Innovation Project Reflection

The Innovation

When I first began the DLL journey, I had no idea what blended learning was. I had never heard the term. As we progressed through the first course, I realized it was something we already did in my class, but we could do it better. Our district had just become 1:1 with iPads, so blended learning seemed like a step in the right direction for myself and my peers. We began to use iPads during our literacy stations because it was appropriate with our students, and a natural fit for the devices. My innovation is on blended learning in kindergarten in order to help differentiate and enrich student learning. I created a video, plan, and a literature review to jumpstart the innovation in blended learning. The components of my innovation include bringing blended learning to kindergarten, with the ultimate goal of implementing blended learning in other grade levels.

How's it Going

I feel like during the 2020-2021 school year, my blended innovation was flowing and students were progressing at their own pace during my literacy station time. I was following the station rotation model. I originally had an ambitious plan and I was testing the waters and figuring things out along the way. One of the main reasons was because we had devices, and now we had a plan as to using them. This year is a whole other story. I now teach in a dual language setting, so instead of having about 16 students, I now have 23 students that switch every other day. The demographics in my classroom have changed, and so has the rhythm and flow that I used to have. This has changed my plans because I find it difficult to manage so many students this year. I also find that this group of students relies heavily on ipads as a way to self soothe or cope. Because of this, I have to strategically plan the time during the day they can use their device, in order to limit the screen time they are so addicted to. I say this, but the rest of my team seems to continue to use blended learning during their station time and it seems to be flowing for them, so the innovation keeps growing. I see that as a victory. I don't necessarily think there is a completion date, we will keep moving forward and keep pushing blended learning in our team and our school. We will be flexible and adjust to new groups of students and we will not stop reassessing.

I suppose I just didn’t take into account that each school year kids are different and I won’t always be teaching in a bilingual classroom. I continue to teach kindergarten, but the program I teach has changed and so have the students I serve. My class size has increased and now I teach two groups of 23 kids. I am super overwhelmed and feeling the burnout. These were things I was overlooking when planning for my innovation. When presenting an innovation I have to remember that teachers are experiencing burnout and I cannot over look that. However, I am still very proud of myself and my team for continuing the innovation and utilizing technology available to us appropriately. It is not easy nor is it pretty but the consistency will help in the big picture.

What Worked and Moving Forward

Through my blended learning innovation, I am constantly reminded how students and teachers are always so flexible. In order to for this innovation to be successful, being flexible and consistent will be needed. Students want to feel like they have a voice, feel challenged, especially when they are at different academic levels. Teachers want to create these learning environments where students take charge of their learning and feel successful regardless of where they are academically compared to others. The last few years in education have been extremely hard, but we are clearly capable of embracing change. Students are ready to be creative, feel challenged, and learn about the world. My innovation in blended learning has definitely put learning in the students’ hands and it has been exciting to witness.

No innovation plan is perfect, but we can make changes that will make our chances for success increase. That is one of the big things I have learned, it will not be perfect, but we can make changes as needed. I am so lucky that I get to work with Darlene Cornier on this plan at our campus, because collaboration is a must. The success of an innovation in blended learning depends on people willing to collaborate, work as a team, make adjustments, and make key changes when needed. She has supported me, and vice versa. Our team can see us working, and they have felt motivated to join us on this journey. Students have been receptive to blended learning. They are very comfortable using the devices and asking for help. They bring their iPads daily, fully charged, and ready to learn. Students are very comfortable and able to use devices properly. Few in the whole grade level have damaged their device.

Looking back and moving forward, our plan should include pre-k students. Our students this year are comfortable with devices because they were using them during hybrid learning last year. Pre-k students should be getting comfortable with devices as well so that they can be confident when they reach kindergarten. This might not be an issue next year, but it is something to keep in mind for the future. Based on readings, studies, and implementation so far, teachers also need more time for planning. It has been a tough few years in education and our workload has increased so much. We must work together and set time aside during planning to make sure we meet the needs of our teachers too.

Promoting the Innovation and Future Innovations

I think myself and Darlene do a good job at discussing how we can use blended learning to help close achievement gaps. Both of us modeling, collaborating, and discussing our successes has helped others on our team join us. We plan once a week with our team and we meet with our administrator for PLC once a week too. When discussing things such as reading groups and reading levels, we try to emphasize the use of blended learning to help get our students where they need to be by the end of kindergarten. We discuss what programs we are using and how our students are responding and improving their reading skills.

As a foundational teacher, I always think of leading with a strong foundation. In my next innovation project, I plan on continuing to collaborate with Darlene and others on my team. Collaboration is a must. I survived the DLL journey by collaborating with my peers and learning with them. At my school with my team, we will discuss the things our students need and build an innovation around that. I feel like blended learning had buy-in from our team because it helped us utilize devices and it helped students learn more reading skills at their own pace. Presenting a solution to a problem we are seeing in our grade level might motivate our team to want to try the innovation.