Blended learning is an approach that leverages both digital tools and face-to-face instruction to offer a more personalized learning experience for each student. Students are typically given greater control over the time, place, and/or pace of learning and often participate in new instructional approaches, such as flipped classrooms .
For example, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning stresses the need for students to develop the 4Cs—communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity skills. 6 While widely referenced and important, the 4Cs model takes a somewhat narrow view of the skills that students need to s쳮d beyond the classroom.
When planning new blended or online activities, we recommend starting by focusing on the learning objective (s) and then pulling out a piece of paper or pulling up a word processing document and filling out the PICRAT matrix (see figure 7) with various ways that technology could be used to teach the learning objective (s). Figure 7.
Districts put greater emphasis on professional development for blended learning. Yet as teachers’ level of interest in, and use of, blended learning has risen, districts and schools are making it a higher priority for professional development.