Education Week - April 15, 2015 - Special Report - S16

S16 |
EDUCATION WEEK n
April 15, 2015
Blended Learning: Breaking Down Barriers > www.edweek.org/go/blended-barriers
Instructional coaches
and administrators,
standing behind a
two-way mirror, watch
to see how 4th graders
react to technology
in the Catalyst
laboratory at
Ridge Middle School
in Mentor, Ohio.
Photo by
Dustin Franz
for Education Week
Behind a Looking Glass: Teachers
Help Peers Master Technology
By Robin L. Flanigan
A
camera hangs from one corner of the classroom.
Microphones run along the ceiling. And a wall of
mirrors masks an observation room in which up to
40 people watch individual teachers and groups of
students experiment with new technologies, digital
content, and instructional strategies.
This laboratory, located in Ohio's 7,700-student
Mentor district, offers a new strategy for supporting educators trying
to bring blended learning into their classrooms-an approach
that some say could serve as a model for other school systems.
Educators and policymakers for years have worried about teachers'
ability to adapt to new technology and use innovative and
productive ways to improve student learning. Rather than providing
teachers with straightforward professional development or
training with tech tools, the laboratory in Mentor, which district
officials call Catalyst, gives educators the ability to test out digital
tools in front of their peers-and oftentimes, strangers-and get
feedback before deploying those strategies in the classroom.
The idea behind the lab is to create a safe space for educators to
be creative and take risks-where failing, and trying again, is celebrated.
Mentor's
efforts are drawing widespread attention. The laboratory,
housed at Ridge Middle School, has hosted nearly 150 visits
from mostly school districts and some education technology
companies since it was launched in late 2013. The vendors want
to see how Mentor uses and integrates either their own or their
competitors' products. Forty percent of the visitors have come from
outside Ohio, some have come from Canada, and one even came
from Beijing.
"No one had ever [told me] before, 'It's OK if it doesn't work the first
or second time. As long as you're making some kind of progress, that's
all we can ask for,' " said Tracey Dunn, a kindergarten teacher at the
500-student Hopkins Elementary School. She spent two months as
Catalyst's first guinea pig, using the adaptive curriculum MobyMax,
interactive e-books from the website Raz-Kids, and other technologies.
Close Observation
Providing educators with professional development in technology
through trial-and-error observation by their peers is relatively
rare, according to those familiar with efforts to help teachers
master digital tools.
Although Mentor was one of the first districts in the state to have
Smart boards in every classroom and meeting room, it intensified its
focus on piloting various tech devices about three
years ago. The district is now implementing a series
of blended-learning initiatives at the elementary,
middle, and high school levels, and has assigned
14 instructional coaches to help with them.
Mentor officials are also planning a rollout of
blended learning in the district's nine elementary
schools during the 2016-17 academic year.
As the district expanded its technology programs,
Mentor officials decided to set up the
lab to help them figure out how teachers could
make the best use of various tools and systems.
Today, the district selects one teacher each
academic quarter to use Catalyst, which is financed
with profits from casinos in the surrounding community.
(The startup tab, including furniture, came to $52,738. Annual
physical costs are around $20,000 to keep the lab stocked with
the latest technologies.) Participating teachers receive a $10,000
honorarium to integrate the most successful components of their
tech experiments into their home classrooms once they're done and
to serve as on-site experts for using digital tools in their schools.
The Catalyst program is staged in a renovated industrial-arts
classroom. Furniture in the lab sits on wheels so that it can be
moved to suit various instructional approaches. Students can write
PAGE S18 >
"While it's not the most comfortable thing for a teacher to be on
display [and] to be constructively criticized," Ms. Dunn said, the
opportunity she gets from the lab to learn from peers who can "see
what I don't see while I'm teaching is huge."
An Ohio district
runs a laboratory
to build digital skills
Mentor, Ohio
http://www.edweek.org/go/blended-barriers
Education Week - April 15, 2015 - Special Report

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