Stevens, M., Borup, J., & Barbour, M. K. (2018, March). Preparing social studies teachers and librarians for blended teaching. A full paper presentation to the annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Washington, DC.

1. Preparing Social Studies Teachers and
Librarians for Blended Teaching
Mark Stevens, George Mason University
Jered Borup, George Mason University
jeredborup@gmail.com
Michael K. Barbour, Touro University, California
mkbarbour@gmail.com
Presentation link:

2. What Is Blended Learning?
• At its core, blended learning is the combination of face-
to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction
(Graham, 2006)
• A requirement that some of the face-to-face class time
be replaced with online activities (Picciano, 2009
• Designating a percentage of face-to-face class time that
has to be reduced by online learning, typically 20-30%
(Bernard, Borokhovski, Schmid, Tamim, & Abrami, 2014)

3. What Is Blended Learning?

4. How Do We Describe It?

6. K-12 online and blended learning

7. K-12 online and blended learning

8. What Do We Know About Blended Learning?
• Most empirical research has found it to be as or less
effective than face-to-face
• Become a buzzword for policymakers and legislators
(e.g., Minnesota Statute 1528)
• Proponents see it as an avenue to personalized learning,
to a lesser extent competency-based evaluation
• What is known is largely based on perception data
(when based on any data at all)

9. Methods
Large Mid-Atlantic school district
Year-long Social Studies and Library Digital
Curriculum Project
● Focus on developing instructional units
using guided inquiry and blended
learning
● 12 secondary social studies teachers
and 4 school librarians participated
https://www.iconexperience.com/g_collection/icons/?icon=teacher_blackboar
d
4 Librarians 12 Teachers

10. Guided Inquiry and Blended Learning
https://guidedinquirydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/framework-gid-1.png
Blended learning is the strategic
combination of online and face-
to-face learning “with some
element of student control over
time, place, path and/or pace”
(Horn & Staker, 2014, p. 34)

11. Explore,
Wonder,
Choose

13. Two Obstacles to Change (Ertmer, 1999)
What is What should be

14. What is What should be
First Obstacle: Knowledge, Skills, and Access

15. What is What should
be
Second Obstacle: Dispositions, Beliefs, and Motivation

16. Professional Development is Needed
Social Studies and
Library Digital
Curriculum Project

17. PD Structure and Goals
2-week F2F Summer
Experience
Dec
F2F
Oct
F2F
Mar
F2F
Jun
F2F
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
In collaborative teams, participants developed four instructional units (2 in the
summer and 2 during the year)
Each participate facilitated the four instructional units that they designed.
F2F, participants met as a whole group and in small teams to building
understanding and develop their units.
Online activities included readings and voluntary online discussions.
Collaborative teams also met F2F as needed between the required F2F sessions.

19. Data Collection
2-week F2F Summer
Experience
Dec
F2F
Oct
F2F
Mar
F2F
Jun
F2F
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
Online
Activities
F2F session observations (6 summer sessions and 1 quarterly session) and:
● 6 participated in an interview in October
● 5 participated in a second interview in March
● 8 participated in one of two focus groups in June
Interviews and focus group recordings were transcribed and reviewed for
accuracy.
Transcript analysis was guided by elements of constant comparison coding
methods (Glaser, 1965)

20. Findings

21. Incoming Perceptions
“I had never even heard the term blended learning”
“I really didn’t know too much about [blended learning]”
Others were more familiar with blended learning but their
efforts were “kind of scattered all over the place”
“[Students] go home and watch a video and come back and
we’ll test on it.”
“Just turning the computer over to the kids, and letting them
run loose.”

22. Outgoing Perceptions
“It’s just really changed my whole philosophy.”
“I didn't know much about guided inquiry design when I started this, and then as the
year went on [I used guided inquiry] in pretty much every lesson I did.”
“I can’t teach another way. I just can’t. I find that [blended learning] is really, really
good for kids.”
“It really makes me go back and examine my methods.” “Why do you do what you
do?” and “Why am I doing that?”
“[The PD] definitely enabled me to understand how [blended learning] is defined
more clearly and also it’s helped me understand the challenges of implementing it.”

23. What were the mechanisms to change?

24. Length of the PD
“I think the reason I would recommend it to other
teachers is because it’s so reflective in terms of
your own practice. It holds you accountable
since it meets more than once and through the
school year, and sometimes when we show up
one time at a meeting or at an in-service, it’s just
kind of the tip of the iceberg.”

25. Focus on Pedagogy
“The professional development has impacted
maybe not so much my use of the tools
themselves but more the pedagogy
surrounding them.… What’s impacted me is
letting the students drive a little bit more.”

26. Facilitator’s Efforts
“I feel like all good PD is that the [facilitator] shows you what you should be, has
you participate in the lesson as a student.”
“I feel like [the facilitator] takes the teachers seriously, and he tries to sincerely
and earnestly reflect on what teachers share.”
“[The facilitator] invested a lot of time into explaining exactly what we needed to
fix. As a result, I felt like I understood it a lot better.”
“[The facilitator] was good at noticing and naming our strengths, and encouraging
us to pursue them.”

27. Communication and Collaboration
“I’ve gotten a lot of great use just out of the design thinking,
talking, working, and collaborating with others.”
“The face-to-face sessions were crucial because they helped
me understand… what other people thought blended learning
was, and helped me wrap my mind around how this might look
in my classroom.”
“I don’t know if I would have kept it up [without my peers]. I
really think that collaboration piece and that support is so key.”

28. “It was helpful to see other groups' unit plans and pull ideas
especially for... the types of activities they were doing, how
they were implementing different things, how they were doing
the different parts of guided inquiry.”
“I think what’s been most effective is when we look at things
and discuss things in the stations that we’ve done as
colleagues.”
Communication and Collaboration

29. Positive Impact on Students
“Letting go and watching them fly.”
“It was just dispelling the myth that this actually can work.
“It’s been neat to see the sage-on-the-side [teaching model]
come to life, I think. And again, seeing students take
ownership is really exciting.”
“When I did my first lesson…last year I changed my whole
year because that’s where I saw the power of this type of
learning…. I already knew the impact, so I really didn’t need
to be sold on it.”

30. Positive Impact on Students
“I’ve asked them many, many times. My students really, really
enjoy it.”
“We work so hard in this class. You make us work! You
expect us to come in. You expect us to do stuff. You expect
us to take control of our learning.”
“They did better on the SOL through guided inquiry.”
“My scores were similar to the other teachers. I was like,
‘Okay...This is fine. It's not going to, it's not putting the kids at
risk for the AP test.’"

31. Costs and Challenges
“Time constraints. I don’t think that’s something that can be resolved based on the
testing climate.”
Participants found that it took considerable time to design and use blended
instruction.
“Access to technology”
“There are going to be a lot of different things to manage at once... you really don’t
have time to sit down and give individual, personalized feedback.”
“The high achievers... have the hardest adjustment because they know how to
play the game. It was actually my Special Ed and my lower learners who were
really willing to take [a risk], because they never get to show what they know in a
way that they know it.”

32. Limitations and Drawbacks of the
Professional Development

33. Participants lost some momentum after the F2F
experience
“And I think we were pretty far ahead [in blended
learning knowledge] when we came out of those
two weeks, which was great. But I think then we
went away and kind of lost momentum.”

34. Online interactions were limited
“During that window of time there was nobody communicating with us.”
Most were “terrible about keeping up” with the discussions because they were
optional
“Making it more collaborative as opposed to just doing readings and then
answering questions online. For instance, maybe sharing student samples of
ultimately what they are creating or sharing ideas almost like an online PLC
[professional learning community].”
“I think there needs to be some type of blogging component, where when you’re
doing these lessons, you’re sharing them with the people and telling them what
you’ve done because that feedback was really, really good last year.”

35. Better model the principles being taught
“getting lectured on how to do blended learning.”
“If there was more time within those two weeks where we
could watch something at home or wherever and then
come in and have a quick discussion or respond maybe on
a discussion board.”

36. Implications and Conclusions
Research is needed that allows for more generalizable findings.
Examine how to scale the PD
While we can’t generalize, some takeaways could be to:
1. Extend professional development opportunities throughout the year to afford
teachers many opportunities to develop and apply blended teaching skills.
2. Afford teachers many opportunities to interact and collaborate with other
teachers and the professional development facilitator both face-to-face and
online.
3. Ensure that facilitators’ methods match the message they wish to convey to
teachers.
4. Provide opportunities to teachers to facilitate blended learning units in their
classrooms and to formally reflect on their experiences.

37. Questions?
Mark Stevens
Jered Borup
jeredborup@gmail.com
Michael K. Barbour
mkbarbour@gmail.com
Presentation link:
https://goo.gl/n4WVZB