BLENDED LEARNING COMES IN ALL FORMS AND SIZES: The Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation has partnered with the Evergreen Education Group to publish 12 case studies on blended learning and survey the outcomes in varying school districts. Each “proof point,” in their words, “highlights key details in the district’s blended-learning strategy, the EdTech products used, and promising results in the form of test scores and graduation rates.”
Here are a couple examples:
In Salt Lake City, the district’s three high schools were losing 10% of their students every year. Students dropped out or were referred out of the system into alternative school. The district created an entirely new school based on blended learning—Innovations Early College High School. Through a melange of different blended learning practices that increased student agency and engagement, Innovations reported a graduation rate of 89% for 2014, its third year in operation. That outpaces both Salt Lake City and the state’s graduation rates.
Spring-Ford Area School District in Pennsylvania implemented a full-school blended learning model back in 2012 for 130 students in grades K-4 in the launch of Spring City Elementary Hybrid Learning School, where “students rotate every 20 minutes between individual, collaborative, and direct-instruction stations in English language arts, math, science, and social studies classes.” Since implementation, the percentage of students testing at “proficient” or “advanced” levels on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment has increased by 19 percent.
