Go Blended!: A Handbook for Blending Technology in Schools

Foreword

When I think about Aspire Public Schools (Aspire), I remember a line from an old song: I'm a little bit country, and I'm a little bit rock and roll. It's probably more accurate to say we're a little bit country, rock and roll, rap, R&B, and pop—and probably a few other things. When people get to know our school system, no matter what their context, they often see some relevance for their own. In some ways, we look like a medium-sized school district. In other ways, we resemble individual charter schools or traditional schools trying new things for our students, trying to serve them better. Our experience (and our expressed goal to be perceived in this way) made us even more determined to find a way to share what we've learned so far about blended learning—an area that holds tremendous promise for students everywhere. We think the lessons we're learning are applicable in a lot of very different schools and school systems. And we're writing with the hope that everyone can make new mistakes, or at least different versions of the ones we've already made.

From the first days of Aspire, our mission statement has called us to be and do more than just serve our students. Although this will always be our first responsibility, our mission also calls us to share successful practices with other educators. We live this piece of our mission in very real ways. We've spun out an EdTech company (Schoolzilla) to make the data tools and practices we've developed at Aspire accessible to other schools. We've trained principals for one of our host districts on our teacher observation rubric and calibration techniques. And when we embarked on our blended learning work, it quickly became clear that this would be another area where we'd find people eager to share with us, learn from one another, and get better together.

When we started this work, we heard a lot about the innovator's dilemma. We still do. I don't think we did a great job of explaining why we thought we had a good chance to avoid that dilemma. Put simply, we think our culture is good defense or at least a strong factor in making that dilemma more manageable. As a result we heard, and continue to hear, some version of the following:

You're doing great on many things … so you'll be stuck in your old ways.

You'll fall behind and stop innovating.

As you get bigger and better, you have too much to lose, and you're under too much scrutiny (and accountability as a charter) to try new things.

The culture at Aspire is special, and it definitely is not about being better than everyone else. It never has been. It's about a lot of things, and one of which is never being satisfied with how ready our kids are for college. We can always do more, and we must. The opportunity equation for our students is stacked against the students and communities we serve in lots of stubbornly persistent ways. Plain and simple—we can't ever stop getting better.

At Aspire we're determined to avoid getting stuck in our ways or being afraid to try new things. We strive to never stop searching, exploring, and questioning. Our principals and teachers do a great job of keeping that trait alive and well. One of the best parts of our never satisfied culture is it forces us to push the envelope and continually improve our practice. Our culture demands from our teachers and leaders both the freedom and the responsibility to purposefully question, argue, experiment, and try new things. For people who join our schools, they sometimes look for the Aspire way. The way we do things sometimes takes on a kind of mystical power until people realize the Aspire way involves a healthy, regular dose of change—and trying, always, to get better. Most people quickly realize there are very few things other than our values and this culture that we strive to protect and hold as consistent and sacred as possible.

It takes a little craziness to leave something that's working just fine, armed only with the hope something else will work better. That's exactly what we're trying to do—keep a little crazy in our work. The blended learning work we've done so far is an example of keeping a dose of entrepreneurial craziness alive and well at Aspire—just as we hope to do in the future.

Another part of our culture that has served us well in this work is what I call confident humility. There will always be more schools, educators, and organizations that can teach us loads more than we could ever share with them. I think staying confidently humble serves us well: We're confident enough to try new things and not worry too much that we'll be criticized or penalized too harshly for failure or a drop in results. We're confident enough to know we're not experts, but we know some things that position us well to try, learn, fail, and try again. We're confident enough to say, We're doing this our way, at a pace that fits our culture, and aligned with our mission as an organization. At the same time, we are also humble enough to know we learn every day from other educators, schools, and systems in powerful ways. We're humble enough to sit and learn from (and with) others who are struggling through the same challenges or who are kind enough to help us even when the issues we're struggling to solve are ones they solved long ago.

In doing this work, we've found once again that the really good ideas often come from the same source: teachers. If you want good ideas about how to improve and use technology in the classroom, ask your teachers. They are probably doing more with technology than you know right now. They will have ideas about what will make them better, and I bet they're dreaming right now of a day, place or time when their ideas can become a reality. When we made an internal request for proposals (RFP) for blended ideas and pilots, we found our teachers had lots of ideas. We learned many were already experimenting with technology and trying to see what it could do to improve their instruction.

We have an amazing group of people at Aspire, dedicated to students in ways that amaze me every day. I see the smiles and tears, fatigue and energy, dedication, and occasionally despair, when we succeed and when we fail to achieve what we want for our students. And there is an unwavering commitment to get back up when we fall, to keep serving our students across Aspire and in public schools across our country. I've called our teammates heroes, and I'm told our teachers hear that phrase and sometimes cringe. They cringe not just out of humility but because they are not superhuman. They are not gifted with some special power, but they do tackle this work with huge hearts, coupled with enough determination and grit to tackle a daunting task—getting every student in our country ready for college. It is awe-inspiring.

I could name hundreds of people who deserve the hero merit badge both inside and outside of Aspire. I go to sleep at night hoping all of them know this, and I hope people admire them for what they do every day. Among these people, Liz Arney is a special one. She's the author of this book, which will be the first part of the Sharing Successful Practices series. Liz has been with Aspire for more than a decade as a long-time master educator and coach. Bleeding purple (our signature color) is defined by Liz Arney. She understands who we are and where we want to be, and has an unwavering commitment not just to our kids, but to all students who need great schools and the future those youngsters deserve.

Liz is a thinker and a critical one, a collaborator, an innovator, and a friend. This combination of qualities is exactly what we needed when we embarked on blended learning. We tapped Liz to lead this work because of those qualities, and she has shouldered the weight of marching into the unknown, armed only with the knowledge of what we do well and what we don't. You'll benefit not just from her willingness to lead this work at Aspire, but from her endless appetite to learn from others, to always question what we think we know, and to see things from someone else's perspective, based on their experiences.

We had a few things in our backpack as Liz led us on this journey, but one of the most important was a very clear goal: We must tap every possible opportunity to increase the effectiveness of the instruction happening in classrooms, and get our kids ready for college. We're thankful for Liz's leadership and to all those who contributed to the emerging lessons captured within this book.

At Aspire Public Schools, our mission calls us to share successful practices. Because we've begun to learn something about what it takes to make blended learning a reality in schools, we're eager to share with others. This book is a proud example of our commitment to students everywhere, especially students who have the opportunity equation stacked against them and their families across the country. We're committed to sharing what we know, learning from others, and making sure we try to make new mistakes and learn new lessons, because of them.

We also have great hope you will take this work further. We deeply hope you make new mistakes, or at least different versions of the mistakes we've made. If you do, we'll all get better together. Happy reading! We look forward to learning from you.

James R. Willcox

Chief Executive Officer, Aspire Public Schools

About the Author

Liz Arney is the director of innovative learning at Aspire Public Schools, where she is crafting and running blended learning pilots in order to identify the role of blended learning at Aspire and how best to scale it. As a member of Aspire's Education Team, Liz works closely with teachers, principals, IT teammates, and data and analysis teammates to create supportive structures and processes for increasing classroom technology offerings aligned with Aspire's instructional program and culture. Prior to her work on blended learning, Liz worked at Aspire as a humanities instructional coach, providing professional development, instructional and content support, and induction coaching to grades 6–12 humanities teachers across the organization. She also led the development of curriculum toolkits for English, social studies, science, and math courses in grades 9–12. Before coming to Aspire, Liz taught high-school English in public and private schools in Boston, Seattle, and Taipei, Taiwan, and provided history content coaching to teachers across New England. Liz holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley, a master's degree in education from Harvard University, and a master's degree in humanities from the University of Chicago. Visit Liz Arney at www.goblended.com.

About the Contributors

Many teachers, principals, and blended learning leaders informed the contents of this book with their hard work and living examples; I want to call out a few who are quoted throughout the book and who generously gave of their time to bring their ideas and opinions about this work to light. I'm offering additional information about each of them here so readers will know a little more about them.

Blended Learning District and Charter Leaders

Anirban Bhattacharyya is the digital learning director at KIPP Foundation, a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and in life. Anirban supports KIPP leaders as they create next-generation school models and instructional designs that leverage innovative instructional technology.

Jeanne Chang is the director of technology innovation at E. L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Jeanne supports school leadership and staff across grades pre-K–12 in developing, implementing, iterating, and evaluating blended learning strategies to better prepare their students for success at the college of their choice.

Jon Deane is the chief information officer for Summit Public Schools, a charter management organization based in California. Jon serves on Summit's leadership team and oversees all data and information systems in Summit's personalized learning model.

Chris Florez is the manager of blended learning for Aspire Public Schools in Memphis, Tennessee. Chris oversees the implementation of blended learning in Aspire's Memphis schools.

Rachel Klein is the director of student advancement in Highline Public Schools, a public district with schools in Seattle, Washington, and surrounding communities. Rachel oversees Highline's efforts to implement blended learning in grades K–12, as well as all of the district's efforts to ensure that students graduate college-ready and have clear pathways into postsecondary education and careers.

Chris Liang-Vergara is the chief of learning at LEAP Innovations, an R&D hub for education innovation that helps foster best practices for personalized learning and technology to accelerate learning. Chris oversees LEAP's Pilot Network to enable educators and schools to pilot new models and products in a highly supportive, collaborative setting with rigorous evaluation.

Nithi Thomas is the blended learning manager for Mastery Charter Schools, a K–12 charter school management organization with schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Nithi oversees Mastery's blended learning initiatives and supports its implementation into the organization's current programming.

Jonathan Tiongco is the director of BLAST implementation for Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, a charter management organization in Los Angeles, California. Jonathan oversees Alliance's portfolio of blended learning schools, which includes blended learning pilots, full-school conversions, and a Next Generation Learning Challenges grantee school.

Caryn Voskuil is in the education studio at IDEO, a design firm in San Francisco. Formerly, she was the manager of school model innovation at Rocketship Education, where she piloted new products and systems across schools.

Tom Willis is the chief executive officer of Cornerstone Charter Schools, a charter management organization in Detroit, Michigan. Tom focuses his energies on three areas: culture, results for kids, and leveraging technology to fundamentally improve learning. His vision is to grow the Cornerstone model so that more children in the city and beyond may experience educational excellence in a safe, structured, and loving environment.

Bryant Wong is the chief technology officer at Summit Public Schools, a charter management organization based in California and Washington. Bryant designs, leads, and manages technology for Summit's organization and schools.

Blended Learning Teachers and Principals

Kim Benaraw is the principal at Aspire Titan Academy, a K–5 charter school in Huntington Park, California.

Lindy Brem is the literacy specialist at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Contessa Cannaday is a fifth-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Slauson Academy in Los Angeles, California.

Nancy Castro is a kindergarten teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Meredith Dadigan is a fifth-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Taleen Dersaroian is a third-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Gateway Academy in Southgate, California.

Freddy Esparza is a second-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Raul Gonzalez is a first-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Claire Hawley is a first-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire ERES Academy in Oakland, California.

Christin Hwang is a third-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Inskeep Academy in Los Angeles, California.

Sandy Jimenez is a first-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Gateway Academy in Southgate, California.

Jennifer Mazawey is a kindergarten teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Christian McGrail is a fourth-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Lourdes Meraz is a fourth-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Allyson Milner is a third-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Mark Montero is a second-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Carolina Orozco is a third-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Gateway Academy in Southgate, California.

Nancy Pacheco Sanchez is a third-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Titan Academy in Huntington Park, California.

Dennise Reyes-Serpas is a fourth-grade teacher in a blended learning classroom at Aspire Slauson Academy in Los Angeles, California.

Amy Youngman is a humanities instructional coach for Aspire Public Schools in Oakland, California. Previously, Amy was one of Aspire's first blended learning pilot teachers at Aspire ERES Academy in Oakland, where she taught middle-school humanities.

Introduction

At Aspire Public Schools, we embarked on our blended learning journey because we wanted to figure out how technology could increase student achievement given our context, our school culture, and the overall willingness of our teachers to tackle the challenges our students face. We recognized that as adults, our lives are heavily dependent on technology; we also acknowledged that our students, whom we send off to college each year, would be using technology heavily in everything they would do in college. Additionally, we knew that even though our teaching practices were really good, they were not getting all of our students prepared enough to get to and through college; we could see we needed new strategies and tools to increase our students' achievement. Blended learning offered great promise for differentiation, access to content, access to student achievement data, and student engagement. Blended learning was unproven, yes, but we recognized quickly that our schools, teachers, and students would continue to use technology more, not less, and that if we didn't figure out the role technology played in our instructional program, we'd be doomed.

What Is Blended Learning?

The definition of blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns:

at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace;

at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home;

and the modalities along each student's learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.

Source: Clayton Christensen Institute.

Why Go Blended?

Blended learning offers defined opportunities and spaces for teachers to work with small groups of students to address learning goals (individualization), enhance or extend the curriculum (rigor), or spend time analyzing student data (monitoring). By offering differentiated experiences in both online and in-person contexts, blended learning allows teachers to further focus on individual students as learners and access multiple data points to measure student growth. Additionally, blended learning offers teachers and students opportunities to apply the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards for students and teachers, the standards for learning, teaching and leading in the digital age (http://www.iste.org/STANDARDS) by providing mechanisms and routines around which students can learn using technology tools.

Our teachers' voices spoke strongly to us about the reasons for going blended after they started piloting the work, as many remarked on how blended changed the work of teaching for them. Nancy Castro, kindergarten teacher at Aspire Titan Academy, shares:

Since blended learning, I feel my job has been more purposeful. The data that is provided through the software has allowed me to focus more on my guided reading groups and also target my student needs. I feel blended learning has allowed me to use my guided reading and math time more effectively. I get to spend a little more time with my guided reading groups, I get to teach my math lessons during computer time, and I get to pull small groups to work with my low students.

Her colleague, Raul Gonzalez, a first-grade teacher, adds:

Finding ways to make work sustainable may seem impossible as teachers, but every minute saved is worth it. Blended learning has helped me gain more time in my day. Let's take workstations for example. Before blended learning, I was preparing stations and organizing their rotations through them for all the students. Now, I don't have to. I prepare only a few stations that students rotate through on any given day, and because of the time allotted on the computers, there isn't a need to make stations that hold students' attention for 45 minutes in a workstation period. In the end, blended learning is an additional resource that I don't just embrace because it's my students working with technology, but also because blended learning has helped make my work as a teacher just a bit more sustainable.

Mark Montero, second-grade teacher at Aspire Titan Academy, states it another way:

What if we don't do blended learning? The students need to know how to use computers, and my students are now well versed with technology and troubleshooting any tech problems that come up. They wouldn't have this daily experience if we didn't do it. I wouldn't have a lot of real-time data to see how they're growing or what they need, especially the more reluctant participants in my class.

Montero also explains that student learning on the computers allow students to experience content they might not otherwise. He states, Teachers need to change their schedules for blended learning, and then they panic: Is it OK if students learn from another source other than the teacher? Really? Do they always need to learn from just you?

Christin Hwang, teacher at Aspire Inskeep Academy, explains the benefits of having another partner delivering content to students:

A few weeks ago I taught rounding for the first time this year. Before teaching the lesson I remembered most of the students had already worked on rounding in the math software using number lines, so I was able to make that connection when introducing rounding for the first time. Every year, rounding is a very new and difficult concept for my third-graders, but this year was different! Most students just got it so much faster and better. I taught students two different ways of rounding. One was the more conceptual method, using a number line, and the other method was more procedural, a rounding rap. In the previous years, the students lacked a strong conceptual understanding of rounding, so the number line method sometimes confused the students even more. This year, because of the exposure and support from the math software, so many students were able to successfully use the number line and really understand the concept of rounding and its purpose. Some students were even able to automatically round in their heads with the strong conceptual understanding they had developed!

Not only does blended learning support regular classroom teachers, but also literacy specialists. Lindy Brem, Aspire Titan Academy's literacy specialist, shares:

Since we started blended learning, my job has changed in two ways: how I look at reading data and how we structure pulling groups. I definitely think analyzing the data has been the easiest, and structuring groups for the learning center has been the most difficult! I love that I get to add reading software data to our reading spreadsheets each time we have a reading assessment. This information really adds another dimension to the student and figuring out what their strengths and weaknesses are. For example, we have one fourth-grader who is reading at an end-of-first-grade reading level, but scores at Level 3 on her last reading software diagnostic. Her strength was in phonics. So what we were able to determine is that she has skills and is able to identify phonics, she just needs more