February 2016 marked the 6th Annual Blended Learning Lab! Building off of the work from last year's lab, this year, Holton's faculty explored how technology integration and blended learning can address global competencies in a dynamic and engaging way. The primary goal of this year's lab was to provide all Holton teachers with the tools and skills necessary to produce a lesson that develops our students' global competencies through the use of technology.
To kick off the workshops, the Holton faculty had the pleasure of hearing from educator and National Geographic Traveler of the Year, Diana Gross, who has spent the last several years working "to digitally connect students and teachers by bringing technology and training to underserved communities and build cultural bridges that transcend distance."
Fittingly, Gross presented to the faculty from Myanmar, where she is currently working. Through the combination of pre-recorded videos and narrated, PowerPoint slides, Diana transcended time and space to be with us and we effectively modeled exactly how teachers can leverage technology to bring the world into the classroom from 11 1/2 time zones away.
Spread over three afternoon sessions, the 6th Annual Blended Learning Lab gave the faculty time to delve deeper into blended learning by examining how technology can be leveraged to bring the world into our classrooms. Teachers gained hands on experience with new technology tools and worked on crafting lessons that address global competencies.
The workshops provided the faculty with time to explore examples, experience new tools, and develop or refine their lessons. Topics included Skype in the Classroom, Google Docs for collaboration, Blogging in the Classroom, and several more. Each workshop was facilitated by a faculty member following the same general format - explaining what the tool is and how it can be used in a classroom, demonstrating how to use it and then, most importantly, providing time for teachers to tinker and explore.
To close the final session, teachers were given a choice of three sessions to take what they learned and directly apply it to their lesson plans. Director of Global Education, Melissa Brown, reviewed the global competence matrix and helped teachers brainstorm how a global education lesson can be integrated into their curriculum. Academic Dean, Rachel Herlein helped teachers upgrade a lesson by taking a lesson that lends itself to meeting global competencies and rethinking how it could use technology to touch on more of the global competencies. The third group was led through Project Tuning Protocol to refine a lesson.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The global inspiration for this year's Blended Learning Lab has been in the works for quite some time. After attending Harvard's Global Education Think Tank both in 2014 and 2015, Director of Global Education, Melissa Brown, and several other faculty members began to discuss how global education at Holton can expand across departments and divisions both inside and outside the classroom. This developed into offering the girls multiple opportunities to investigate the world around them, locally, nationally, and globally; to cultivate the disposition and knowledge necessary to engage respectfully with people from multiple backgrounds and experience; to foster an interest in and understanding of diverse perspectives; to develop the ability to communicate in a language other than English; and to take appropriate action for the promotion of sustainability, social justice, equality, and peace.
Last April, teachers from all disciplines and divisions at Holton created and shared sample lessons, projects, and units for their classes to help develop their students' global competencies. Since then, the School has shared these templates nationally at professional conferences including TABS/NAIS, NCGS, and the Global Think Tank.
The following month, a group of teachers and administrators returned to the Harvard Global Think Tank. After the conference, we began incorporating what we had learned into the planning of the 2016 Blended Learning Lab. I truly believe technology should be only be used in the classroom when it is used as a transformative tool. What better way to use technology than to address global competences by bringing the world into the classroom to communicate and collaborate on a global level.
Middle School Math Teacher Alessandra King was so inspired by this year's Lab that she has taken on several new initiatives in her classroom including teaching her seventh graders how the Mayan numerical system, the decimal system, and binary are connected. "I do believe that educating the leaders of tomorrow about global issues is essential to promote mutual understanding and global collaboration, and therefore it is essential for the future of this country and the world," said King.
Brown summed up the faculty's hard work saying, "Each and every one of us can contribute to this initiative in big and small ways."
Building professional development around two school-wide initiatives turned out to be a great success! The goal of addressing global competence through the use of technology gave context for incorporating technology in a meaningful and transformative way! We have plans in the works for a follow up session that will allow teachers to share the lessons that were created and tuned during the lab and can't wait to take this work to the next level during the 7th Annual Blended Learning Lab in 2017!
