6.1 Online Integration and Management in the Social Sciences

Teachers Talk: Blend in Social Studies (1:59)

 

Reflection Question: What activities do you already do that could be made more engaging or lead to deeper learning if you incorporated the online space?

Online integration is at the very heart of blended teaching. It has to do with how you combine your in-person social science classroom with online activities. (Remember the baker mixing dry and wet ingredients from Chapter 1?) Because the main component of blended learning is integrating online and in-person activities, online integration is a good place to begin thinking about blending your classroom. In this video Mark Stevens explains how he uses backward design to create an effective, meaningful blend.

Teachers Talk: Planning for a Blended Classroom (6:30)

 

Reflection Questions: How can you use a combination of primary and secondary sources, and a variety of strategies, in the combined online and in-person settings to engage all types of students? How can you employ backwards design to meet these goals?

This is where you as a social science teacher begin to think about what specific online practices can help you address the problems of practice you identified in Section 1. The more examples of blended teaching you have personally seen and the more experience you have with online teaching, the easier this process will be for you. But even if you are just starting out, you will probably have a few ideas of your own. This chapter will help you explore more ideas. Here are two teachers who share examples of integration from their blended classrooms.

Teachers Talk: Exploring the World in Pictures

Mark Stevens

Blended learning is great in social studies classrooms because technology can take you to so many places and to so many times with so many resources. For example, students examining the anti-war movement in the U.S. can be self-guided to locate relevant images, videos, and text-based websites they can use to develop and present an understanding of the times.A group of my students gathered pictures from searches of anti-war protest marches in Washington D.C., music videos from the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in August of 1969, and text from sources accessed through the historymatters.gmu.edu site through George Mason University. Groups of students used what they found to produce a multimodal (text, images, video) presentation that not only showed what they had learned, but supported their friends who were struggling with understanding both the content and the English language in which the content was presented. These students had a greater sense of engagement because they used blended learning to direct their own learning and at the same time helped their friends by sharing what they learned online and in-person.

Large anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. - 1967

Photo: "Large antiwar protest at Lincoln Memorial: 1967" by Washington Area Spark is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Teachers Talk: Tunisia Peace Week (3:00)

 

Reflections Questions: How did these students grow from their interaction with the students in Tunisia? How did they share what they learned with others?

Before you start, consider this advice from experienced blended teachers—think big but start small. Small beginnings allow you to wet your toes in the process, focus on specific pedagogies and activities, see the benefits and drawbacks, and make improvements on a small scale without becoming overwhelmed by the process. It also helps you keep your mind on the most important thing—serving the needs of your students.

Teachers Talk: Small Beginnings

Mark Stevens

Israelmore Ayivor said, “Accomplish your tasks by one step at each time” (source). In effect this described the start of my blended learning journey. Eventually that led to the desire to do with blended learning what Muhammad Ali described when he stated "If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it" (source).

I started trying things with technology just to see how they would work. As the tools were improved, the possibilities expanded. The internet really began evolving, and all kinds of primary and secondary sources not previously available were now in reach. I could teach about the Holocaust not just by telling stories, but by having students watch interviews with survivors. Eventually this evolved into my blending in a way that REALLY has engaged students more than I did before and has helped them learn better.

In this video, Merinda Davis explains how she started, made mistakes, learned, and grew through her beginning steps with blended learning.

Teachers Talk: The Colonial and Columbian Exchange Newspaper

 

Reflection Questions: What mindset qualities does Merinda show in this video? Think about your own mindset. What can you do to prepare your mind and perspectives to be ready for blended teaching?

6.2 Planning for Integration

You can take that first small step by doing the following:

1. Identify the problem of practice and the learning objective that you are interested in blending.
   
   
2. Think about activities, both in-person and online, that could support student learning. (A framework for this process is to think about activities that involve students interacting independently with content, activities that involve students interacting primarily with each other, and activities that might involve interaction with an instructor.)
   
   
3. Consider how the online activities and the in-person activities can connect.
   
   
4. Choose one of the activities you have considered and create a blended lesson.

See the following example for how this process might work. The teacher in this example explores several activities that could be blended. You have a similar chart in your Blended Teaching Notebook.

The teacher has identified this problem of practice: empower learners to

• Consistently direct and support their own learning (supported by the teacher) by using a combination of face-to-face and online activities.
  
  
• Access and analyze a greater collection of primary and secondary sources relevant to the topics being explored.
  
  
• Use those combinations of multimodal resources (text, audio, video) possible in blended learning to prompt greater critical thinking, communication, investigation, and knowledge skill generation.

Here are some ways this teacher could empower the learners by combining the online and in-person activities, starting with Table 1, showing ways to have students interact with content.

Table 1

Planning for Online Integration: Student-Content Interactions

Brooke Davies shares how she uses the process just described to help her students develop resiliency.

Teachers Talk: Becoming Resilient (5:31)

Reflection Questions: How can you use blended learning to facilitate deeper learning? How did Brooke's students use the content they accessed online to contribute to the in-person part of the class?

Merinda shows another way to use blended processes to interact with content—in this case interacting with place.

Teachers Talk: Interacting with Place through Story Maps (2:39)

Reflection Question: How can you help your students be more aware of place through blended teaching?

In this video, LeNina Wimmer shares how her students use the online space to master content.

Teachers Talk: Industrialists' Trial (4:00)

 

Reflection Question: How does LeNina use both the online and in-person space to help students learn content and develop skills?

A second way to plan blended activities to overcome a problem of practice is to emphasize student to student interactions.

Table 2

Planning for Online Integration: Student-Student Interactions

Brooke shows another way to emphasize student-student interaction when history and photography students work together on a project.

Teachers Talk: Collaborating with AP Photography Students

Reflection Question: How can you use blended teaching to encourage interactions with students in other classes, other schools, and other levels of students (for example, high school and elementary school)?

Mary Catherine uses student interaction to learn, create, and share content.

Teachers Talk: Vocabulary Review (2:33)

Reflection Questions: How can learning vocabulary collaboratively benefit students? In what other ways could students collaborate online to increase learning outcomes and to develop 21st century skills?

A final type of interaction that can be developed during blended teaching is the interaction between teacher and student. These interactions build relationships and help teachers better understand the needs of the students. Some ideas of how to use these types of interactions are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3

Planning for Online Integration: Student-Instructor Interactions

Mark explains how he uses both the in-person and online spaces to interact directly with his students.

Teachers Talk: Online and In-Person at the Same Time

Mark Stevens

Sometimes I have both the online and in-person environments going at the same time. If we are giving feedback on someone else’s paper, or editing them, I pair them up in the physical environment, but they edit each other’s papers online. They have access to the papers in the online environment but can ask me questions at the same time either online or in-person.

I expanded this experience by sharing their papers online with a class of college students. The college students provided feedback, then their professor sent the feedback back to me, and I distributed it to the students. My students thought it was great that college students would pay attention to their papers.

6.3 Selecting a Blended Teaching Model

Once you have chosen an activity or unit to use when blending your social studies, consider which blended teaching model best fits the activity. The models we will here consider are the flipped classroom, station rotations, lab rotations, and the flex model. 

6.3.1 The Flipped Classroom

Teachers Talk: Flipping My Classroom (2:59)

Reflection Question: What advantages do both the students and Ms. Keating receive by flipping the classroom?

6.3.2 Station Rotation Model

A station rotation typically involves students moving from one station to another, doing online, small group, collaborative, or teacher led activities at each station. For a more in-depth description see the Station Rotation section in Volume 1.

In this next video Mary Catherine explains how she uses and trains her students to use a station rotation.

Teachers Talk: Using a Station Rotation (3:36)

 

Reflection Questions: Explain how Mary Catherine uses a station rotation at the beginning of the year to train students in how to do a station rotation. What are some other ways you could use a station rotation?

Teacher's Talk: Station Rotation (4:21)

 

Reflection Questions: What kinds of online and in-person activities did this teacher include in his station rotation? What activities could you include in a station rotation, creating smaller groups of students you can work with?

6.3.3 The Lab Rotation

In a lab rotation, students rotate as a whole group, on a set schedule, or at teacher discretion. This station is usually used by teachers whose only access to computers is in a school computer lab, but it can also be used in the regular classroom but with students going through online activities as a whole group. This is especially helpful when the order of the modules is important.

In the flex model most of the learning ocurs online. Students work independently with in-person support as needed. 

For a more in-depth description see the flex model section in Volume 1.

6.4 Deciding What To Do In-person in a Social Studies Classroom

Blended learning is the strategic combination of online and in-person modalities. But how do teachers decide which activities to do online and which to do in person in a social studies class?

Table 4 contains two examples of the use of the online space and two of the in-person space. Read each scenario. See if you can discern why the teacher might have decided to use each modality. Would you have made the same decision? Why or why not? 

Table 4

In-person or Online

Although the decision of what to do in person and online often becomes one decision, it is useful to consider what you do well in  person, so you can effectively mix your in-person practices with online strategies. Look at your strengths as a teacher, the needs of your students, and the strategies that lend themselves to the effective use of the in-person space.

In social studies, where inquiry is often based on specific primary and secondary sources, in-person interactions might support analysis and critical thinking of sources the students have accessed online. These interactions could include student-selected discussion pairs, one on one coaching, small group conferencing, and whole class debriefing.

For example, your students may be investigating Civil Rights activists of the 1960s, such as H. Rap Brown (Jamil Al-Amin), Malcolm X, and Claudette Colvin. You may see several advantages to doing this in person, including some of the following:

• Students can either select a peer with whom they feel most comfortable or work on their own to watch and analyze videos about the three people being explored. (Be careful about forcing students to partner, as some may experience anxiety about having to work with someone they don't know very welll.)
• You can watch students work in-person or on their work documents. If you see an analysis of Claudette Colvin, for example, that is not in-depth, call the student(s) learning about her over and share an engaging story to help them think about her in a deeper way.
• While students collaborate online, you monitor student work documents. As they finish specific parts, invite them to join you in a small group discussion, using this time to extend or enrich what they have already done.
• Use whole class debriefings to reach out to students who are only nominally engaged by having highly engaged students share their understandings. 

Such in-person approaches can keep students from getting stalled in the process and keep energy high. Deciding what activities could be done in person or online may take some trial and error. Here are some questions that can guide you as you make your decision.

• Can I put some instruction online so I have more class time to work with students individually or in small groups?
• Can putting an activity online increase student participation?
• Can I use the online space to allow my students to personalize the pace, path, time, place, or goals of their learning?
• How can I use the online space to target individual learning needs?
• Can I use the online space to help students increase ownership of their learning?
• Can I use the online space to give my students access to materials they wouldn’t otherwise be able to have?
• Can I use the online space to teach the same concept in different ways, so learners will have more than one option in their learning?
• Can I use the online space to allow for greater learner-learner interaction and collaboration?
• Can I use the online space to adapt or differentiate materials to different students’ needs?
• Are there new ways I can use the in-person space when I put some of the instruction and activities online?

6.5 Evaluating and Improving Blended Activities

Blended learning is not just about using technology in the classroom. It is about strategically combining technology with in person activities to improve pedagogy and student outcomes. When you blend consciously, learning can be better. But most blended teaching takes practice and constantly seeking to improve . The case study below shows one taecher's efforts to improve a blended unit. Click on the Case Study link below to see how the unit improved over time.

Evaluating your blend is a powerful tool for improving your classroom. We learned in chapter 3 (Chapter 3: Evaluating Blended Teaching) two methods for evaluating a blend: the 4 E's and PIC-RAT.

Teachers Talk: Balance

Mark Stevens

Variety truly is the spice of life. We as adults often think like that, and sometimes students do the same. Think of your practice to this point. Have you ever seen students “check out” if you have them process too many sources, even if you have designed engaging activities? Or what is the impact on learning if you use the same format of blending two weeks of classes in a row? Even if the sources are music of the Cold War , which can be very groovy and instructive, it might not be useful to have students identify the message in as many as five songs, and then try to share the context clues they used to show how they reasoned messages in the songs. Sometimes lack of engagement may result not from the activity itself but from the repetition of the activity.

6.6 Planning Blended Routines and Behaviors

Good blended teaching depends on good blended classroom management. Students need to use devices carefully and responsibly,  regulate their behavior so they can work independently, and manage their time. They have to be accountable for their learning, their actions, and their assignments. Mark explains how he approaches such accountability in his classroom, then in the video he discusses a number of strategies he uses to help students.

Teachers Talk: Student Accountability

Mark Stevens

I still have students say to me to my face, “But I did that.” And then I explain to them, “The online records don't lie. It’s either there or it's not.” And sometimes they will hand in something that doesn’t sound like a seventh grader wrote it, even if they're a really intelligent one. I point this out to them, and show them the website where they got it from. It allows me to just make them a little more accountable for the process and products of their learning.

The key to giving this kind of accountability feedback is to do it in a way that makes it clear you have their best interests at heart. Build relationships with the whole class from the beginning, so they know you really are on their side. Help them see the goal is not only to help them while they are your student, but to prepare them for their future, bit by bit.

Teachers Talk: Managing Off-Task Behavior (4:14)

Reflection Questions: What does Mark Stevens see as the core principle of helping students stay on task? How can you develop that quality in your classroom?

Establishing routines in a blended social studies classroom is crucial. Starting off the year with clear expectations, as Mary Catherine explains, can go a long  way to creating a management system that will help your students understand the structure of the class.

Teachers Talk: Making Guidelines (3:38)

Reflection Question: What routines do you want to establish in your classroom and how can you teach them?

These routines include the following: 

• When and how to move around the classroom, with or without computers.
• How to open, login to, and use an LMS or other online programs.
• How and when to charge computers, either at school or at home. 
• How to communicate civilly and respectfully. (Just be nice.)
• How to use LMS calendars, due dates, and submissions to keep track of work and access content.
• When and how to ask questions of you and each other.

In addition, make plans for how to manage off task behavior in a friendly, yet insistent and consistent way. You can prepare for situations that are sure to arise. Table 5 contains tips from teachers about how to establish these routines.

Table 5

Blended Learning Routines

In this video Ashley describes how she works with students and devices in her classroom.

Teachers Talk: How to Manage a Blended Classroom (5:13)

Reflection Questions: What methods does Ashley use that might be effective in your classroom? How can you prepare to manage your classroom?

Social studies teachers say they typically spend four to six weeks at the beginning of the year establishing routines and expectations and teaching students how to use the technology. But, they say, it pays off in the long run with a smooth running class and increased opportunities for interaction and personalization—all of which they see as positives in their blended classroom.

These routines and practices begin on Day 1 of class. Brooke and Mary Catherine share how they begin teaching these routines at the beginning of the school year. 

Teachers Talk: Starting on Day One

Brooke Davies

I start teaching my students my procedures on the first day, going slowly to teach and reinforce for about a month. For example, day one, we're going to open Canvas and change our picture. Day two, we're going to have a discussion board saying something fun, that's building a relationship, but also giving them some exposure to Canvas.

My advice is to build the practices into your classroom management plan at the beginning of the year and slowly build their abilities. I intentionally put some time in the beginning of the year to make sure I get everybody on board with the technology, so we’re all ready  to work together.

Teachers Talk: Beginning of the Year Station Rotations

Mary Catherine Keating

On the second day I set up stations.  At one station students learn how to access the textbook.  At another they do a syllabus quiz. At another they fill in an online “get to know you” form. Finally, they learn how to create a Flipgrid video. By the end of the day, we have learned some important technical skills they’ll need to use all year. And I’ve made great strides in learning students’ names. Before computers and Flipgrid, it took me almost two weeks to learn students’ names. Now I can spend five to ten minutes going through the Flipgrid videos, and I learn the names so much quicker.

Finally, your greatest tool may be the relationship you have with your students and your understanding of them. Notice how Mark uses this information to help redirect a student.

Teachers Talk: The Boy Who Smiled Too Much

Mark Stevens

A couple of years ago, I wrote a paper called “The Boy Who Smiled Too Much.” We were studying the Holocaust, and one of my students was smiling. When you're studying stuff about the Holocaust, you shouldn't be smiling, and he was smiling. So, it alerted me to take a look at his document then have a short little conversation about refocusing. He really did get back on track, and it was done with humor instead of aggression.

Online integration, combining the in-person and online spaces, can be a powerful tool in helping students learn and develop important 21st century skills. It may seem daunting at first, but just as your students can learn, you too can learn. It will be an adventure you can share with your students as you learn together.