This document summarizes a presentation about a study examining how blended learning impacted course enrollment patterns for rural students. It introduced a case study of a rural high school that began offering AP science courses through a blended learning model. While this indirectly increased AP enrollments, it did not directly increase access for high-achieving students, who were already marginalized by ability grouping practices. The presentation concluded by calling for shifting the school culture to be more inclusive of rigorous academic programming and examining different blended learning models and instructional grouping strategies.
Presentation given at Unitec, New Zealand.
Please cite as: Owen, H. (2008). Promoting Blended Approaches to Teaching and Learning at Unitec: A Proposal. Auckland: Unitec New Zealand.
NCSEHE Adjunct Fellow Dr Cathy Stone (University of Newcastle) presents her work on improving student access, participation and success in higher education.
Cathy's National Guidelines for Improving Student Outcomes in Online Learning are available on the NCSEHE website: https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/publications/opportunity-online-learning-improving-student-access-participation-success-higher-education/
The Geraldton Universities Centre hosted representatives from the Regional Study Hubs Network, led by the NCSEHE with support from the Australian Government Department of Education.
The event, held on 13–14 June, is bringing to Geraldton representatives from the Australia-wide Regional Study Hubs, supported by the Australian Government.
Presentation given at Unitec, New Zealand.
Please cite as: Owen, H. (2008). Promoting Blended Approaches to Teaching and Learning at Unitec: A Proposal. Auckland: Unitec New Zealand.
NCSEHE Adjunct Fellow Dr Cathy Stone (University of Newcastle) presents her work on improving student access, participation and success in higher education.
Cathy's National Guidelines for Improving Student Outcomes in Online Learning are available on the NCSEHE website: https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/publications/opportunity-online-learning-improving-student-access-participation-success-higher-education/
The Geraldton Universities Centre hosted representatives from the Regional Study Hubs Network, led by the NCSEHE with support from the Australian Government Department of Education.
The event, held on 13–14 June, is bringing to Geraldton representatives from the Australia-wide Regional Study Hubs, supported by the Australian Government.
This study was conducted to investigate eighth-grade science teachers’ self-efficacy during the implementation of a new, problem-based science curriculum. The curriculum included applications of LEGO® robotics, a new technology for these teachers. Teachers’ responded to structured journaling activities designed to collect information about their self-efficacy for teaching with the curriculum and, later, to a survey designed to probe their self-efficacy for enacting specific elements of the curriculum. Participants reported high confidence levels throughout the study but expressed some concerns related to their local contexts.
Elephants, Butterflies and Moths in the Amazon Rainforest: High Epistemic Qua...Brian Hudson
The consideration of teacher education from a global perspective foregrounds the challenge of inequality as a core challenge for contemporary societies and for educational systems. The crucial role of education in relation to this challenge is highlighted in the UNICEF/UNESCO report on the Global Thematic Consultation in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which stresses education as a “fundamental human right”. The report calls for two main education specific goals to be addressed as part of the future development framework: equitable access and equitable quality education. Accordingly this paper considers the relation between quality and learning and in particular that between epistemic quality and equitable learning. The work of Jo Boaler is especially relevant to the former in relation to her proposition about ‘the elephant in the mathematics classroom’. Of particular significance is her argument that in many maths classrooms a very narrow subject is taught to children, that is nothing like the maths of the world or the maths that mathematicians use. In our recent study on developing mathematical thinking we present this as an issue of epistemic quality (Hudson et al., 2015). High epistemic quality involves mathematics as fallible, refutable and uncertain, critical thinking, creative reasoning, multiple solutions and learning from errors and mistakes. In contrast low epistemic quality is characterised by mathematics as infallible, authoritarian, dogmatic, absolutist, irrefutable, certain, rule following of strict procedures and right or wrong answers. Additionally we consider how a thematic approach through the study of butterflies and moths in the Amazon rainforest resulted in mathematics becoming more accessible for all (Hudson, 2015). Such accessibility is central to equitable learning, which is seen as learning that produces educational justice (“Bildungsgerechtigkeit”). The paper concludes by considering how to redress the extent to which educational systems, and also everyday teaching practices and classroom interaction, reproduce inequality.
ECER 2021 Voices of Engagement: A Malaysian School PerspectiveKatina Tan
Author: Katina Tan
The European Conference on Educational Research 2021 Online
EERA Network: 99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
South Orangetown Central School District - Welcome Back Staff!Robert Pritchard
Here is the presentation delivered to the faculty and staff of the South Orangetown Central School District. Dr. Robert Pritchard (Superintendent) discusses the achievements and challenges that were experienced in the past year and sets the stage for triumph in the year ahead. The superintendent also introduced keynote speaker, Mr. Michael Hingson (and his guide dog) who inspired the staff through his presentation on teamwork, resiliency, and future plans.
Learn about the 1987 Philippine Constitution. This is very useful when reviewing for the Civil Service Examination for both Professional and Sub-Professional Levels.
This study was conducted to investigate eighth-grade science teachers’ self-efficacy during the implementation of a new, problem-based science curriculum. The curriculum included applications of LEGO® robotics, a new technology for these teachers. Teachers’ responded to structured journaling activities designed to collect information about their self-efficacy for teaching with the curriculum and, later, to a survey designed to probe their self-efficacy for enacting specific elements of the curriculum. Participants reported high confidence levels throughout the study but expressed some concerns related to their local contexts.
Elephants, Butterflies and Moths in the Amazon Rainforest: High Epistemic Qua...Brian Hudson
The consideration of teacher education from a global perspective foregrounds the challenge of inequality as a core challenge for contemporary societies and for educational systems. The crucial role of education in relation to this challenge is highlighted in the UNICEF/UNESCO report on the Global Thematic Consultation in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which stresses education as a “fundamental human right”. The report calls for two main education specific goals to be addressed as part of the future development framework: equitable access and equitable quality education. Accordingly this paper considers the relation between quality and learning and in particular that between epistemic quality and equitable learning. The work of Jo Boaler is especially relevant to the former in relation to her proposition about ‘the elephant in the mathematics classroom’. Of particular significance is her argument that in many maths classrooms a very narrow subject is taught to children, that is nothing like the maths of the world or the maths that mathematicians use. In our recent study on developing mathematical thinking we present this as an issue of epistemic quality (Hudson et al., 2015). High epistemic quality involves mathematics as fallible, refutable and uncertain, critical thinking, creative reasoning, multiple solutions and learning from errors and mistakes. In contrast low epistemic quality is characterised by mathematics as infallible, authoritarian, dogmatic, absolutist, irrefutable, certain, rule following of strict procedures and right or wrong answers. Additionally we consider how a thematic approach through the study of butterflies and moths in the Amazon rainforest resulted in mathematics becoming more accessible for all (Hudson, 2015). Such accessibility is central to equitable learning, which is seen as learning that produces educational justice (“Bildungsgerechtigkeit”). The paper concludes by considering how to redress the extent to which educational systems, and also everyday teaching practices and classroom interaction, reproduce inequality.
ECER 2021 Voices of Engagement: A Malaysian School PerspectiveKatina Tan
Author: Katina Tan
The European Conference on Educational Research 2021 Online
EERA Network: 99. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
South Orangetown Central School District - Welcome Back Staff!Robert Pritchard
Here is the presentation delivered to the faculty and staff of the South Orangetown Central School District. Dr. Robert Pritchard (Superintendent) discusses the achievements and challenges that were experienced in the past year and sets the stage for triumph in the year ahead. The superintendent also introduced keynote speaker, Mr. Michael Hingson (and his guide dog) who inspired the staff through his presentation on teamwork, resiliency, and future plans.
Learn about the 1987 Philippine Constitution. This is very useful when reviewing for the Civil Service Examination for both Professional and Sub-Professional Levels.
Adoption of National Science and Mathematics Standardsnoblex1
In 1991, Jonathan Kozol published Savage Inequalities, a book that dramatically made public what most people who visit schools have always known - that American children experience shockingly different conditions of schooling. These differences are even more likely to be exacerbated in science education, the most resource-dependent of the academic subjects. Children cannot learn what is not taught. For instance, only 45% of eighth graders report that they do science experiments each week, and only about 52% of the nation's eighth grade science teachers feel that they have enough materials to teach science.
With the movement toward new standards, some educators and policy-makers fear that simply changing standards without changing the education system that distributes opportunities to learn could result in even greater inequities for children who are poor, in minority groups, learning English as a second language, attending poor schools, or have disabilities. We can define "opportunity to learn" to include the presence of decent, safe science classrooms, certified, qualified science teachers, professional development opportunities for teachers, textbooks, supplies, laboratory equipment, and access to new technology. Crucial to successful adoption of the new science reforms are teachers who understand the reforms well and can translate them into practice. This issue of fidelity between intended reforms and classroom implementation is significant, especially since the existing research suggests that it is hard to achieve.
Professional development is one answer, but the type of professional development needed for science and mathematics reform must be comprehensive, and probably expensive. If successful science and math reform is dependent upon resources as defined above, then poor schools and students could find themselves even further behind as a result of the reform. In a national study of school-level reform of mathematics, it was found that 69 percent of the schools that were involved in significant efforts to improve mathematics defined themselves as "suburban." These results suggest that opportunity to learn is further limited and stratified; new initiatives are designed to counteract this problem, aiming reform funds at urban schools that are disproportionately poor and disproportionately populated by diverse learners.
The concerns about opportunity to learn are magnified when considering various populations. For instance, do female students in classrooms where gender biases flourish have an equal opportunity to learn? Students who are learning to speak English and students with disabilities have experienced similarly impoverished resources in science and mathematics classrooms as do children in poor schools. What might be done to improve their opportunity to learn, if science and math for all is the goal?
Source: https://ebookschoice.com/adoption-of-national-science-and-mathematics-standards/
SITE 2014 - Applying the ESPRI to K-12 Blended Learningsikojp
SITE 2014 Presentation. Abstract: Blended learning in K-12 classrooms is growing at an enormous rate. While the Educational Success Prediction Instrument (ESPRI) has been used to predict the success of students in online courses, it has yet to be applied to blended courses. This study examined the use of the ESPRI to predict the success of students enrolled in a secondary advanced biology course where the first half of the course was offered in a traditional format and the second half was offered in a blended format. Differences in student performance between the two portions of the course were not statistically significant (p = .35). The ESPRI correctly predicted approximately 88% of the outcomes. Limitations of the study included a small sample size (N = 43) relative to the number of items in the instrument. Additional research should examine the effectiveness of the instrument on students from across the achievement spectrum and not what is considered the ideal online learner.
Foundations of Mathematics Achievement Sarah Vester
This is an article written by Martha Cecilia Bottia, Stephanie Moller, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, and Elizabeth Stearns about the fundamentals of kindergaten math.
Martha Cecilia Bottia, Stephanie Moller, Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, and Elizabeth Stearns
The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 115, No. 1 (September 2014), pp. 124-150
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article DOI: 10.1086/676950
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/676950
American Research Journal of Humanities & Social Science (ARJHSS) is a double blind peer reviewed, open access journal published by (ARJHSS).
The main objective of ARJHSS is to provide an intellectual platform for the international scholars. ARJHSS aims to promote interdisciplinary studies in Humanities & Social Science and become the leading journal in Humanities & Social Science in the world.
The Primary Exit Profile: What does this mean for STEM in Jamaican Primary Sc...Lorain Senior
This document represents my original contribution as a part of the criteria for completion off the Capstone Experience Project in fulfillment of the M/Ed. in S.T.E.M Leadership at the American College of Education.
2. Presentation outline
Introduction
Delimitations
Questions
Impact of Marginalizing High Achieving Students
Summary & Conclusions
Recommendations for Future Study
3. Introduction
Problem Statement: Students in Rural, high-poverty
school districts do not have the same access to Advanced
Placement and/or Honors courses as students in wealthier
school districts.
Purpose: to determine if and how the course-taking
patterns of students at Mexico High School (a rural, low-
wealth school) was influenced by the introduction of AP
Course offerings in Physics, Chemistry and Biology via
blended learning.
Significance: How may school administrators influence the
achievement gap for high-poverty, rural school students by
examining how, if at all, blended learning instructional
practices influence student enrollments in science electives?
4. Delimitations
The results of this study may only be
generalizable to other school districts that have a
similar need-to-resource capacity.
There may be other factors that influence
student course-taking behavior beyond structural
considerations, but ability grouping was the only
factor considered in this study
5. Mexico High School Case Study
Prior to 2011-12 school year, no AP course
offerings in the physical or life sciences (Chem,
Bio, Physics).
Summer of 2011 – initial discussions with
principal, superintendent, dually certified
teacher (Chem and Physics), and director of
technology.
High school guidance counselor solicits
enrollment of 6 students in AP Chemistry and 6
students in AP Physics in a “Flex” classroom
6. What is Blended Learning?
A means of instructional delivery where
student learns at least in part at a
supervised brick-and-mortar location away
from home and at least in part through
online delivery with some element of
student control over time, place, path,
and/or pace.
It has the potential to increase student
access to advanced courses or further
alienate students already assigned to a
learning “niche.”
7. Blended learning models
Programs with a Flex model feature an online
platform that delivers most of the curricula.
Teachers provide on-site support on a flexible and
adaptive as-needed basis through in-person tutoring
sessions and small group sessions. Many dropout
recovery and credit-recovery blended programs fit
into this model (e.g., NovaNet).
Other models include: Face-to-Face Driver, Rotation,
Online Lab, Self-Blend, Online Driver (Horn &
Staker, 2011)
The spectrum from purely on-line (digital/avatar) to
purely face-to-face (analog/human) is dynamic and is
student-based.
8. Questions
How did Blended Learning increase student access to
more rigorous academic programming in the physical
and life sciences? ANSWER: It did not (directly)…
“Tracked” high-achieving students who were already
marginalized
Sorting low-SES students into a low-track curriculum
perpetuates the “Matthew Effect” in education
(Walberg and Tsai, 1983). Intro to Foods – really?
Starts early but is cemented in middle school as a
small cohort of high performers are tracked into an
accelerated program (Pritchard, 2012)
Good news…Pilot (indirectly) created an “AP Craze”
a.k.a, The Race to Somewhere. AP enrollments
tripled in one year.
11. Summary and conclusions
Rural school district communities that perceive
themselves as lacking capacity (financial,
intellectual, emotional, or otherwise) may
unnecessarily restrict student access to higher-
level programming in math and science.
Blended learning has proven to be a successful
instructional system for struggling students (via
NovaNet credit recovery) but has reinforced the
“niche” status of AP courses as exceptional, and
off-limits. Are there more effective bl models?
Sorting students by ability level does not improve
student performance for low-tracked students at
the middle school in STEM, and further narrows
and alienates the cohort of high achievers.
12. Recommendations for future study
Why do rural schools marginalize the top performing
students in the sciences in light of the Matthew
Effect? (Blended learning creates a rationale niche
programming).
How do we shift the culture to include rigorous
academic programming in the sciences? What
curriculum changes need to occur to make this shift?
Universal Acceleration (Burris, 2003), math and
science “compression” at the middle school, Math in
Focus, Go Math, Cultural Literacy, etc…
What are the class size and instructional grouping
considerations associated with AP implementation in
the sciences? Tennessee STAR (Finn & Achilles,
1990), Track/No-Track studies (multiple authors).
Editor's Notes
What are the problems associated with not offering AP courses (arguments against AP aside – Ravitch, Race to Nowhere)? Culture of rigor, emphasis on non-academic courses, college admissions, etc… Economies of Scale to be gained by having a dually certified teacher in one “classroom” Types of students to be involved in pilot? Other implementation concerns? Money, time, stakeholder support, space, curriculum (behaviorist curriculum)
Online and blended learning are growing at a tremendous pace, and have a high potential for accelerating student learning through personalization. They combine the ability to allow students to move at their own pace while bringing them together around engaging projects. But it ’s a district’s responsibility to ensure that it’s being implemented in a thoughtful, planned way. 2010-11 – no students 2011-12 – 12 students split between AP Chemistry and Physics 2012-13 – enrollments for AP Chem 17, AP Bio 21, AP Physics 1 (Total 39) “ In many cases, schools don’t have the staff or resources to offer many AP courses or electives, like foreign languages. This is a way for us to meet student needs more flexibly. Several schools are now sharing AP teachers, for instance. When one school has a resource and another school doesn’t, we can equalize access to quality.
Model 1: Face-to-Face Driver The programs that fit in the face-to-face-driver category all retain face-to-face teachers to deliver most of their curricula. The physical teacher deploys online learning on a case-by-case basis to supplement or remediate, often in the back of the classroom or in a technology lab. Model 2: Rotation The common feature in the rotation model is that, within a given course, students rotate on a fixed schedule between learning online in a one-to-one, self-paced environment and sitting in a classroom with a traditional face-to-face teacher. It is the model most in between the traditional face-to-face classroom and online learning because it involves a split between the two and, in some cases, between remote and onsite. The face-to-face teacher usually oversees the online work. Model 4: Online Lab The online-lab model characterizes programs that rely on an online platform to deliver the entire course but in a brick-and-mortar lab environment. Usually these programs provide online teachers. Paraprofessionals supervise, but offer little content expertise. Often students that participate in an online-lab program also take traditional courses and have typical block schedules. Model 5: Self-Blend The nearly ubiquitous version of blended learning among American high schools is the self-blend model, which encompasses any time students choose to take one or more courses online to supplement their traditional school ’s catalog. The online learning is always remote, which distinguishes it from the online-lab model, but the traditional learning is in a brick-and-mortar school. All supplemental online schools that offer a la carte courses to individual students facilitate self-blending. Model 6: Online Driver The online-driver model involves an online platform and teacher that deliver all curricula. Students work remotely for the most part. Face-to-face check-ins are sometimes optional and other times required. Some of these programs offer brickand-mortar components as well, such as extracurricular activities. Mexico experience transitioned from Rotation to Flex to Face-to-Face driver
The first research question was centered on the differences, if any, that were present in math scores when higher-achieving students were randomly mixed with lower-achieving students in math classes between grades six and seven. Because the null hypothesis was retained, the researcher could neither support the practice of randomly assigning students to math classes as a means to improve test scores nor discourage the practice of heterogeneous grouping as a way to prevent lower student achievement. This means that the increase in the mean scaled score from grade six to grade seven was likely the result of random chance and not due to heterogeneous instructional grouping. The researcher found no evidence that there is a statistically significant (p≤.05) difference between matched pair mean scores for the group of students who took the NYSTP Grade 6 Math Assessment in 2009 and the NYSTP Grade 7 Math Assessment in 2010. slide number
When lower-achieving students were assigned heterogeneously in the sixth and seventh grades, there were no statistically significant differences in their levels of achievement. When the students were sorted into high and low-tracks in eighth grade, the scores of lower achieving students declined significantly. Sorting low-SES students into a low-track curriculum perpetuates the “Matthew Effect” in education ( Walberg and Tsai, 1983). This effect becomes even more pronounced at the HS school as vocational course offerings tend to be legitimized and academic electives are either not offered (pre-2010) or offered via alternate instructional delivery (e.g., blended learning). Vocational/career electives are offered against academic electives at a ratio of 6:1 slide number