Ready to Blend
This podcast includes the audio from Patience Nyanway's short film: "Student and Parent Reflections from this School Year." You'll hear Patience interviewing several families. Patience's production gives voice to her community and reminds us of the real children affected by school closures. To see the video version of the film, subscribe to our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/readytoblend01.
info_outline 30. Online and Blended Learning Fundamentals: Learning from the PioneersReady to Blend
In this class, you’ll look backward at how online and blended learning emerged over the past 20 years in K-12 education. With that context, you’ll look forward to imagine the online and blended solutions for the future. You’ll consider your personal openness to trying new strategies. You’ll analyze your learning design to check for the quality of engagement. And you’ll prioritize how to optimize the teacher’s use of time.
info_outline 29. Helping Children Feel Safe to ShareReady to Blend
In this class, Heather teaches three ways to build bridges that help learners connect across any divide they might be experiencing so that they feel safe enough to speak up and express themselves, whether at school or home.
info_outline 28. Using Games to Support Children Socially and EmotionallyReady to Blend
I've restructured this podcast as a class, so that each episode going forward will teach a skill to help you blend online learning into school and home.
info_outline 27. Where Do We Go from Here? with Atomi's Simon HennessyReady to Blend
We are alive right at the moment when there's an opening of opportunity to retool the classroom for the end user. We have the will plus the disruptive innovations to do it.
info_outline 26. Developing Student-centered TeachersReady to Blend
What's the best way for school leaders to equip teachers with the skills they need to transform their instructional model? In this show, Heather Clayton Staker shares her latest research from the Christensen Institute that proposes a way forward for the PD solution that schools urgently need.
info_outline 25. Hacks for Solving Esteem GapsReady to Blend
Inequities grow worse for each day that children lack “flex” environments that are blended (online and face-to-face) and that help them make progress, whether they are in in-person or remote setups.
info_outline 24. Hacks for Solving Social Belonging GapsReady to Blend
Feeling lonely, depressed? Small wonder . . . the world is locked in social distancing, and humans brains are wired to suffer as a result. We can’t fully solve for social isolation right now. But we can avoid pitfalls that make loneliness worse.
info_outline 23. Hacks for Solving Safety GapsReady to Blend
The shifting pandemic and school closures are opening safety gaps for many families and children, including personal, financial, and emotional insecurities.
info_outline 22. Hacks for Solving Physiological GapsReady to Blend
School closures and lockdowns are causing major physiological gaps for some children in the form of food, exercise, and sleep shortages, while other children are benefiting physiologically. Caregivers and educators want to help solve for physiological gaps, but it's not obvious how to do that.
info_outlineWhat could schools be? Best-selling author and film producer Ted Dintersmith contends that the 20th-century school design does a disservice to children today. Schools should be retooled, starting by de-emphasizing testing.
“Low-level tests prepare children to be good at exactly what artificial intelligence excels at,” according to Dintersmith. “What if our measures of success actually impair children for their future?”
In this podcast, Heather Clayton Staker and Ted Dintersmith discuss whether the “will-this-be-on-the-test? mentality” embeds a values system in today’s learners that systematically erodes their larger sense of purpose.
Dintersmith believes that schools can move beyond flashcards, test prep, and learning irrelevant skills. During this interview, he questions what the purpose of school is and then points to schools around the U.S. that are replacing test prep with four “PEAK” principles:
Purpose—Students believe in the importance of their work.
Essential Skills and Mindsets—Learning experiences foster competencies that are essential to adults (e.g., creative problem solving, critical analysis, communication, collaboration, citizenship, character).
Agency—Students create their learning experiences, set their goals, manage their progress, and evaluate their work.
Knowledge: Students develop real mastery of the topics they study. They can apply it, ask thoughtful questions about it, and teach others.
To learn more from Ted Dintersmith, visit https://teddintersmith.com/. His Innovation Playlist is available for free at https://teddintersmith.com/innovation-playlist/.
Ready to Blend is sharing the link to his “Most Likely to Succeed” video at this week’s blog, What School Could Be.