Designing Successful Lessons for a Blended Class

This article is cross-posted on the VHS (Virtual High School) Global Consortium Blog.

My adventure with blended learning began with my online teaching through VHS. I can honestly say that the preparation for and teaching of my online course have been the best professional development of my 32 year career. As I learned so much and saw my students gaining so many new skills in this cosynchronous learning environment, I wanted my face to face students to have those same opportunities. My blended class came of that wish.

Of course, my next challenge was how to design lessons that took advantage of the blended learning model. Through research, a lot of reflection and a lot of trial and error, I have come up with what I think are the most important aspects of a successful blended learning lesson plan:

1. There should be "flow" between your online lessons and your face to face ones.

Learning should be as seamless as possible as students move between formats. Keep your learning goals in mind as you develop the lessons. What do you want students to take from this lesson? How can you take advantage of the online environment in developing the lesson? Which parts of the lesson will work better when you are face to face? Which will work better online? I often have class discussions that start in one format and continue in the other. This is one way to make the lesson flow.


2. The lessons should be engaging and interactive.  

French students tweet as "Le Petit Prince"

Don't fall into the mistaken thinking that just because it involves the computer, kids will love it. Not true. Computer work can quickly become a drudge as all adults know. Kids love lessons that engage them, whether they involve technology or not. What's not fun about real discovery and learning?

3. The lessons should take advantage of both the asynchronous nature of the blended class and the lowered affective filter that is provided by it.

What types of lessons work well asynchronously? Discussions for one, because students have time to think and consider their answers before responding. Similarly, some students will thrive in the online environment because the affective filter is lowered. The physical presence of the teacher and their peers, which may intimidate them in the face to face class, is no longer a hindrance to their expression. But discussions don't have to be text based. Many LMSs (Learning Management Systems) provide both audio and video tools. In the image below, my French students are holding an audio/video discussion. Interestingly, I find that the students' pronunciation of French is better when they post online as opposed to speaking in class. Again, I think it's the lowered affect.

4. The lessons should promote independent learning as well as collaboration, critical thinking and communication.

Hopefully we are planning all of our lessons to include collaboration, critical thinking and communication. Those are such essential 21st century skills that we would be remiss in planning any assignment without those three C's in mind. Independent learning is unfortunately not as ubiquitously addressed in our classes, however it is still critical to our students' future successes.

Oral discussion via videoIn college and beyond, our students will often be required to take responsibility for their own learning. Fortunately, this skill fits beautifully into online and blended lessons. To promote independent learning, your lesson can be discovery-based, or it can be as simple as allowing the students to choose which path they will take through the lesson. Your role is to guide them toward a meaningful path. Remember, it isn't about content. Content can always be Googled. It's about acquiring and honing skills.

5. Assessment should match the format of the lesson.

Seems simple enough, and yet for many teachers - and students - it is hard to give up that written test mindset. We think if there hasn't been a written test there hasn't been an assessment. But if the learning objective of your blended lesson was to be able to perform a virtual knee replacement surgery, a written test will not accurately measure the skills involved. It takes some creativity to develop these assessments, but once you get started, the juices will start flowing and the ideas will come more easily. For reference, see my post about Teaching in a BYOD .

There are plenty of resources available online to help you develop your first blended lessons. Here are a few to get you started:

VHS Blended Teacher Support
University of Central Florida's Blended Learning Toolkit
Colleen Worrell's Blended Learning Diigo List
Jim Askew's Designing the Perfect Web-Based Instruction Lesson Plan (includes a wealth of other resources)