Blended Bulletin, Summer Edition 1

Blended Brags

Bulkeley and JMA both presented at the district's community update on the High School Centers of Innovation. JMA students presented projects that they created during Content Day, a weekly flex day in the schedule where they create media with the guidance of experts. Bulkeley's presentation featured an overview of the changes that shifted teaching and learning during the past school year and blended learning testimonials from students. It was great to have the opportunity to share our important work with families, community members, teachers, and district leaders!

Cool Tools

Check out the Digital Public Library of America for tremendous primary source resources.

By now, many of you have probably seen this emotional speech from a high school valedictorian in Texas revealing her status as an undocumented immigrant. Well, she is just one of many undocumented immigrant students who wish to go to college but face struggles in achieving that reality. For these students, DREAMer's Roadmap is an app that connects them to a database of scholarships that undocumented immigrants can apply for. Check out the story of how this app came to be here.

Padlet, everyone's favorite "corkboard" site, recently released updates that made some significant improvements. Most importantly, it is now easier to customize and share your padlets, and you will no longer have to answer the most common question, "How do I type on this?" Padlet has introduced a pencil icon, in addition to the standard double click feature, to allow users to post on boards.

Professional Learning

How can we change schools to better reflect modern business and industry conditions? What does education reimagined look like? asks us to refocus on teaching the desired skills, knowledge, and dispositions of today's workplace.

Unpacking whether blended learning works urges researchers to ask the right questions of blended learning; not whether or not blended learning works, but, what works, for which students, in which circumstances?

When thinking about your classes for next school year, consider adjusting how you plan and use the ideas in Design Thinking and PBL.

Something else to think about this summer is connecting with other educators on Twitter. Get inspired by reading Before We Were Connected: How To Achieve a Statewide Professional Learning Network.

Though the meaning of "growth mindset" tends to get stretched, Does Your Curriculum Have a Growth Mindset? offers some important questions to ask when assessing the effectiveness of what you're teaching.

How Deeper Learning Helps Children Succeed discusses the importance of deeper learning methods, especially PBL. Worryingly, the excerpt also points to evidence that low-income and minority students are not given the same opportunities for deeper learning as peers in more well-off districts.

Learn about systemic inclusion of student voice in Vt. High School Takes Student Voice to Heart.