Balance With Blended Learning: Partner With Your Students to Reimagine Learning and Reclaim Your Life

by Catlin R. Tucker

Overview

Rethink the roles, responsibilities, and workflow in your blended learning classroom and enjoy balance in your life.

Blended learning offers educators the opportunity to reimagine teaching and learning. It allows teachers to partner with their students to assess, track, and reflect on learning. This partnership gives teachers more time and energy to innovate and personalize learning while providing students the opportunity to be active agents driving their own growth.

If one thing is certain after the 2019-2020 school year, blended learning is here to stay. Learning must be a shared endeavor between the teacher and the learner. This book provides teachers with strategies to rethink traditional workflows to make teaching practices sustainable.

Written by blended learning expert, Catlin Tucker, this resource provides teachers with concrete strategies and resources they can use to partner with their students to actively engage them in setting goals, monitoring their development, reflecting on their growth, using feedback to improve work, assessing the quality of their work, and communicating their progress with parents.

Balance With Blended Learning includes

Practical strategies for teachers overwhelmed by their workloads

Routines and protocols designed to move feedback and assessment into the classroom to eliminate much of the work teachers take home

Ready-to-use templates and resources designed to help students take an active role in tracking, monitoring, and reflecting on their progress

Vignettes written by teachers across disciplines

Stories from the author′s extensive experience both as a teacher and blended -learning coach

Redefining roles in a blended learning classroom encourages students to take ownership over their learning journeys and helps teachers feel more effective, efficient, and energized.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781544389516
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	01/09/2020
Series:	Corwin Teaching Essentials
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Catlin Tucker is a Google Certified Innovator, bestselling author, international trainer, and frequent Edtech speaker, who teaches in Sonoma County where she was named Teacher of the Year in 2010. Catlin’s books Blended Learning in Grades 4-12 and Blended Learning in Action are both bestsellers. She has also written a book titled Creatively Teach the Common Core Literacy Standards with Technology to support teachers in thinking outside of the box as they shift to the Common Core. Catlin is working on her doctorate at Pepperdine University. She writes the “Techy Teacher” column for ASCD’s Educational Leadership. She is active on Twitter @Catlin_Tucker and writes an internationally ranked education blog at CatlinTucker.com.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1: The Problem With Traditional Grading Practices
Problems With Traditional Grades
My WHY
Grades Are Hotly Debated in Education
If We Cannot Throw Out Grades Completely, What Can We Do?
Blended Learning to the Rescue
Chapter 2: Embracing a Partnership Model With Blended Learning
From Hierarchy to Partnership
Partnership Principles for Teachers and Students
How Can Blended Learning Support a Teacher–Learner Partnership?
Chapter 3: Who Is Doing the Work in Your Classroom?
Lack of Time and Exhaustion Are Barriers to Innovation
Who Is Doing the Work?
Reframe the Way You Think About Your Work
Flip the Workflow in Your Classroom
Chapter 4: Encouraging Metacognition in Your Classroom
The Power of Metacognition
Five Strategies Designed to Develop Metacognition in the Classroom
Building a Metacognitive Practice Into the Classroom With Blended Learning
Chapter 5: Flip Learning With Videos
The Benefits of Using Videos With Students
Video Is Versatile
Addressing Concerns About Using Video in School
Creating Your Own Video Content
Curating Video Content Online
Chapter 6: Goal Setting
Motivating Unmotivated Students
Goal-Setting Strategies
Chapter 7: Real-Time Feedback Using the Station Rotation Model
Troubleshooting Challenges With Traditional Approaches to Feedback
Spotlight Blended Learning Model: Station Rotation Model
Tucker Time Feedback Station
Real-Time Feedback Tips
Tech Can Make Giving Feedback Easier
Deciding on the Feedback Format That Fits
Chapter 8: Rubrics for Learning
Rubrics as Roadmaps
Rubric Design: Avoiding Common Mistakes
Using Rubrics to Further Student Learning
You Don’t Need to Assess Every Aspect of Every Assignment
Single Skill Rubric: Less Is More
Chapter 9: Side-by-Side Assessments
Ask Yourself, Why Am I Grading This?
Select a Blended Learning Model and Design Your Lesson
Select Specific Grading Criteria for Your Side-by-Side Assessments
Prior to Side-by-Side Assessments, Ask Students to Complete a Self-Assessment
Preparing for Side-by-Side Assessments
Conducting Side-by-Side Assessments
Chapter 10: Students Communicate Directly With Parents About Their Progress
It’s Unrealistic for Teachers to Communicate With All Parents Regularly
Email Updates
Publishing Student Work
Student-Led Conferences
Preparing for Student-Led Conferences
Virtual Student-Led Conferences
Chapter 11: Grade Interviews
Students Become Active Agents in the Grading Process
Apply for a Grade Interview
Preparing for Grade Interviews
Conducting Grade Interviews
The Possibilities of a Partnership Model
The Goal: Achieving Balance
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

As teachers, we strive to foster and nurture lifelong learners—learners that sustain their purpose and passion for learning regardless of their path in
life. What Catlin shares with us in this book takes us one giant step forward toward that goal by focusing on grades and student ownership of their
learning progression. Using her personal and very transparent experiences as a teacher, she unlocks a pathway for us to truly partner with our learners and thus move them closer to lifelong learning by actively involving them in monitoring their own learning progress. As a parent, teacher, and teacher educator, the ideas in this book will change the way I “do business” inside and outside of my classroom.

John Almarode

This book provides the fundamentals needed to transform your classroom from teacher centered to student centered. Catlin Tucker has thoroughly outlined the steps needed to create a blended learning environment with the necessary student–teacher partnership.

Leander, TX - Kelly Fitzgerald

After reading Balance With Blended Learning, I was hooked! This new focus in the series, on helping coach students to understand their own learning, is exactly what educators need right now as we move from the front of the classroom to sitting shoulder to shoulder with our students to make sense of learning goals and assessing them!

Thousand Oaks, CA - Melissa Wood-Glusac

Catlin Tucker has created a resource to help teachers better assess their students’ work and more importantly, help students become more engaged in the process. Balance With Blended Learning: Partner With Your Students to Reimagine Learning and Reclaim Your Life will undoubtedly help secondary teachers promote more student-friendly grading experiences that aid them in demonstrating their own progress and growth. It will help any teacher make changes to their assessment practices that will benefit student learning.

Starr Sackstein