Abstract:

Blended learning is a concept that combines printed and digitalized study material to include all students in a classroom. Every student has its own way of learning and every teacher is obligated to take that into consideration in her lesson plans.

The traditional way of teaching was for many years through passive learning. John Dewey was a well-known psychologist, philosopher, and educator that broke new grounds by his theory titled "Learning by doing". David Kolbs was influenced by John Dewey and further developed his theory.

Teachers have inherited an education model from the 20th century that prepared students for a more industrial economy. That model that students only learn as a group, one way at the same time is outdated and inefficient. Student centred learning is the golden standard of education, but due to the costs associated with a required one to one teacher to student ratio, that remains just a dream.

Teachers can use blended learning to individualize instructions for each student and to facilitate instruction pace to each students’ unique learning needs using a combination of one to one time with them, peer group interactions, traditional teacher let lessons, tutoring and digital tools and content.

Blended learning challenges teachers to customize their teaching so that every student has a chance to develop to its full potential. A survey conducted on more than 1000 teachers, based on an initiative from Sanoma education, confirms that variation in teaching is possible through digital and printed teaching aids. Furthermore, the study also shows that digitalized teaching enables greater variation in the field of teaching. The survey also shows that digitalized teaching enables a more individualized teaching, it engages more and saves both students and teachers time for example through self-correcting tasks. Digital tools also give teachers a better view of the students’ development and results. When teachers are being asked if they have adequate access to various digital tools the answer is positive, which makes it easy for them to use the tools in their teaching. Though due to lack of education on how to use the digital material in the teaching, as shown by the syrvey, teachers tend to not use their accessible recourses to their full potential.

Through highlighting good lesson examples, it can be concluded that blended learning is a new way to learn successfully. In practice, this may mean that a math lesson can start with a joint examination on the board carried out by the teacher. The lesson can continue with a math problem challenge that the students will solve first individually, then in pairs and finally the whole class together. The students can then work in the math book combined with a digital complement. An exit ticket in the form of recorded problem solving created by the students can be a good end to the lesson.

A long list of lesson examples only confirms that blended learning is the right way of teaching for students to reach their full potential in knowledge acquisition. Students fuelled by the exponential power of blended learning shows results that true student-centred learning is achievable, manageable, and scalable for each student.

Teachers today wants to work with both digital and printing material. More research is needed in how digital tools can be improved to further personalize the teaching for the student.

Keywords:

Blended learning, digital and printed teaching material, good lesson examples.