Dr Robert Harrison, Education Strategy Services Director and Dr Kim Elms Curriculum and Assessment Strategist
Dr Robert Harrison, Education Strategy Services Director, Dr Kim Elms, Curriculum and Assessment Strategist
The impact of coronavirus has turned the world upside down. For education, it has been undeniably disruptive, but amidst this disruption, the pandemic has also been an accelerator for rapid, positive change.
As we have been catapulted into this sometimes-strange new world, educators around the globe are being forced to consider how the changes that are happening now, in response to current challenges, will transform the way we teach and learn going forward. What will the future of school life look like?
At ACS International Schools we have been articulating and preparing to implement a new education strategy for some time. This strategy focuses on fostering the growth of the individual by promoting personal and academic challenge, recognising personal and workplace skills, prioritising health, safety and wellbeing, and celebrating diversity and a culture of inclusion. Through this approach to education, we aim to effectively encourage learning that goes beyond traditional classroom practice, creating opportunities for children and young people to learn in a way, and at a pace, that is best suited for them. Our strategy places students at the centre of their learning — they are in the driver's seat, and we, as educators, are providing them with a roadmap in which they can achieve their learning goals.
Even before the coronavirus forced our hand, ACS Education Strategy was designed to be flexible and adaptable. An urgent and important adaptation has been a move toward online education delivery inspired by blended learning. This approach is re-shaping how we teach and learn, so that are ready for whatever the future throws at us — and so that our students are equipped with the skills they need to stay ready for their futures, too.
The future of the ‘classroom’
As we explored how best to respond to an emergency pivot to distance learning, we needed quickly to build competencies that could strengthen instructional delivery both now, and sustainably into an uncertain future: the modern classroom. The Modern Classrooms Project is a non-profit organisation that partners with schools all around the world to advance education.
It's a modern approach in that it advocates the use of electronic and digital devices, but it's also modern in that its pedagogy is significantly forward-looking. The three key principles of the Modern Classroom are: blended instruction, self-paced structure, and mastery-based grading. And it is with these principles that we, as a school community, are exploring as we move forward into a new school year that may demand even greater flexibility than lockdown, school closure, and a phased return to on-campus learning.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, we have already begun to put some of these principles into practice. Pointedly, we have all jumped head-first into a form of blended learning that will likely inform the way education is implemented for the coming months and years. Of course, this new model needs honing, but over time, we hope to develop and establish our own ACS version of a modern classroom that will prepare students to thrive in tomorrow's world, both personally and professionally.
So, you will be asking yourself, what does this all mean for me, and my child studying at ACS? And what does the concept of blended learning actually mean?
Schools have been using variations of blended learning techniques for some time now. These models ‘blend’ where and how learning happens between online at home and in person at school. A “flipped classroom,” for example, is a variation on blended learning in which students are introduced to a concept at home and practice working through it at school with the teacher (that is, home is for ‘teaching’, and school is for ‘homework)’. In a blended model, learning happens both online (at a distance) and at school (in person) together in a unified instructional design.
Online activities do not take the place of face-to-face instruction; instead, the two ways of delivering and interacting with the curriculum complement each another. They truly “blend” to create an enriched and more personalised learning experience — often driven by students’ own choices and changing needs.
Blended learning relies heavily on contemporary educational technologies as well as teaching practices that are rooted in modern cognitive psychology (current understandings about how people learn). It sets us for success in on-campus learning, in hybrid-flexible models of delivery (where students may be learning in class and remotely at the same time), and in situations where groups may need to pivot quickly again to learning exclusively at home.
All learning is likely to become more ‘blended’
Thanks to the coronavirus, blended learning is likely to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future. But it’s not only useful in a pandemic. Blended learning helps develop deeper understanding of core academic content by promoting student agency. Here, teachers thoughtfully facilitate students’ collaboration, communication and critical problem solving. Students are still supported by adults, but instead of instructing them with knowledge (filling their heads with information, or ‘covering content’), teachers are encouraging students to construct their own understandings, uncover for themselves the best ways to learn, discover new ideas, and increase key competencies.
The Modern Classrooms model recognises that students learn in different ways and at different paces, and blended learning offers a prime opportunity to cater for these varying needs. Teachers provide tools and learning assets (for example, instructional videos, tiered assignments and digital applications) - and students use them to advance their skills and understanding. That advance happens in the classroom with their peers, and at home independently.
In this blended model, as students are introduced to new ideas through multi-media tools and activities online, teachers are better able support them on a more individual level, flexibly grouping students based on their pace and interests. This approach reflects the way our students will undoubtedly work and learn throughout their lives. It effectively prepares them to be ready for the future world of work in which they will be increasingly responsible for their own learning.
Blended learning isn’t new, and is only modestly revolutionary in most contemporary educational contexts. Schools have been using this approach (to varying degrees and with a range of outcomes) long before our current crisis. But, schools with deep understanding and effective practices in blended learning were more easily able to pivot in response to the virus, and, as a result, schools around the globe are beginning to pay much more attention and critically evaluate its benefits in the modern world.
So, while we all continue to battle out the unknowns of this pandemic, our teachers and leadership team are busy developing the plans for the next stages of ACS's journey, and rigorous professional development is being undertaken to ensure we, as educators, can effectively lead our school community on this new journey.