Weekly Blend August 26th, 2021

Welcome to another school year and another edition of the Weekly Blend with myself, Marcia Kish. I am excited that you have found this blog and hopefully subscribed to our YouTube Channel. My goal is to share, guide, and be the idea person for Blended Learning that you are looking for to help support your classroom, school, and district. 
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With the Hybrid teaching behind most of our schools, I am looking forward to implementing Blended Learning into the onsite and virtual classrooms again this year. As I move forward with Coaching the Three Phases of Blended Learning, I remind teachers that even though the COVID shutdowns effective our classrooms, that Hybrid Teaching was challenging, and that moving back into a social distance classroom is complex, that all educators are true heroes. Without our educators being brave and willing to try something new, the children would have suffered. So first and foremost, thank you. Thank you for being Brave. Thank you for sticking your neck out there and trying. Thank you for failing and trying the next day again. Thank you for being the amazing human beings that are guiding support for our children. Thank you. 

Getting Started with Blended Learning 

Wow, what a summer of professional development learning opportunities for schools across the country.  With both virtual and onsite options, I was on the road meeting people for the first time, introducing myself to educators that I worked with for 365 days, and connecting again with educators from pre-COVID days.  It feels great to be back.  

In this weekly edition, I will be sharing out ideas for

• Getting started with small group instruction with our Weekly Deployment Plan 
• Phase One in action from Splendora ISD
• Organization Tips and Tricks 

Getting Started with Small Groups

The idea of adding in one thing to another hectic year is unreasonable.  However, small group instruction could actually eliminate some of the stress from the "COVID Slide" or Learning Gaps.  In this section of the Weekly Blend, I am going to talk about how to start small with breaking apart the lesson and meeting with groups of students while other students are working on independent practice or digital content.  I call these different activities learning studios. 

Studios Explained

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The Small Group Studio is conducted by the classroom teacher with a small group of students. The classroom teacher pulls back four to eight students to reteach or teach the content standards. During the small group studio, the teacher will look for misconceptions and teach new content to the group of students or even to an individual student. The teacher will showcase the content standards through anchor charts, manipulatives, dry erase boards, sample reading passages, and so much more. Throughout the Three Phases of Blended Learning, the teacher will eventually include quick exit tickets, use data to drive the instruction, as well as use the small group studio time for a data meeting with each student to explore progress, data from online programs, and to set individual academic goals.

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The Independent Studio provides time for the students to practice, explore, research, read, and process the content that has been provided through other studios, during whole group instruction time, or from previous lessons. Examples of independent learning activities can studio include silent reading, practice problems, writing, researching topics, extended response questions, online games like Kahoot, GimKit, Blooket, Quizizz, and BoomCards. ​

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Now let’s take time to explore the Digital Content learning studio.  Out of all of the learning studios, I find myself explaining what is and what is not consider digital content.  The definition of digital content according to the Three Phases of Blended Learning is a learning environment where the students are learning, relearning, or using an adaptive online program that aligns with the small group standard.  A digital content  website or application should also provide the teacher with some form of data.  That data then could be used to help form the differentiated small group studios.

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Are you ready to learn about the Future Ready Studio? For whatever reason, the Future Ready Studio tends to be one of the biggest hold-ups for educators while deploying the Three Phases of Blended Learning. But let's take a moment to explain, showcase, and provide concrete examples of future-ready activities deployed in the studio. It might make the studio a little bit easier to create.  
According to the Three Phases of Blended Learning, the definition of future-ready activities states that the studio contains an aspect of creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, or connection to self, school, city, county, state, country, or the world. The future-ready skills are the Four C's of learning. ​

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Deployment Plan

What I am about to showcase is a GUIDE and a RESOURCE.  I am showcasing examples of how to deploy small group instruction through the Three Phases of Blended Learning Model.   Please use the is Deployment Plan as it aligns to your curriculum and pacing guide.  If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me for help. 

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Week One:

• Start out slow - Pick One class, one Prep, or one subject area to try out the Blended Learning Studios 
• Try to Deploy Two Studios two different days 
• Make sure to include Small Group Instruction each Studio Day
• Add a checklist for the students to mark off as they travel through each studio

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Week Two:

• This week try to implement another type of Studio. (I recommend Digital Content)
• Continue to practice routines with the students 
• If your groups are too big, you can always run two sets of studios at the same time.  Meaning, Groups 1 and 2 are one side of the room and Group A and B are on the other side of the room.  Both groups are running through the same studios. 

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Week Three:

• The day before the test, try to deploy three studios. 
• Before the test think about adding in a mini project that allows the students to showcase the learning and understanding of the content through a Future Ready Activity. 
• Make sure to set the timer for 10 to 12 minutes for each studio. 
• Good Luck, You've Got This.

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Week Four:

• Once you tried three studios, try them two more times. 
• Talk to the students and explain the studios
• Reinforce the classroom procedures
• Don't for get to generate a checklist for each studio day. 

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The Deployment Plan for the rest of the year will be posted through out upcoming Blogs and in the Three Phases of Blended Learning Guide Book. (Coming Soon) 

Phase One in Action

My first onsite coaching session of the 2021/2022 School year was at Splendora ISD in Texas. I had the pleasure of visiting with High School, Middle School, Intermediate, and Elementary classroom teachers. For only three weeks into the school year, these teaches were rocking checklists, learning studios, and so much more. I am so proud of the hard work that they all accomplished in such a short amount of time. 
My journey with Splendora ISD started in July with a three-day workshop with a cohort of educators. Together we went through getting started with Blended Learning, Phase One, Phase Two, and using data to drive the small group instruction examples. We even had time to plan together a lesson to be used at the end of August. 
​Below are examples and photos of all of the educators' hard work. 

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ELAR Classroom In a Phase One 

All of the Splendora ISD Blended Learning Cohort Team did an amazing job.  Each team member earned their Phase One Blended Learning Sticker. --- Congratulations.  

Below I am showcasing one classroom that had all four studios up and running.  This is a quick view of Ms. Martin's 7th Grade ELAR classroom. Some of her key elements of her Studio Day include: 

• Studio Experts
• Checklist 
• Small Group Instruction 
• Future Ready Activities
• Flexible Seating
• Data Trackers
• And so much more.