The biggest challenge with teaching in a hybrid classroom is that students have much more freedom than they have ever had before. This means they will need a lot of modeling and direct instruction on how to work at each of the stations. Here is a secondary example of what a hybrid classroom should look like.
Here is what my typical first week of school looks like:
Day 1: Welcome
students to the class, introduce myself, begin to learn student names/faces,
begin work of a review packet covering material from the previous math course,
explain hybrid learning
Day 2: Practice
direct station, do this by learning about objectives based grading and
continuing review, model classroom routines like signing out, use of electronic
devices, turning in assignments, etc.
Days 3 & 4:
Practice independent station, do this by getting all students registered
for all computer programs that we will use such as Edmodo, edpuzzle, manga
high, etc. Give students time to explore
each of these as we go along and model how to use them correctly
Day 5: Practice
collaborative station, do this by finishing review, model what working with a
group should look like, practice circulating from one station to the next in
under 90 seconds.
Finally, when we return to school the following week I start
the new material having the students split into their three groups. I highly recommend assigning computer seats and collaborative subgroups. I do it for nearly the entire year because I find students can get very off-task if they are working with friends. At this point I explain how they know who to
sit with at collaborative and which computer to sit at for independent. Ideally you would have a coteacher or aide to
monitor the other two stations while you are at direct. I do not have this for the majority of my
classes so the first week of modeling is very important. It is also important to really focus on monitoring
the other two stations while you are teaching at the direct station.
Obviously there is also a lot of work that goes into
planning for your classroom before school even starts. You need to decide how to arrange your furniture,
how to communicate with students in writing (or videos for students who cannot
read) so that they are clear on their assignments when you are not working with
them, and how to handle every scenario that you could think of that might
through off the stations.
For my classroom arrangement I have the computers set up
along the perimeter of the room with the screens facing the center of the
room. This way students are less distracted
by what the other groups are doing and I can monitor their screens to be sure
they are on task. I set up direct
station at the front of the room in a large u-shape with a large table for
supplies in the middle and I make three ‘tables’ from four desks each for the
collaborative stations.
To communicate with my students, I provide a very detailed
agenda both on Edmodo and in paper copy at each station. I also have the linked expectation and troubleshooting
tips at each station.
Lastly for today’s post, here is a document that will help
you consider how you will handle tricky situations in your hybrid
classroom. If you are considering using
this teaching method you must know that everything that can go wrong will go
wrong at some point. If you are not
prepared, you will be forced to abandon your stations for the day to resolve
the issues. This worksheet is a list of
things that have happened to me. If you
are working through it and want to know how I would handle something, just let
me know.
Jennifer, I'm intrigued by hybrid teaching! How many students are typically in your hybrid class?
ReplyDeleteI've been successful with classes ranging in size from 12 to 33 students. The bigger the class, the more important it is to explicitly teach how to behave at each station. No matter what, it takes time. During the first year I nearly quit every day for the first two months. I had lots of administrative support in terms of observational feedback. Now, I don't think I'll ever go back.
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