Day 27--Master Creators and Innovators

Day 27--Going to share one my most favorite portions from Blended by Horn and Staker. "As online learning and the disruptive models of blended learning begin to overtake the traditional classroom, schools shift resources to important jobs such as face to face mentoring, role models, discussion, enrichment, clean and pleasing physical environments, elimination of bullying, nutritious meals, encouragement of good health, a range of musical, artistic and athletic programs and the development of students into master creators and innovators." Today at Hanford-Dole, I saw so many of these things starting to develop. Blended learning is making every part of the school day meaningful and purposeful!

Meteorologist John Ahrens visits 5th grade classroom! 

2nd grade teacher Mrs. Gilland teaching students Lifelong wellness
habits during recess!

Mrs. McNeil demonstrating lifelong wellness habits! Great to see teacher
interaction during recess! 

Students are plowing through dream box! 

Mr. Ahrens brought tremendous energy and enthusiasm to HDES! 

Day 26 Blended Learning Makes Learning Effortlessly

Have you ever wondered how High Quality Blended Learning should look like in a math class. I had the opportunity to experience Ms. Rossi's 5th grade math class today. High Quality Blended Learning in Math is students learning math effortlessly. 

Ms. Rossi, who was this week’s Blended Learning Spotlight Teacher ofthe Week, has created a learning environment that students enjoy. 

When I first went into her classroom, I had two students to greet me at the door to explain to me what I would be observing. I even had my chair pulled out for me.

Our math block is only 60 minutes, so she teaches her lesson the day before and the next two days, students participate in their stations. Ms. Rossi had 4 stations: (1) DreamBox, (2) A QR Code Scavenger Hunt, (3) Khan Academy, (4) Teacher-Directed.

The students are in love with DreamBox. Students work on DreamBox as a station for math and have the option of working on it at home. She has a competition going for all her 5^th grade students to see who can earn the most coins at the end of the week. One student has already  earned $4000...and they just started on yesterday.

The second station was a QR Code Scavenger Hunt. Students were up walking around the room working on problems and then scanning the code to review the answer. If students didn’t get the right answer, they had to watch a Khan Academy video. This provided students with immediate feedback and an opportunity to learn the necessary skills to solve the problems.

Her third station was amazing…she has created a collaboration room in her classroom. In this room, students watched a Khan Academy video to review and practice the concept.

Meet with Ms. Rossi was her teacher-directed station. Most teacher-directed stations I have observed had students in front of them while they taught or reviewed. Not Ms. Rossi, she reviewed with students first and then had them practice with visuals. She created boxes on her floor and used a ball as the decimal point. She gave the students in her group a number and they had to create the number.

Each of her rotations are 25 minutes and students using Q2R to ensure they are transitioning effectively. 

Blended Learning is an opportunity for students to participate in engaging lessons that creates student leaders and promotes personalized instruction. The students were highly engaged and excited about learning math. Ms. Rossi has created a Highly Quality Blended Learning environment for her students and they love it. Her students are learning effortlessly...how amazing is that!

Day 25--New Beginnings

For today's blog we will share happenings at HDES as we continue on our Blended Learning Journey. Along the journey we have picked up another traveler! We welcome Ms. Ramistella to our team! The students were so excited to meet and greet her. There are so many great things happening in our schools that I would encourage you to capture them and blog, otherwise they become lost in all the events of the day.

Ms. Ramistella introduces herself to her class!

1st and 5th team up to help students understand how to login to DiscoverED. 

Zymia did 33 pushups today during her fitness test!
She has the heart of a champion. 

Tracking our DE data in 5th grade! 

Students are captivated by Rosetta Stone!

BL T.O.W.--'Seeing the excitement my students have...'

Ms. Rossi on right with Ms. Schultz
are model teachers for Blended Learning!

BLENDED LEARNING TEACHER OF THE WEEK--MS. ROSSI

Q. How long have you been teaching?
This is my first year teaching! 

  

Q. What grade do you teach?
I teach fifth grade math and reading. 

Q. How has your first month of your first year went with BL implementation? 

My first month has been so exciting with blended learning. I am able to easily meet the needs of all my students through differentiated programs and small group instruction. Without having Achieve3000 and DreamBox for the first month, we supplemented with Khan Academy and Newsela.  Students are loving these programs and are eager to learn. 

Q. How has BL changed your thoughts about teaching?

Blended learning has really enhanced my teaching. I love how my day operates and how personalized I am able to make my lessons. Seeing the excitement my students have each time they get on these programs makes me incredibly happy. Students ask at all times to get on Khan Academy and Newsela (even during recess)! This gets me so excited that students are eager to learn and get the results we all know they are capable of. 

Q. If you had one word to describe BL what would say and why? 

Successful. It helps students get excited about learning and it encourages them to want to learn outside out of lesson time.  Overall, with these new programs being on each student’s level and personalized, it has allowed me to become a more effective teacher. 

Day 24...Dreaming with DreamBox

We finally have DreamBox and it's a dream come true! 

DreamBox Learning is an online math learning system, designed for grades K-8. It delivers "learning units" where students learn and practice important mathematical concepts.

 DreamBox is a dre come true for our math program. Its main feature is how it adapts the curriculum to the learner, and that is done in a quite sophisticated manner that sets DreamBox apart from other online math curricula

One of our fourth grade teachers started using DreamBox today and she said the students loved it. I saw one of her student after school and while he waited he asked our principal if he could work on DreamBox. 

We are looking forward to using DreamBox in our technology station for math. 

DreamBox...Teacher tested, Students Approved. 

Day 23--Extraordinary Education Everyday

Extraordinary Education Every Day is the slogan our county and school has adopted as the focus each day in what we want to provide our students. It is always great to see great lessons during observations, teachers sending texts about a great PBL going on in the classroom, teachers sending pics of students receiving their electronic devices, and teachers supporting one another. When you work in a high needs school such as ours with over a 90% free and reduced lunch population with many students having many social and emotional needs that are compounded with below average academic skills it is necessary to celebrate the great things going on daily. Check out some of the extraordinary activities today!

PBL question in 5th grade! 

Applying themselves to instruction

K Students testing our iPads! 

Day 22--What is a pencil?

On Day 22, we have included a timeline of the use of writing utensils and how they have been modernized. Can you imagine what the classrooms will look like in 5 years? Scroll down to the bottom and see the pictures Mrs. Barnes our Kindergarten teacher sent today. I predict in 5 years or less that pencils, crayons, and pens will no longer be included on back to school supply lists. It will be like asking parents to go out and by a quill feather. Times and learning are changing so fast. Are we willing to move ahead with the times or we will hold on to traditional methods. Let's make all our decisions in the best interest of the student and move toward a future of preparing our students for career and college readiness. Question: How often do you use a pen or pencil at school compared to an electronic device? When was the last time you wrote a hand written note to your colleagues as compared to an email? When you communicate with your friends do you do so with handwritten notes or with text messages? As we have shifted let's have the confidence to shift our students in the classroom! Until next time, Keep Blending your Learning!	Around 4000 BC Man scratches the surface of moist clay tablet with a bronze or bone tool.
	Around 3000 BC The Egyptians developed a form of writing with pictures. For writing on papyrus scrolls scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens.
	1300 BC The Romans have been developing form of writing, that they scribed into thin sheets of wax (on wooden tablets). Romans used a metal stylus. When they no longer needed the writing, they rubbed it out with the flat end of stylus.   In Asia scribes used a bronze stylus.
	Dark Ages As well as writing on parchment, the Anglo-Saxons also used tablets filled with wax for notes and for planning the layout of large books. They wrote on the tables with a metal or bone stylus, that had a pointed end and rubbed out the words with flat end.
	600-1800 AD The Europeans found that writing on parchment with a quill pen altered the style of their writing. At first they used capital letters all the time, but later they developed faster styles with small letters. Quill Pens (firstly appeared in Seville, Spain) were the writing instrument from 600 to 1800 AD.

1790s   Pencil lead was invented independently in France and Australia.     1800-1850    A metal pen point has been patented in 1803 but patent was not commercially exploited. Steel nibs came into common use in the 1830s. By the 19th century metal nibs had replaced quill pens. By 1850 quill pen usage was fading and the quality of the steel nibs had been improved by tipping them with hard alloys of Iridium, Rhodium and Osmium.     1884  Lewis Edson Waterman, insurance broker invented the first proper fountain pen.       1888-1916 The principle of the ball point pen actually dates from the late 19th Century when patents were taken out by John Loud in 1888 for a product to mark leather and in 1916 by Van Vechten Riesberg. However neither of these Patents were exploited commercially.         1940s   The modern version of ball point pen was invented by Josef (Lazlo) and Georg Biro.  On Summer 1943 the first commercial models were made. The rights to Lazlo's patent were bought by the British Government. The ball point pen is more rugged than the fountain pen which may be why sales rocketed during World War II when the Military needed robust writing implements to survive the battlefield environment.  October 1945 The ball point pen was introduced to the U.S. market. The pen was sold as "The first pen to write underwater" this must have been an unsatisfied demand as some 10,000 were sold at the launch at Gimbel's department store in New York on October 29th 1945.     1953   First inexpensive ball point pens were available when the French Baron, Bich, developed the industrial process for manufacturing ball point pens that lowered the unit cost dramatically (BIC, Co.)     1960s It was invented fibre, or felt-tipped pen (Tokyo Stationery Company, Japan).   Papermate's Flair was among the first felt-tip pens to hit the U.S. market in the 1960s, and it has been the leader ever since. Following their initial success with felt-tips, manufacturers branched out with a variety of fiber-tipped instruments, including newly popular highlighters.     1980s-1990s  Roller Ball Pens. The introduction of the roller ball pen have been made in the early 1980s. Unlike the thick ink used in a conventional ball point, roller ball pens employ a mobile ball and liquid ink to produce a smoother line. Technological advances achieved during the late 1980s and early 1990s have greatly improved the roller ball's overall performance.     Student practices writing on iPad   1990s - ... Rubberized writing instruments are commonly used by the companies to reduce the grip.  K Students locked in to online learning station!

Day 21- Lifelong learning

These are great questions and screenshots from a recent webinar that Heather Staker, the co-author of Blended shared. As the year progresses it is critical to stay focused on your rallying cry and to iterate your assumptions under your continuous improvement model. There will be bumps in the road, highs, lows, and unknown that will crop up. By focusing on your rallying cry this will continue to draw you back to your goals! Keep Blending on!

Day 20--Vast and Varied

Mrs. Blackwood's K students were engaged from start to finish in her
ELA block today! 

 On day 20, one thing we strive for as educators is to teach engaging lessons from the start of the lesson to the end of the lesson. In engaging lessons, it is crucial to personalize, individualize, and differentiate the learning to meet the many needs of all the students in the class. Without having 1:1 tutoring or very small group instruction it is nearly impossible to provide this UNLESS you transition into blended learning. Blended learning is the one educational program that is creating opportunities to meet the vast and varied needs of our students. Blended learning is not a one size fits all but through its various models it fits the bill to meet the needs of the students whether through station rotation, individual rotation, lab rotation, and the flipped classroom. The 4 sub-models just mentioned are off shoots of the rotation model. One blended learning model that is becoming increasingly necessary at the elementary level is the Flex Model. The flex model provides an alternative to the learning needs of many of our students who excel with online learning. At the elementary level we need to recognize this strength and learning style of our students and provide them with the necessary schedule and online learning experience they need to be successful. It takes a major mindset shift for us educators to grant this opportunity to our students. Today in our after school program, we have made a major shift to online learning being the backbone to student learning. There has been great excitement among the students, staff, and community as we embrace this new endeavor of after school online learning that is personalized through Rosetta Stone, Achieve3000, and Dreambox. Until then, Keep Blending On!

Bates and Schultz are taking the lead in implementing BL after school among our 3-5 students!

BL Spotlight T.O.W--'Blended Learning is going to provide us an avenue..'

Mrs. Coble on far left poses with her K team

BL SPOTLIGHT TEACHER OF THE WEEK: MRS. COBLE

Q. How long have you been teaching? I have been teaching for 17 years.

Q. What grade do you teach? I have taught kindergarten for 4 years.

Q. How has your first month went with BL implementation? My first month with blended learning has totally changed my teaching. I love the groups and how I can meet the needs of students in a smaller group setting.

Q. How has BL changed your thoughts about teaching? Blended Learning has kind of made me say "duh! Why didn't we think about this before?" I am in love with how my classroom operates with blended learning.

Q. If you had one word to describe BL what would say and why? Anticipating. I believe that Blended Learning is going to help us at Hanford-Dole see the results that we know our students are capable of. Every staff member works very hard every day at Hanford-Dole and I feel that Blended Learning is going to be able to provide us with an avenue to guide our student's towards their future success.

Sailing on! Day 19

Today was the 4th week of 2015-16 school year and we want to share some photos of some events that happened today as we continue our blended learning journey. Everything we do now is becoming focused on implementing high quality blended learning throughout the school! We left the dock and are ready to sail on in our BL journey!

Mrs. Honeycutt is a great team player who jumps in whenever we have a need!

I observed Coach V during PE today. This lesson was fantastic!
Can you believe this is a PE class?! They were using iPads, google docs,
and QR codes! 

2nd grade field trip

Investigating weather tools through blended learning with @DiscoveryEd @MobyMax @biguniverse

Students demonstrating Core Value of initiative.