3.

3 Online & Blended Learning

Candidates develop, model, and facilitate the use of online and blended learning, digital content, and
learning networks to support and extend student learning and expand opportunities and choices for
professional learning for teachers and administrators.
Reflection

The Technology Workshop Lesson Plan was created to provide training to a group of teachers at LaBelle
Elementary. The workshop taught the basics for integrating the ActivBoard into classroom instruction.
All classrooms have an ActivBoard at LaBelle Elementary; however, until this workshop, there had not
been sufficient training for several new teachers. This workshop was one of several workshops offered
during a professional learning session, and interested teachers signed up to attend. The workshop lasted 1
hour and I developed online blended learning, digital content, and learning networks, and also modeled
and facilitated online and blended learning. The second artifact, the Technology Workshop Evaluation,
explains how I reflected on and evaluated the effectiveness of the workshop and also how the participants
evaluated the workshop through an online pre- and post-survey. I independently planned, developed, and
taught this Technology Workshop.

Standard 3.3, Online and Blended Learning, requires candidates to develop, model, and facilitate the use
of online and blended learning, digital content, and learning networks to support and extend student
learning and expand opportunities and choices for professional learning for teachers and administrators.
The Technology Workshop Lesson Plan artifact demonstrates my ability to develop online and blended
learning and digital content through the lesson plan. The lesson plan details the process I used to
integrate face-to-face instruction with online components that provided choice, visuals, and additional
support through help documents and a linked ActivBoard Flipchart that could be accessed both during
and after the training. The lesson plan also details how I modeled and facilitated the workshop through
first giving a pre-assessment and using the results to drive the instruction of the workshop. Participating
teachers were surveyed about which ActivBoard tools they would most like to learn about during the
session, and the tools with the highest number of responses were discussed first. Following the session, a
post-assessment was given to gauge the lessons effectiveness. The Technology Workshop Evaluation
artifact demonstrates my ability to model and facilitate online and blended learning. This artifact includes
post-assessment results from the participants. All participants rated the session highly, giving it a perfect
score. The number of tools that teachers expressed a need to learn more about decreased dramatically in
the post-assessment, showing my modeling of the various ActivBoard components and my facilitation of
the workshop instruction had been effective.
Developing and presenting this Technology Workshop was a meaningful experience. It challenged me to
reflect on my own previous technology learning experiences and determine which components were
helpful or hindered my learning. I was then able to improve upon components that I found fault with in
the past. For example, I noted that many technology workshop presenters mistakenly assume their
participants prior knowledge. To alleviate this problem, I created the pre-assessment to ensure I
understood the teachers most pressing needs and could address them first (Knight, 2007). Judging from
the participants comments on the post-assessment, this proved very effective, and I will definitely
employ the same method in the future.
To improve upon my technology workshops in the future, I would like to contact the participants ahead of
time to complete the pre-assessment. This component was very worthwhile, but did consume a portion of
our precious workshop time. Conducting the online survey ahead of time would also allow me to prepare
more materials around the topics in highest demand.
The work that went into creating the Technology Workshop impacted faculty development. The teachers
attended my session to learn more about integrating the ActivBoard in their classroom instruction. I
assessed the impact I had in meeting their needs through the pre- and post-assessment. The post-
assessment showed growth in the understanding all topics discussed during the workshop, and all
participants rated the workshop a 5 (Very Helpful) on a scale of 1 (Not Helpful) to 5 (Very Helpful).

References

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.