to inform
which chapters she would concentrate on in her direct math instruction. While most of the
blended learning software can provide real-time or daily performance data for students, many of
the teachers at both Holy Trinity and St. Stephens (both in their first year of blended learning)
are using the assessment data like Sr. Annemarie: it provides an interesting macro view of their
class, but it is not used for individual remediation. Instead, teachers in their first year of blended
learning seemed to simply trust that the computer programs were guiding students through
helpful exercises that did not require their intervention or attention. By contrast, teachers at St.
Mary’s who had four years of experience using blended learning programs regularly referred to
180
student performance data and reviewed students’ progress with them on a weekly (or nearly
weekly) basis in order to set new goals. There are notable exceptions to this broad depiction,
including Ms. Coyle’s ELA class at Holy Trinity, Ms. Rogers’ Spanish class at Holy Trinity, and
Ms. Young’s grade 6-8 ELA class at St. Stephen’s—all of which use assessment data in nearly
real-time to help students quickly assess and correct any mistakes they might be encountering.
In addition to the feedback that is part of an assessment-centered classroom, the HPL
framework also states the importance of practices that allow students to build assessment-
centered skills like self-assessment, reflection, and refining of thinking for better understanding.
Often, these skills are difficult to assess when students are using computers and are not required
to think out loud. In order to address this, at St. Mary’s, Mr. McClure requires students to work
on traditional pencil-and-paper math assessments along with online adaptive and diagnostic
assessments so students can reflect on their own learning and make corrections. Similarly,
several teachers at Holy Trinity have created logbooks or reflection sheets in order to help
students track their progress and reflect on their own thinking. Much like the knowledge-
centered practices, teachers mostly spoke of these kinds of skills being developed offline with
teacher assistance.
Knowledge-centered: skill fluency, offline heavy lifting, and educational pitching machines
Helping students create connections between concepts and situate their learning within a
larger framework of understanding is one of the essential parts of a knowledge-centered learning
environment and one that teachers see as an essential part of their role—not the computer’s—in
their classrooms. When I asked teachers whether this kind of thinking and learning is happening
while their students use blended learning computer programs, almost all of them, across all three
schools, said that it was not. Teachers talk about the value of the work that students are doing on
181
computer programs as building skill fluency as the programs either adapt to their performance or
are able to draw from a large bank of problems and activities. Building skill fluency is actually a
very important part of knowledge-centered learning environments, according to the HPL
framework, yet it is not the same as helping students to build deep understandings of concepts
that allow them to make connections between ideas.
Viewing all three schools through the lens of the HPL framework’s knowledge-centered
characteristics surfaced this common belief that the work students do on computers is not, as Ms.
Martinelli at St. Stephen’s put it, intellectual “heavy lifting.” Even teachers who recognized the
rigor of the online content were hesitant to say that the computer programs encouraged the
deeper kind of thinking that is the other essential part of a knowledge-centered classroom.
Whether or not this kind of thinking and learning is actually happening within the programs that
are in use at each of these schools is a question beyond the scope of this paper. But the fact
remains that in my interviews of teachers, the majority of them perceive knowledge-centered
kinds of connections and conversations happening offline. Teachers’ most common
acknowledgement as to the contribution of a blended learning approach to a knowledge-centered
learning environment is that it allows teachers to work one-on-one or in small groups with
students while the rest of the class is engaged in meaningful work on computers. This way, they
can assist students in making connections to prior learning and do the kind of mathematical or
scientific thinking that is the hallmark of knowledge-centered learning environments. This
acknowledgement is not necessarily a critique of blended learning. It simply underscores the
need for the “blend” of different learning modalities as teachers work to their strengths while
they allow the programs to handle skill practice.
182
The principal at St. Mary’s illustrated this distinction most poignantly as she described St.
Mary’s approach to using technology like a baseball coach uses a pitching machine—instead of
the coach spending his or her time pitching to each player on the team, a baseball coach lets a
pitching machine fire out fastballs while he or she corrects the players’ stance or grip. Similarly,
most teachers speak about online tools as assisting students in providing individualized practice,
while the more substantial and higher-level thinking skills are handled by the teacher.
Community-centered: freedom to fail, failure to connect
Across all three cases, there is substantial evidence of a culture of learning and support
surrounding students that makes it “okay” to fail. This was often a pre-existing condition within
the school before they adopted blended learning, yet in several instances, students stated (and
teachers affirmed) that they felt more comfortable making mistakes on computers than they did
in front of a class. Additionally, some of the affordances of the blended learning model such as
small group instruction and peer conferral (in multi-age classrooms at St. Mary’s) lower the
social consequences of making a mistake and more closely reflect the psychosocial moratorium
occurs in video games. A sense of community among students was also strengthened by the way
blended learning programs allowed students at St. Stephen’s and Holy Trinity to stay in class
with their developmental peers while working on remedial content rather than making them join
younger classes for this remediation.
Community-centered classrooms also encourage socially constructed learning
opportunities in the classroom, school, and with the outside world. With increased access to
technology and robust Internet connections at each of these three schools, this kind of
communication is certainly possible, yet communication with outside communities of practice or
affinity groups was either not encouraged or outright blocked. Students at St. Mary’s are
183
beginning to use tools of technology to create socially constructed learning with shared
documents on Google Apps, but from conversations with teachers, students, and observations,
this seems to be rather uncommon at these three schools. With rare exception, computers were
used for the sole purpose of running blended learning programs and students were not able to
access outside websites, much less use computers as tools for communication and connection.
Consequently, students in these three schools never had the opportunity to explore or engage
with affinity groups based on their own interests. In my conversations with students, I found no
evidence of students engaging in these kinds of online communities outside of school or certainly
not inside school. The limited amount of connection that students have with the outside world
seems to limit their ability to participate in these powerful incubators for learning and expression
through technology.
Re-visualizing the HPL framework based on these data
The four characteristics of the HPL framework are presented in the literature as four
interdependent design principles that incorporate the best of what educational psychology
understands about pedagogy and cognition. When the authors present this framework in diagram
form, they do so with three interlocking (and overlapping) circles and one circle that surrounds
the other three circles to indicate the community centered characteristics (see Figure 8).
184
Figure 8. How People Learn Framework (Bransford, et al., 2000)
While this diagram is meant to represent the This, no doubt, is to signify that this characteristic
describes the learning milieu and is the setting into which these other characteristics fit. Yet with
all due respect to the authors, this diagram is not actually representative of the framework that
they present where each part of the framework is largely independent. There are some notable
points of overlap in these characteristics which is captured by the overlapping parts. But perhaps
this framework might also be represented in the figure below where each of the four
characteristics are depicted as equal in size while still overlapping a bit (bearing in mind, of
course, that the overlap happens between all of the characteristics, not just the adjacent circles)
(see Diagram 8).
185
Figure 9. How People Learn Framework (modified)
If the relative sizes of these circles may be thought to represent the number of learner centered,
knowledge centered, assessment centered, or community centered practices a researcher might
observe in a school, the three blended learning schools I observed looked more like this:
Figure 4. How People Learn Framework (modified to represent learning practices in this study)
While this disparity does not directly translate to quality or effectiveness in these schools, it may
give teachers, administrators, and software developers a better sense of where they might expend
more energy and creativity as they seek to build more supportive and effective learning
environments.
186
Suitability of the framework
In this section, I address the third and final research question of this paper: how suitable
is the HPL framework as a measure of effectiveness for blended learning schools? I am using the
word “suitable” broadly to mean the overall “fit” of the framework as a way for researchers and
practitioners to consider blended learning contexts in general and their unique aspects in
particular. This section includes both the strengths and limitations of using the HPL framework
for understanding blended learning contexts.
Strengths of the HPL framework for blended learning contexts
The HPL framework gives a very helpful heuristic way of systematically viewing the
characteristics of learning environments. It is especially helpful in bringing a strong body of
research on effective classroom contexts to bear on emerging models of education, as in the case
of blended learning. While not much is known about the effectiveness of blended learning, the
four characteristics of the HPL framework represent a deep body of knowledge about learning
and cognition that can relate to any type of learning environment. This framework is a helpful
starting point for teachers and administrators who want to ensure the essential characteristics of a
effective learning environment are present: if a classroom is not learner-centered, assessment-
centered, knowledge-centered, and community-centered, there is work to be done in helping
create an environment where students learn best.
This framework was very helpful in identifying the characteristics of interactions among
teachers, students, and the tools of technology they employ in blended learning classrooms.
Further, it presents a thoughtful way of understanding the nature of current practices and the
potential for growth along this framework. For example, while Ms. Rogers’ Spanish classroom is
a nearly textbook example of a highly assessment-centered learning environment in terms of
187
immediate feedback for student work, she might consider using the other aspects of a
assessment-centered learning environment in the HPL framework incorporate assessment-
centered skills like self-assessment and metacognitive reflection into her pedagogy. Teachers in
blended learning schools could benefit from a deeper familiarity with this framework as a means
to self-reflection on pedagogy and a common language of school-wide improvement.
A particular strength of the HPL framework when considering blended learning contexts
is the ability to speak about the effectiveness of the educational context without bringing in the
traditional metrics of standardized test scores or quantitative evaluations of success. Reporting
on evidence of the four characteristics of the HPL framework is a potentially helpful way for
constituents to understand more about their school and plot trajectories for further growth
without falling into the trap of giving schools or blended learning programs letter grades, stars,
or a number out of another number. These measures may be necessary for an overall
understanding of progress toward learning, but the HPL framework can offer a way to
understand and grow, not simply judge.
Additionally, the HPL framework may be helpful for those who are designing a blended
learning implementation and/or are tasked with choosing which software they might use.
Evaluating software based on this framework and then being upfront and transparent with
teachers about the limitations of the computer programs could help them to intentionally
supplement or strengthen what is lacking in the technology through their pedagogical practices.
Limitations of the HPL framework for blended learning contexts
Using the HPL framework for understanding blended learning contexts as I have done in
this paper has surfaced some limitations. In conducting observations and interviews to address
the first research question of this paper, “What is teaching and learning like in blended learning
188
schools?” I encountered several rather crucial aspects of blended learning environments that
were not captured by the HPL framework. These limitations center around four main themes: the
unit and object of analysis, the exclusion of leadership practices, measures of non-cognitive
skills, and levels of integration of blended learning software into teacher practice.
The HPL framework provides a limited perspective on blended learning contexts because
its unit and object of analysis is the type of learning interactions that happen in the classroom.
The HPL framework was created as a way to understand the design of learning environments.
The four characteristics of successful learning contexts are helpful in characterizing and
categorizing the interactions between teachers, students, and the tools of technology they are
utilizing; yet it does not actually measure learning itself. The object of analysis in the HPL
framework is the kind of interactions that are happening in a learning environment, not the
quality or efficacy of these interactions themselves. This is certainly one of the limitations of this
framework (and indeed a limitation of this paper) and should be carefully noted before making
assumptions about the effectiveness of blended learning environments or practices. Additionally,
the unit of analysis for the HPL framework is the classroom. Although this allows a researcher to
categorize some of the individual teacher practices, it does not include ways of understanding the
school as a whole, nor does it include a scaled evaluation or rubric as a tool of comparison.
Secondly, because the HLP framework focuses on characteristics of successful learning
environments, it leaves out considerations regarding the leadership level. While this may not be
the focus of the HPL framework, in my research of blended learning schools, leadership
practices appear to have a significant impact on the success of blended learning implementations.
For example, teachers at St. Stephen’s encountered some roadblocks in their first year of blended
learning centered around resource allocation and scheduling which needed to be addressed at the
189
leadership level. St. Mary’s utilizes an interesting model of distributed leadership that allows the
principal to be technically “part time” between two blended learning schools. Holy Trinity
utilized a principal/president model until this past year when they opted to remove the principal
and create a leadership team of key teachers, the president, and a school parent. This leadership
team played a critical role in the design of the blended learning implementation, the support
systems for faculty regarding blended learning, and the professional development that was given
to the faculty. When collecting data based on the HPL framework alone, it does not capture these
rather fascinating and seemingly important pieces of data. Fully understanding blended learning
contexts seems to require researchers to consider the practices of school leaders and how and to
what extent they are involved with the planning and execution of a blended learning
implementation and operation.
When teachers, administrators, and students talk about their blended learning contexts,
they often refer to the ancillary effects of this model of teaching and learning which are not all
captured in the HPL framework. While there are a significant number of so-called “non-
cognitive” skills that are mentioned as a part of the HPL framework—for example, self-
reflection, metacognition, and a feeling of security with one’s community—several emerged
outside the scope of this framework. These include independence, self-efficacy, self-motivation,
a growth mindset, collaboration, effective communication, and progress monitoring, to name just
a few. To truly understand whether a blended learning context is effective or not invites
considering some of the ways blended learning has a “halo effect” on theses and other non-
cognitive skills.
Finally, often in researching and reporting on the evidence of the HPL framework in
classrooms, the difference between teachers who leveraged the affordances of the blended
190
learning software and those who did not is not clearly captured in the four characteristics of the
HPL framework. This seems like a significant part of understanding and maximizing the power
and promise of blended learning. The extent to which teachers reported experiencing returns on
using blended learning software seemed to correspond with how integrated blended learning
content is within the teacher’s pedagogical practice. When teacher at St. Mary’s first began to
use blended learning, they were using static (non-adaptive) software to supplement instruction.
This ended up being essentially digital worksheets that were nearly disastrous for St. Mary’s.
Teachers like Ms. Kramer at St. Stephen’s uses i-Ready, an adaptive software tool, to
supplement her instruction—that is to say that she does not align her in-class instruction with the
online work students are doing. Teachers who did this often got marginal returns as they saw
students working at their “just right” level and potentially filling in skill gaps. Yet they were
often unaware of the effect of the supplemental blended learning software because it was
essentially a sophisticated educational babysitter that occupied students’ attention while the real
work of direct instruction was happening in small groups or one-on-one. When teachers used
blended learning to complement instruction, teachers leveraged the instant feedback possible
with blended learning software. In Ms. Rogers used the blended learning software to
complement her Spanish instruction, she saw significant learning returns as her students were
immersed in an environment where mistakes were immediately challenged while students
worked at their own pace. Finally, Mr. McClure at St. Mary’s uses the tools of blended learning
to augment math instruction in his classroom by letting students work at their own pace while
mixing online and in-person interactions with math material. Giving students agency over their
own pace of education and allowing them to surge ahead or take the time they need while staying
close to their performance data to make weekly goals and remediate skill gaps represents a
191
transformational approach to using the tools of blended learning. These distinct ways of using
different kinds of blended learning software are detailed in the table below (Table 5):
Table 5
Instructional Outcomes of Blended Learning Use Across Tools and Instructional Types
Student/tool interaction
Static (non-responsive to student)
Dynamic (adaptive to student)
How
teac
hers
are
usi
ng
blen
ded
lear
ning
con
tent
Supplement Instruction
(1) Skill repetition and general
enrichment
(2) Enrichment and exploration
Complement Instruction
(3) Reinforcement and practice
(4) Optimized skill practice
Transform Instruction
(5) Interest pursuit
(6) True differentiation and
discovery
In order to better understand the ways that teachers, students, and blended learning content
interact, it is perhaps helpful to first draw a distinction between two broad categories of the types
of content that are in use in blended learning classrooms: static and dynamic. The first category,
“static,” includes digital content (and here I broadly refer to “digital content” or “tools” as
inclusive of programs, apps, websites, and various other online material) that is agnostic to the
end-user. Static content is exactly the same for any user who is accessing it, and these tools
present information or problems to students in ways that do not adapt to their interest,
performance, or profile. This category of content does not collect diagnostic information prior to
instruction and proceeds along a predetermined, rutted path. Examples of static content for
192
blended learning might be the assignable bank of math problems in iXL, a collection of
educational YouTube videos, or a digital textbook.
A second category of content that is in use in blended learning classrooms is “dynamic.”
This type of digital content creates a profile of the user and then makes adaptations based on the
user’s performance data. Dynamic content is not the same for every user and makes changes for
the individual as to the difficulty, pace, type, or sequence of information or problems presented.
This category of content sometimes begins with a diagnostic pre-test or profile formation activity
and then delivers material that is customized to the individual. The appropriateness and
helpfulness of this adaptation obviously varies based on the sophistication of the algorithm and
amount of performance data the digital content collects. Still, numerous teachers and students in
the three blended learning schools involved in this study were impressed with the ability of the
dynamic content currently in-use at blended learning schools to accurately assess and then
challenge students at their “just right” level. The use of dynamic tools of technology—even in a
limited way—begins to address learning gaps by collecting data that can be used for remediation.
Some software may attempt to help fill in these gaps through basic skill practice, but the true
power of dynamic content is harnessed when teachers attend closely to the rich data feedback
that using these programs provides. Examples of dynamic content for blended learning are i-
Ready, ThinkThroughMath, Achieve3000, or wordplay.com.
Differences in the instructional outcomes in blended learning classrooms depend not only
on the category of digital content in use—perhaps more importantly are the ways that teachers
utilize the digital content at their disposal. There are several different ways that teachers might
use the tools of blended learning in their classrooms, but most fit into these three categories: in a
supplementary way, in a complementary way, and in a transformative way. Teachers who use
193
blended learning content in a supplemental manner allow students to work at computer stations
with little direct teacher guidance. This work—while perhaps valuable—is viewed by the teacher
as supplementary and not necessarily connected to the topic(s) that the teacher is covering in
direct instruction. Teachers using the tools of blended learning to supplement instruction may see
the value of computer-based content as occupying students’ attention so teachers can work one-
on-one or in small groups with other students. Teachers who use blended learning content to
complement their instruction find ways to integrate the work students do on computers with their
direct instruction. Engaging the technology in this way values these tools as vehicles for
optimization of current pedagogical practices with new ways of reinforcing skills and
remediating knowledge gaps. Teachers using blended learning content to transform instruction
allow the affordances of the digital tools at their disposal to fundamentally transform their
pedagogical practices in ways previously not possible without these tools of technology. This use
of technology is a radical departure from traditional teaching practices and may challenge
teachers and students to re-envision their roles in the classroom as students become less
dependent on teacher direction and teachers coach and guide students to knowledge rather than
being the keepers of knowledge themselves.
Sector details
Using static blended learning content to supplement instruction (see Sector 1 in Table 5)
involves having students work on digital content that may give immediate feedback, but this
content neither adapts to user performance nor does it directly connect with the content that
students are learning in class. At best, this can lead to general enrichment or skill refinement
through repetition inasmuch as students are helped by doing random pages out of a workbook. At
worst, this “digital worksheet” approach can bore students with no clear progression of content,
194
frustrate them when they answer problems incorrectly, and reinforce incorrect patterns of
thinking through unguided repetition of incorrect thinking. This is akin to hoping a baseball
player improves by telling them to “run laps” at a track to improve their general athleticism or
sending them to a batting cage without any coaching or instruction.
Using dynamic blended learning content to supplement instruction (see Sector 2 in Table
5) involves having students work on digital content that responds to their performance and gives
increasingly challenging material as students demonstrate mastery, though this material is not
directly connected with what is being taught by the teacher. This can lead to rich learning
experiences for students as they encounter new material or practice skills that the programs
determine they need to work on based on their performance. Independent learners may thrive
with this type of freedom to explore new content, though the supplemental nature of this work
can leave teachers confused as to their students’ level of exposure to new content and render
students bored with direct instruction content that they have previously mastered.
Using static blended learning content to complement instruction (see Sector 3 in Table 5)
involves having students practice and reinforce the skills or material that teachers are presenting
to them. Conversely, this can also involve having students encounter new concepts on static
media (for example, a Khan Academy video) while using their direct instruction time with a
teacher to reinforce concepts or correct erroneous thinking. This use of blended learning content
places much of the onus for curation on the teacher as they assign students specific practice
problems or direct them to the desired material. This use of blended learning content can be a
powerful way to reinforce concepts or optimize instructional time, but keeps students tightly
corralled and does not allow for much differentiation of pace or content for individual learners.
195
Using dynamic blended learning content to complement instruction (see Sector 4 in Table
5) involves linking the work students do on adaptive digital content to the direct instruction they
receive in class. This use of blended learning content might involve teacher practices such
assigning a class the same article on Achieve3000 (which is then customized to their individual
reading level) and then discussing it as a class. It might also involve allowing students to work
within a chapter or a unit on blended learning software for a period of several weeks so that
students can practice skills that they find challenging and master content in a sequence that they
choose while a teacher coaches and tutors students within that unit. When the given timeframe
ends, all students are expected to take a summative assessment. This allows teachers to work
more closely with individual students and provide data informed instruction while giving
students some agency in making choices about the path and pace of their learning. This ensures
students still reaching the same end-point in a curriculum, but it allows them some freedom in
reaching that point. Working in this sector is a way of optimizing traditional pedagogical
practices with the tools of technology.
Using static blended learning content in a transformative way (see Sector 5 in Table 5)
involves teachers finding ways to let technology augment traditional pedagogical practices. This
could include allowing students to learn about new ideas as they participate in online
communities, express their mastery of concepts through digital media or collaborative
GoogleDocs, or dive deeply into online videos regarding an area of interest. Using static
technology tools in this way does not simply use technology to optimize current teacher practices.
It invites teachers to reconsider their role as the keepers of knowledge in a classroom and allow
students to guide their own learning process through the use of digital tools.
196
Using dynamic blended learning content in a transformative way (see Sector 6 in Table 5)
involves teachers using adaptive, user-aware content to give students agency in making open-
ended decisions about their educational path and pace. This gives students the freedom and
agency to work with adaptive content while being coached and tutored by their instructor. This
radical departure from the “normal” way that we might envision classroom instruction taking
place allows for a true differentiation for all students where each child can work at their “just
right” level. Working with dynamic content in this way effectively takes the floor and ceiling off
of the traditional classroom as students can work above or below their grade level as content
adapts to their need and teachers can encourage, assist, remediate, and challenge each one of
their students while they keep a close eye on their data feedback that dynamic programs provide.
These six sectors represent the realities and possibilities of using digital content for
instructional practices that can reinforce or revolutionize teacher pedagogy and student learning.
The closer teachers can get to using dynamic content in ways that are complementary or
transformative, the more learning can be truly personalized for individual students. This is the
true promise and power of blended learning and an invitation to practitioners to utilize
technology for the benefit of their students.
Implications for practice
In this section I detail four implications for practice based on my research and data
findings regarding blended learning. These four suggestions are meant for practitioners who are
involved in K-12 education and those who are interested in implementing a blended learning
approach at their school. The collective case study design employed in this paper is meant to
provide a depth of understanding for these particular cases, not generalizable conclusions for all
contexts. Yet there are some key lessons that emerged from these three contexts that may be
197
relatable to other settings. My hope is that readers of this study take some ownership of the
insights and descriptions and make their own determination as to the study’s transfer to their own
context (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In that spirit, in this subsection I propose the following four
implications for practice: (1) teachers should use interest, fiero, and transformation as a starting
point of blended learning designs and pedagogical practice, (2) schools should proactively use
blended learning to diagnose and fill “Tetris gaps,” (3) schools should use blended learning to
help students succeed in college and beyond, and (4) Catholic schools should consider adopting
blended learning as a matter of social justice and inclusion.
Teachers should use interest, fiero, and transformation as a starting point of blended
learning designs and pedagogical practice
I asked every teacher and administrator whom I interviewed to talk about why their
school decided on a blended learning approach. The responses varied from financial efficiencies
to a desire for deeper differentiation of instruction, to using technology in a way that would
distinguish their school from competitors. Most responses foregrounded student learning in some
way, but the changes that they hoped a blended learning approach might bring to their schools
were often incremental and concentrated more on efficiency than transformation. By efficiency, I
mean that teachers talked about the way that a blended learning approach could help them do the
kind of teaching that they currently do with greater ease, data, or differentiation. They spoke
about the advantages of having more one-on-one time with students as half the class (or more)
worked on blended learning programs. The truly promising power of blended learning seems to
be the ability to fundamentally transform teaching through technology. Transformative teaching
of this type might begin with ideas like student interests or individualized learning paths based
198
on unique styles of learning or perhaps project-based or socially constructed learning—all
powered by a blended learning approach. Beginning with student interest could involve students
in affinity groups and build interest-based learning with a sense of fiero as an end goal. This is
not to say that students in the three schools included in this study did not experience any of these
goals, but using these as a starting point has the potential to unlock the true promise and potential
of blended learning.
Schools should proactively use blended learning to diagnose and fill “Tetris gaps”
Tetris, the addictive Russian puzzle game, challenges players to move and stack blocks
that fall from the top of the screen in such a way that they complete an entire line, making them
disappear and scoring points. The shape and speed of the blocks make this seemingly simple task
quite difficult, particularly at higher levels. Often, when gaps begin to form toward the bottom of
the stack, mistakes can compound, and it becomes increasingly difficult to fill in those bottom
gaps. Similarly, if a map of any student’s learning might be constructed, there are often gaps.
Learning gaps can happen for any conceivable reason: as dramatic as a prolonged illness or
family tragedy or as mundane as a teacher who was difficult to understand or a time when a
student simply “zoned out.” Whatever their genesis, once those gaps are formed, like Tetris
blocks continuing to fall with increasing speed, educational content and skills continue to drop
on students throughout their schooling. Yet many times, learning new material assumes prior
knowledge and does not account for these Tetris-like gaps. Furthermore, teachers may be
unaware of these gaps that may have existed for years by time a student arrives in their
classroom.
Ms. Ewing, the principal of St. Mary’s, is convinced that the success story of a former
sixth grader named Jack is due to the large amounts actionable data that she and her math teacher
199
received from their blended learning software and then acted upon. Jack’s “Tetris gap” was a
misunderstanding of place value that most likely dated back to first or second grade. His Tetris
gap was successfully remediated and, over the course of several months of Jack’s hard work, he
was able to exit out of special needs services. This success story invites practitioners to reflect on
how they might use blended learning programs to gather student performance data in order to
diagnose and remediate Tetris gaps. As blended learning software becomes more sophisticated
and so-called “big data” analytics (that are already in use in business and finance contexts) are
brought to bear on student performance data, diagnosing and remediating student knowledge
gaps will no doubt become much more commonplace. Until then, stories like Jack’s represent an
aspirational yet attainable goal for practitioners using or considering blended learning.
Schools should use blended learning to help students succeed in college and beyond
The final implication of this research for practitioners relates to student success in high
school, college, and beyond. Across all three schools, teachers mentioned the development of a
skill as a result of the blended learning implementation: independence. Whether it was Ms.
Young at St. Stephen’s telling her students to figure out a lesson without directions like they
would a new video game or Ms. Sanders having her K-2 students work independently at their
own level and find solutions to their problems before asking the teacher, there were dozens of
examples teachers mentioning “independence” as one of the things they liked about a blended
learning approach. My observations confirmed this and I noted several times in my field notes
that even young students seemed to be just “busy about their business” when engaged in blended
learning blocks of instruction. Students in these contexts seemed not to rely heavily on the
teacher for their next step and often conferred with fellow students when they faced challenges
rather than relying on the teacher. Further, empowering students to know and “own” their
200
personal performance data—a regular practice at St. Mary’s and an emerging practice at Holy
Trinity—helped students set attainable goals and seemed to help create some buy-in to their
educational success and next steps. Giving students agency like this is a powerful way of
involving them in their education and potentially increasing their motivation. It also may prepare
them to succeed in educational endeavors where teacher guidance and supports can be more
limited, as is often the case in high school, college, and beyond. Practitioners can further
encourage this development by allowing students to use technology to participate in or create
affinity groups and online communities of practice. Teachers can also assist students in
maximizing their independent work time by helping them develop skills to clearly define
problems they are encountering, to ask thoughtful questions of one another, and to hone
metacognitive skills for self-reflection and refinement of ideas.
Catholic schools should consider adopting blended learning as a matter of social justice and
inclusion
I entered into this study using Catholic schools as the setting, not the focus of my
research. The interview protocols I used and the data I collected was intentionally and decidedly
non-religious in nature. Yet it was clear that the school leaders and teachers I interviewed saw a
rationale for blended learning that was rooted in social justice, and indeed, their Catholic faith.
This led me to conclude that there are significant social justice connections and implications
from the use of a blended learning approach in Catholic schools in particular.
The most authoritative document on education from the Catholic Church is a document
of the Second Vatican Council entitled Gravissimum Educationis, which states, “All men [sic] of
every race, condition and age, since they enjoy the dignity of a human being, have an inalienable
right to an education” (Pope Paul VI, 1965). Yet Catholic schools have long been critiqued for
201
their inability to serve students who have exceptionalities and might need different kinds of
accommodations or levels of challenge that differ from their classmates. This is particularly
important for Catholic schools because currently, Latinos represent approximately 70% of all
practicing Catholics under the age of 35. Yet a shockingly low 3% of school-aged Latino
children are currently enrolled in Catholic schools. This is particularly tragic considering,
according to a 2009 study, Latino children are 40% more likely to graduate from high school and
more than twice as likely to graduate from college when they attend K-12 Catholic schools (The
Notre Dame Task Force on the Participation of Latino Children and Families in Catholic Schools,
2009). Yet without the proper tools and resources to serve these students, many of whom are not
native English speakers, Catholic schools cannot hope to continue to help them succeed.
In cases where Catholic teachers and leaders want to help students with these
exceptionalities, but feel unequipped to do so, blended learning may offer some significant help.
Several teachers at St. Mary’s, St. Stephen’s, and Holy Trinity spoke of blended learning
empowered them to differentiate the content and pace of the instruction that students received in
a way that was previously not possible. In particular, teachers at Holy Trinity who serve 100%
Latino students recognized the ways that blended learning helped students who were struggling
with language acquisition. Allowing a student to hear the words that they see on a screen in i-
Ready or Achieve3000 is an important help to a new English language learner. Giving students
the opportunity to get live help in their native language on TTM is a step toward further
inclusion. And having a rich, class-wide conversation with all students based on an article that
was delivered to each of them at their just-right reading level through Achieve3000 can give all
learners the chance to participate with their peers in an unprecedented way. These supports for
English language learners are ways in which blended learning is being leveraged for inclusion.
202
But inclusion assisted by blended learning is not limited to new English language learners.
At St. Stephen’s, putting a sixth-grade transfer student on i-Ready for remediation allowed her to
stay in class with her developmental peers instead of having to join a fourth grade classroom
down the hall. At St. Mary’s, blended learning allowed mathematics students in a multiage
classroom to work on content that was far beyond their grade level at a pace that was right for
each of them. In these cases, schools are using blended learning to treat each student with the
dignity that Catholic schools want to give all children because each child is created “in the image
and likeness of God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1701). Effectively, blended learning is
empowering schools to take the floor and ceiling off of the traditional classroom so that the
needs of every child are met. Catholic schools both large and small would do well to reflect on
the simple question that brought St. Stephen’s to a blended learning implementation: “how well
do we know our students?”
Implications for research
As stated above, there is a small but growing body of research regarding blended learning.
The research in this area is still in a very nascent stage and clearly there is ample room for more
academic studies of blended learning content, models, effective practices, and implementations.
In particular, for those who seek to study the effectiveness of individual programs or digital tools
for use in educational contexts, this study points to the importance of researchers taking into
account exactly how teachers are using the tools of technology in classroom contexts. The way
teachers use these tools and the data that they generate can amplify their effectiveness or render
them nearly useless. Chronicling effective and transformative uses of technology from blended
learning classrooms and schools would greatly benefit the field.
203
The role and importance of leaders in blended learning contexts is another significant yet
understudied area of research. Documenting effective leadership practices in successful blended
learning schools could help generate models for current school leaders and guide principal
training programs to empower and equip school leaders with the skills and points of view
particular to this model of teaching and learning.
More broadly, the field of blended learning is in need of researchers (not simply vendors)
to carry-out both large-scale surveys of blended learning schools nation-wide as well as
comprehensive, multi-year ethnographic studies of successful blended learning schools, from
their inception. Following students through the transition from blended learning grade schools
into non-blended high schools could offer interesting insights and challenges that could reflect
back on the design of blended learning elementary schools. Additionally, following blended
learning students’ progress into college could prove informative as researchers might reflect on
the importance of independence and other skills honed in blended learning schools.
Researchers interested in assessing and understanding blended learning contexts should
consider applying technology-related frameworks to these learning environments to see if they
promote a unique and helpful analysis. In particular, researchers should consider adapting and
using Connected Learning (Ito, 2013) and Participatory Cultures (Jenkins, 2007) as ways to
compare practices within blended learning schools with these thoughtful theoretical models of
technology use. The application of the HPL framework to the three blended learning schools in
this study presents merely a starting point for applying known educational frameworks to
blended learning schools.
A final question for researchers in the blended learning context is how might we measure
outcomes beyond test performance? Currently, success or failure of blended learning schools is
204
most commonly assessed with NWEA MAP scores or state standardized tests. How might we
more deeply understand the impact of learning for students in blended learning schools beyond
these standard markers of academic progress? Longitudinal studies of students who attended
blended learning schools and their success in high school and college could be helpful ways of
assessing the impact of a blended learning education. Further, skills beyond those that are
traditionally assessed in academic testing should be included in future assessments of blended
learning studies. Measuring the “non-cognitive” or “soft skills” that are being taught and
practiced in blended learning schools is an essential way of knowing the impact that this
different type of teaching and learning is having on students. Researchers should consider
measuring skills like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-
confidence (Tough, 2012) or the social skills and cultural competencies that young people need
in order to participate fully in participatory culture like play, performance, simulation,
appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia
navigation, networking, and negotiation (Jenkins, 2007). These skills or others that are indicators
of success in college and the workplace might be essential ways of understanding the impact of
blended learning beyond standardized test scores.
Conclusion
The power and potential of blended learning is enormous. Over the coming five to ten
years, what we now call “blended learning” will likely simply be known as “learning” and
schools that are pioneering these innovations will likely benefit from their years of experience.
Given current trends in education and technology, the quality and ubiquity of technology
available to educators continues to improve, yet without attention to how these tools are being
205
utilized and deployed, educators, students, and contributors are likely to become frustrated to the
point of abandonment. This study aims to challenge these frustrations by relating the stories of
three schools working to embrace and leverage the affordances of blended learning. Through use
of qualitative data, I have described the characteristics of blended learning schools, presented the
evidence of the HPL framework in these schools, and discussed both the strengths and
limitations of using the HPL framework as a way of understanding blended learning schools.
These discussions concluded that the HPL framework was helpful in focusing on measures of
effectiveness beyond traditional metrics of success, yet may need to be modified or
supplemented by measures of capturing leadership practices, levels of integration of blended
learning software, and non-cognitive skills. While the next iteration of blended learning is not yet
known, it is clear that teachers who are well-informed and well-equipping with these tools of
technology will continue to transform teaching and learning for the benefit of all students.
206
References
Anderson, J. R., Boyle, C. F., Corbett, A. T., & Lewis, M. W. (1990). Cognitive modeling and
intelligent tutoring. Artificial intelligence, 42(1), 7-49.
Anderson, J. R., Corbett, A. T., Koedinger, K. R., & Pelletier, R. (1995). Cognitive tutors:
Lessons learned. The journal of the learning sciences, 4(2), 167-207.
Atkinson, R. C. (1968). Computerized instruction and the learning process. American
psychologist, 23(4), 225.
Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies: Reading and writing in one community.
London, UK: Routledge.
Bauer, M. I., Williamson, D. M., Mislevy, R. J., & Behrens, J. T. (2003). Using evidence-
centered design to develop advanced simulation-based assessment and training. In World
Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher
Education (Vol. 2003, No. 1, pp. 1495-1502).
Benaquisto, L. (2008). Axial Coding. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research
Methods (Vol. 1, pp. 52-53). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Benaquisto, L. (2008). Open Coding. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research
Methods (Vol. 2, p. 754). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Birnbaum, A. (1968) Some latent trait models and their use in inferring an examinee’s ability. In
Lord, F.M. and Novick, M.R., Statistical theories of mental test scores. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Bloom, B. S. (1984). The 2 sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as
effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational researcher, 4-16.
207
Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind,
experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Liguori, MO: Liguori
Publications, 1994.
Cen, H., Koedinger, K. R., & Junker, B. (2007). Is Over Practice Necessary?- Improving
Learning Efficiency with the Cognitive Tutor through Educational Data Mining.
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 158, 511.
Cheung, A. C., & Slavin, R. E. (2012). How features of educational technology applications
affect student reading outcomes: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 7(3),
198-215.
Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class: How disrupting
innovation will change the way the world learns. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital
revolution and schooling in America. Teachers College Press.
Collins, A., Hawkins, J., & Carver, S. M. (1991) A cognitive apprenticeship for disadvantaged
students. In Teaching advanced skills to at-risk students, Means, B., Chelemer, C., &
Knapp, M. S., eds. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Conrad, C., & Serlin, R. (2005). The SAGE Handbook for Research in Education: Engaging
Ideas and Enriching Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Cresswell, J.W. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five
Appproaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Cross, J. (2006). Forward. In C.J. Bonk & C.R. Graham (Eds.), Handbook of blended learning:
Global perspectives, local designs (p. xvii-xxiii). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
208
Dziuban, C., Hartman, J., Moskal, P., “Blended Learning,” EDUCAUSE Review, Volume 2004,
Issue 7, 2004. ECAR, Boulder, Colorado.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz., R. I., and Shaw, L. L. (1995). Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Macmillan.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. New
York: Routledge, 2004.
Gibbs, M. G., Dosen, A. J., & Guerrero, R. B. (2008). Technology in Catholic Schools: Are
Schools Using the Technology They Have?. Journal of Catholic Education, 12 (2).
Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ce/vol12/iss2/8
Given, L. (2008), Introduction. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
(Vol. 1, p. xxix). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Glaser, G. G., & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.
Graham, C. R. (2013). Emerging practice and research in blended learning. In M. G. Moore (Ed.),
Handbook of distance education (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Graham, C.R. (2006). Blended learning systems: Definition, current trends, and future directions.
In C.J. Bonk & C.R. Graham (Eds.), Handbook of blended learning: Global perspectives,
local designs (pp. 3-21). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Griffiths, M. D., & Hunt, N. (1998). Dependence on computer games by adolescents.
Psychological reports, 82(2), 475-480.
Güzer, B., & Caner, H. (2014). The Past, Present and Future of Blended Learning: An in Depth
Analysis of Literature. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 4596-4603.
209
Halverson, L. R., Graham, C. R., Spring, K.J. & Drysdale, J.S. (2012): An analysis of high
impact scholarship and publication trends in blended learning, Distance Education, 33:3,
381-413
Hoeft, F., Watson, C. L., Kesler, S. R., Bettinger, K. E., & Reiss, A. L. (2008). Gender
differences in the mesocorticolimbic system during computer game-play. Journal of
Psychiatric Research, 42(4), 253-258.
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2011). The rise of K-12 blended learning. Innosight Institute.
http://www.inacol.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/iNACOL-Mean-What-You-Say-
October-2013.pdf
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robison, A. (2010) Confronting the
Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press
Kennedy, S., & Soifer, D. Why blended learning can't stand still: A commitment to constant
innovation is needed to realize the potential of individualized learning. Lexington
Institute.
Koedinger, K. R., & Corbett, A. T. (2006). Cognitive tutors: Technology bringing learning
science to the classroom. The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, 13, 61-77.
Kulik, C. L. C., & Kulik, J. A. (1991). Effectiveness of computer-based instruction: An updated
analysis. Computers in human behavior, 7(1), 75-94.
Kulik, J. A. (2003). Effects of using instructional technology in elementary and secondary
schools: What controlled evaluation studies say. Arlington, VA: SRI International.
210
Lacey, J.W. (1977) Applications of computer based education to learning. In The Many Facets of
Educational Computing, Proceedings of NAUCAL conference, Dearborn, MI.
Lautzenheiser, D., and Hochleitner, T. (2014). Blended learning in DC public schools: how one
district is reinventing its classrooms. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lazzaro, N. (2004). Why We Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story.
Whitepaper. Oakland, CA: XEODesign
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E.B. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change
the world. Penguin.
McKechnie, L.E. (2008). Observational Research. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative
Research Methods (Vol. 2, p. 575). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2009). Evaluation of evidence-
based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies.
U.S. Washington D.C.: Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and
Policy Development.
Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education / (2nd ed.
ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Miller, P.M. (2008). Reliability. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
(Vol. 2, p. 754). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
211
Miller, P.M. (2008). Validity. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (Vol.
2, p. 909). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Mishler, E. (1986). The analysis of interview-narratives. Narrative Psychology: The Storied
Nature of Human Conduct, 233-255.
Moore, J. C. (2005). The Sloan consortium quality framework and the five pillars. The Sloan
Consortium. Retrieved July, 15, 2007.
Moore, M. G. (Ed.). (2013). Handbook of distance education (3rd ed.). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Norberg, A., Dziuban, C.D., & Moskal, P.D. (2011). A time-based blended learning model. On
the Horizon, 19(3), 207-216.
Ogden, R. (2008). Anonymity. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
(Vol. 1, p. 16). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Otte, G., & Niemiec, M. (2005). Blended learning in higher education: A report from the 2005
Sloan-C workshop. In Second Sloan-C Workshop on Blended Learning, Chicago, IL.
Patrick, S., Kennedy, K., Powell, A. (2013). Mean what you say: Defining and integrating
personalized, blended, and competency education. Retrieved from
Paul-VI, P. (1965). Gravissimum Educationis. Retrieved Sept 15, 2014, from
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-
ii_decl_19651028_gravissimum-educationis_en.html
Picciano, A. G., & Seaman, J. (2007). K-12 Online Learning: A Survey of US School District
Administrators. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(3).
Picciano, A., and Dziuban, C. (2007). Blended Learning Research Perspectives. The Sloan
Consortium.
212
Queen, B., & Lewis, L. (2011). Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and
Secondary School Students: 2009-10 (NCES 2012-009). U.S. Department of Education,
National Center for Education Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2012/2012008.pdf.
Rothbauer, P.M. (2008). Triangulation. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research
Methods (Vol. 2, pp. 892-894). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Schofield, J. W. (1997). Psychology Computers and Classroom Social Processes—A Review of
the Literature. Social Science Computer Review, 15(1), 27-39.
Schrieber, J. B. (2008). Pilot Study. In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods
(Vol. 2, p. 625). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Shaffer, D. W., Halverson, R., Squire, K. R., & Gee, J. P. (2005). Video Games and the Future of
Learning. WCER Working Paper No. 2005-4. Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Shea, P. (2007). Towards a Conceptual Framework for Learning in Blended Environments. In
Picciano, A.G. & Dziuban, C.D. (Eds.), Blended Learning: Research Perspectives (pp.
19-36). Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium.
Soe, K., Koki, S., & Chang, J. M. (2000). Effect of computer assisted instruction (CAI) on
reading achievement: A meta-analysis. Washington, DC: OERI.
Squire, K. D. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experiences.
Educational Researcher, 35(1), 19-29.
Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research (pp. 49-68). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stake, R. E. (2000). Case studies (pp. 435-454). In, N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Guba (Eds.),
Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Staker, H. (2011). The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning: Profiles of Emerging Models. Innosight
Institute.
213
Staker, H., & Horn, M. B. (2012). Classifying K-12 Blended Learning. Innosight Institute.
Steinkuehler, C. (2011). The mismeasure of boys: Reading and online videogames (No. 2011-3).
WCER Working Paper.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for
developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Suppes, P., & Macken, E. (1978). The Historical Path from Research and Development to
Operational Use of CAI. Educational Technology, 18(4), 9-12.
Suppes, P., & Morningstar, M. (1969). Computer-assisted instruction. Science, 166 (3903), 343-
350.
Suppes, P., & Morningstar, M. (1972). Computer-Assisted Instruction at Stanford, 1966-68: Data,
Models, and Evaluation of the Arithmetic Programs.
U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Transforming American education: Learning powered by
technology. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of
Education.
Van Campen, J. A. (1970). Project for application of learning theory to problems of second
language acquisition with particular reference to Russian. Report to US Office of
Education.
van der Linden, W. J., & Glas, C. A. (Eds.). (2000). Computerized adaptive testing: Theory and
practice. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
VanLehn, K. (2011). The relative effectiveness of human tutoring, intelligent tutoring systems,
and other tutoring systems. Educational Psychologist, 46(4), 197-221.
214
Vignare, K. (2007). Review of literature blended learning: Using ALN to change the classroom
—Will it work? In Picciano, A.G. & Dziuban, C.D. (Eds.), Blended Learning: Research
Perspectives (pp. 37-63). Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of the higher psychological processes.
Cambridge, MA: The Harvard University Press.
Walkington, C. (2013). Using Adaptive Learning Technologies to Personalize Instruction to
Student Interests: The Impact of Relevant Contexts on Performance and Learning
Outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105, 932-945.
Watson, J., Murin, A., Vashaw, L., Gemin, B., and Rapp, C. (2013). Keeping Pace with K-12
Online & Blended Learning: An Annual Review of Policy and Practice. Evergreen
Education Group.
Yilmaz, K. (2013). Comparison of quantitative and qualitative research traditions:
Epistemological, theoretical, and methodological differences. European Journal of
Education, 48(2), 311-325.
Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
215
Appendices
Appendix A: Interview Protocol for Principals, Blended Learning Coordinators, Administrators
Interview Protocol for Principals, BL Coordinators, Administrators:
Name:
Location:
Date/Time of Interview:
1. Opening:
a. Can you tell me your name and your role here?
b. How long have you been in this position?
c. How long have you been at this school?
d. Tell me a little bit about this school.
2. Pedagogical practices:
a. Tell me about how blended learning works for your students during a typical day.
b. What is your favorite/most interesting/most compelling experience with blended
learning?
c. How did your school become a blended learning school?
d. Do you see certain advantages or disadvantages?
e. What programs, units, or tools do you as a (leader/administrator) recommend for
blended learning? Is there a particular platform, site, or topic that you like best?
f. On a typical day, what percentage of your school’s instruction is blended?
g. From your perspective, what percentage of the students’ typical day is spent on
blended learning?
216
h. What are the differences you observe in student learning or engagement in the
different contexts (blended versus non-blended)? Can you give me a story that
illustrates that from your classroom experience?
i. What is the connection between what happens on the computer programs and
what happens instructionally from the teacher?
j. What does using technology in the classroom allow your teachers to do that they
wouldn’t otherwise be able to do?
3. General
a. What challenges have you faced in using a blended learning approach in your
school?
b. What are the challenges now?
c. If a school were making the transition to blended learning, what are the three most
important lessons you would tell them?
d. Who have been the most important people in making blended learning work in
your school?
e. How have you assisted teachers in ramping up to blended learning? What has
been helpful or challenging in doing so?
4. Conclusion
a. Is there anything you want to add or explain further, related to the study or any of
the questions?
b. Do you have any questions for me?
217
Appendix B: Interview Protocol for Teachers
Interview Protocol for Teachers:
Name:
Location:
Date/Time of Interview:
1. Opening:
a. Can you tell me your name and your role here?
b. How long have you been in this position?
c. How long have you been at this school?
d. Tell me a little bit about this school.
2. Pedagogical Practices
a. Tell me about how blended learning works for your students during a typical day.
b. What is your favorite/most interesting/most compelling experience with blended
learning?
c. Do you see certain advantages or disadvantages?
d. What programs, units, or tools do you as a teacher use and recommend for
blended learning? Is there a particular platform, site, or topic that you like best?
e. On a typical day, what percentage of your instruction is blended?
f. From your perspective, what percentage of the students’ typical day is spent on
blended learning?
218
g. What are the differences you observe in student learning or engagement in the
different contexts (blended versus non-blended)? Can you give me a story that
illustrates that from your classroom experience?
h. How would you characterize your approach to teaching?
i. What is the connection between what happens on the computer programs and
what happens instructionally from the teacher?
j. What does using technology in the classroom allow you to do that you wouldn’t
otherwise be able to do?
k. I’m interested in knowing more about what happens in blended learning
environments. Can you talk a little about your experience as a teacher in a
blended learning school?
l. I’m also interested in knowing more about teaching practices in blended learning
environments. Could you tell me the ways that you try to find out where students
are and meet them where they’re at? Could you give me an example of that?
m. How have you been able to connect the curriculum with the learning that students
are doing on the computers? Can you give me an example of how you have dealt
with that issue?
n. How do you use the data that you receive from the programs that the kids use? Do
you share that with the individual students? Have you found this valuable?
o. How does using this much technology influence the sense of community among
your students?
p. How has a blended learning approach changed your teaching?
219
q. Can you give me an example of students making choices about the pace or path of
their educational activities in your class?
r. There’s a pretty universal feeling of “yes! I did it!” that we’ve all felt before.
Have you seen any evidence of this feeling in your class?
s. Do you feel as though you get to spend enough one-on-one time with students?
What types of things do you do with the one-on-one time that you do get with
them? Has the blended learning approach helped or hindered your ability to spend
one-on-one time with students?
3. General
a. What challenges have you faced in using a blended learning approach in your
classroom/school?
b. What are the challenges now?
c. If a school were making the transition to blended learning, what are the three most
important lessons you would tell them?
d. Who have been the most important people in making blended learning work in
your school?
4. Conclusion
a. Thank you for your participation and your openness to classroom observations.
Would you like to add anything?
b. Do you have any questions for me?
220
Appendix C: Discussion Questions for Student Focus Group
Discussion Questions for Student Focus Group
First Names of Students in Focus Group:
Location:
Date/Time of Focus Group:
1. Explanation of focus group and read through student assent form
2. Discussion Questions
a. What do you like most about your school?
b. Your school is probably different from a lot of other schools. Can you tell me how
it is different from other schools or maybe other schools you have attended?
c. I want to hear your thoughts about what it’s like to be a student in a blended
learning school.
d. You guys spend a lot of time on computers. What’s that like?
e. What are some descriptive words that you would use to talk about your school?
Why?
f. Can you talk about your best learning experience at your school?
g. Do you think the learning on computers is too hard or easy?
h. What is most challenging or difficult about being a student at your school?
3. Conclusion
a. Thank you so much for your participation in this group! Is there anything else
you’d like me to know about your school?
b. Do you have any questions for me?
221
Appendix D: Participant Information and Consent Form
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON Research Participant Information and Consent Form
Title of the Study: The Promise of K-12 Blended Learning: Understanding the Design and Experience of Blended Learning Environments Principal Investigator: Richard Halverson (faculty advisor) (608) 265-4772,
[email protected] Student Researcher: Nathan Wills, csc [email protected] DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH
You are invited to participate in a research study that seeks to understand the experience of teaching and learning in K-12 blended learning schools. You have been asked to participate because your school is one of the bold pioneers and exemplars of blended learning in the Midwest. The purpose of my research is to understand how teaching and learning occur in blended learning schools and to get a sense of the pedagogical practices happening in blended learning classrooms. This study will include three other K-12 schools in the Midwest that are implementing blended learning throughout their school as well. I will spend one week at each school as I conduct brief interviews with key faculty and administration, several classroom observations, and a small focus group of students who are interested in participating. Digital audio recordings will be made, though only those involved in this research will have access to these recordings and their transcripts. Audio files will be stored on a secure, off-site server and will be destroyed after their transcription.
WHAT WILL MY PARTICIPATION INVOLVE?
If you decide to participate in this study you will be asked to talk about teaching and learning in your blended learning school. I would like to learn about the pedagogical practices that take place in a blended learning classroom. As a part of this process, I would like to conduct interviews with the principal, the blended learning coordinator, and around six teachers at each school. Each interview will last approximately one hour (with the possibility of one additional interview if additional questions need to be asked later). I would like to conduct several classroom observations in the rooms of the teachers I have interviewed in order to gather first-hand data about the pedagogical practices in a
222
blended learning school. If you are able to share any documentation about the mission of your school and any publicly available demographic or relevant achievement data, those data would be a welcome addition to my study.
ARE THERE ANY RISKS TO ME?
I don't anticipate any risks to you from participation in this study. ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS TO ME?
You will be given a summary of the findings to build on the successful blended learning implementation in your school. Also, you will be helping other schools throughout the nation who will study the innovative ideas, policies, and practices that you have implemented.
HOW WILL MY CONFIDENTIALITY BE PROTECTED?
While there will likely be publications as a result of this study, your name will not be used. Only group characteristics and demographics will be used in publications. If you participate in this study, I would like to be able to quote you directly without using your name. If you agree to allow us to identify you in publications, please initial the statement at the bottom of this form.
WHOM SHOULD I CONTACT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS?
You may ask any questions about the research at any time. If you have questions about the research after you leave today you should contact the Principal Investigator Professor Richard Halverson at (608) 265-4772. You may also email the student researcher, Nathan Wills at [email protected] . If you are not satisfied with response of research team, have more questions, or want to talk with someone about your rights as a research participant, you should contact the Education and Social/Behavioral Science IRB Office at (608) 263-2320. Your participation is completely voluntary. If you begin participation and change your mind you may end your participation at any time without penalty. Your signature indicates that you have read this consent form, had an opportunity to ask any questions about your participation in this research and voluntarily consent to participate. You will receive a copy of this form for your records.
Name of Participant: (please print) Signature: Date: I give my permission to be quoted directly in publications without using my name. (please initial)
223
224
Appendix E: Parent Information and Consent Form
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON Parent Information and Consent Form
Title of the Study: The Promise of K-12 Blended Learning: Understanding the Design and Experience of Blended Learning Environments Principal Investigator: Richard Halverson (faculty advisor) (608) 265-4772 (office)
[email protected] Student Researcher: Nathan Wills, csc, [email protected]
Your child is being asked to take part in a research study. This form has important information about the reason for doing this study, what we will ask your child to do, and the way we would like to use information from your child if you choose to allow your child to be in the study.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS STUDY?
Your child is being invited to give his/her impression of what it is like to learn in a blended learning school. This is part of a larger study that will interview teachers, principals, and administrators of technology-rich schools to see how teaching and learning are different in schools like your son/daughter’s. In order to get a student’s perspective on this, I will conduct a focus group consisting of several students from your child’s school who are willing to give their impressions of learning in a blended learning school. This focus group should last about one hour. I will use an audio recorder during the focus group in order to accurately record the children’s comments. These will be stored on a secure, off-site server and only those involved in this research will have access to these recordings and their transcripts. The audio files will be destroyed after their transcription.
WHAT WILL MY CHILD BE ASKED TO DO IN THIS STUDY?
If you allow your child to participate in this study, he or she will be asked to talk about his or her experience of what it is like to be a student at a blended learning school. We will ask him/her to speak about his/her impressions of blended learning, how this might
225
differ from other experiences of schooling, and any other insights that might help us to get a clearer picture of what it is like to be a student at a blended learning school.
ARE THERE ANY RISKS TO MY CHILD?
We don’t anticipate any risks to your child from participation in this study. WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE BENEFITS FOR MY CHILD OR OTHERS?
Your child is not likely to have any direct benefit from being in this research study. This study is designed to learn more about blended learning in the K-12 context. The study results may be used to help inform other people about schools like your child’s in the future.
HOW WILL MY CONFIDENTIALITY BE PROTECTED?
While there will likely be publications as a result of this study, all identities will be protected. If we use direct quotes from your child in any publication, we will not use their real name and will change the name of their school so that they cannot be identified. If you agree to allow us to use direct quotes from your child in publications (while still changing their name), please initial the statement at the bottom of this form.
WHOM SHOULD I CONTACT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS?
You may ask any questions about the research at any time. If you have questions about the research, you may contact the Principal Investigator, Professor Richard Halverson, at (608) 265-4772. You may also contact the student researcher, Nathan Wills at [email protected] . If you are not satisfied with the research team response, have more questions, or want to talk with someone about your rights as a research participant, you should contact the Education & Social/Behavioral Science IRB Office at (608) 263-2320. The participation of your child is voluntary. If you and your child decide not to be in this study, this will not affect the relationship you and your child have with your child’s school in any way. Your child’s grades will not be affected if you choose not to let your child be in this study. Your signature indicates that you have read this consent form, had an opportunity to ask any questions about your participation in this research and voluntarily consent to participate. You will receive a copy of this form for your records.
Name of Child Obtaining Parental Permission (please print) Parent/Legal Guardian’s Name (please print) and Signature:
226
Date I give my permission to be quoted directly in publications without using my name. (please initial) Parents, please be aware that under the Protection of Pupils Rights Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232(c)(1)(A)), you have the right to review a copy of the questions asked of or materials that will be used with students. If you would like to do so, you should contact [Principal Investigator] to obtain a copy of the questions or materials.
227
Appendix F: Student Participant Information and Consent Form
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON Student Participant Information and Consent Form
We are doing a study to learn about what it is like to be a student at a blended learning school. A blended learning school is one where kids use computer programs to learn skills and subjects and teachers also use them to help students learn. We are asking you to help because we don’t know very much about schools like yours and want to find out more. If you agree to be in our study, we are going to ask you some questions about what it is like to learn on computers and what types of learning activities you typically do in your classroom. You and several of your classmates will sit around a table and tell the researcher what it is like to be in a blended learning school. You can ask questions about this study at any time. If you decide at any time you do not want to be a part of the group of students we are asking questions to, you can ask us to stop. The questions we will ask are only about what you think. There are no right or wrong answers because this is not a test. If you sign this paper, it means that you have read this and that you want to be in the study. If you don’t want to be in the study, don’t sign this paper. Being in the study is up to you, and no one will be upset if you don’t sign this paper or if you change your mind later. Your signature: ___________________________________________ Date ____________ Your printed name: ________________________________________ Date ____________ Signature of person obtaining consent: _________________________ Date ____________ Printed name of person obtaining consent: ______________________ Date ____________