Blended Learning in Grades 4-12: Leveraging the Power of Technology to Create Student-Centered Classrooms

Use technology to focus on your students!

In this step-by-step guide, teacher and education blogger Catlin Tucker outlines the process for integrating online discussion with face-to-face instruction in a way that empowers teachers to focus their energies where they’re most needed. With concrete strategies, ready-to-use resources, and sample rubrics grounded in the Common Core State Standards, this book shows teachers how to:

• Increase engagement and drive higher-order thinking
• Prepare students for high-stakes exams without sacrificing class time
• Assess online work
• Personalize learning and differentiate lessons
• Move toward flipped instruction to create a student-centered classroom

Catlin Tucker earned her BA (English major) at UCLA, her MA & teaching credential at UC Santa Barbara in a special year-long accelerated program (one of 50 selected out of several hundred applicants). She has taught in Sonoma County schools for nine years, most recently at Windsor High School, where she was singled out as 2010 Teacher of the Year. She has taught 9^th & 10^th grade English/English Honors classes and 11^th grade Advanced Placement English. In addition to high school classes, she taught online college level research writing courses for three years through Axia College, which requires a different skill set than traditional classroom instruction. "My work in both environments guides my approach to blended learning, a combination of face-to-face instruction with work online," she explains. "I combine these skill sets to create resources and strategies that enable other educators to integrate an online component into their existing curriculum successfully."

Catlin employs a variety of efforts to achieve this end. She writes an education column for the San Francisco Examiner.com website, her own www.catlintucker.com educational blog and has developed a large following of educators on social networks such as Twitter. She has also contributed to a journal of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

As a curriculum design specialist, she has been contracted by her school district and a local education technology company, Democrasoft, to design curriculum and teacher support resources.

Recognition of her growing expertise on blended learning has led to an increasing number of speaking engagements and as a panelist at educational conferences across the US. During 2009-2010, she spoke at the Georgia Education Technology Conference, Ohio Education Technology Conference, MERIT conference and ISTE. She was also invited to address groups of its educators by the Alaska State Department of Education. Her 2011-2012 schedule is even more impressive:

• Technical Education Technology Conference (TIES), Minneapolis, December 2011
• Florida Educational Technology Conference FETC), January 2012
• Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), February 2012
• Ohio Educational Technology Conference, February 2012
• Instructional Technology Strategies Conference (ISTC) in Oregon in February 2012
• Computer Using Educators Conference (CUE), Palm Springs, California, March 2012
• ISTE annual conference, San Diego, California in June 2012

In addition to speaking at education technology conferences, Catlin designs and facilitates professional development for educators. She designed a 4-week course and an 8-week course - both virtual and interactive - that focused on blended learning. Her 8-week course was approved by Sonoma State University for university credit. She also leads professional development through established companies like Simple K12 which has asked her to present six separate webinars to date.

Catlin¿s work is receiving increased media attention. In addition to her contributions to the Examiner, she has been interviewed by Blog Talk Radio and by the Press Democrat, Sonoma County¿s newspaper. Good Magazine is filming a documentary on how technologies are changing education in which her work with Collaborize Classroom (free education platform) is featured. Through such sources, plus speaking engagements, conference presentations, professional development classes, social networking and blog, she reaches many thousands of educators each year.

She is currently on sabbatical for the 2011-2012 school year, working on this book, leading professional development, and designing curriculum. "Budget cuts in California have cost many teachers in my area their jobs. I knew taking this year off would allow another teacher in my department to keep his/her job," she explains. "Demacrasoft, the company that created Collaborize Classroom, has hired me to lead professional development and design curriculum. Democrasoft wants to support teachers to be successful in using its education platform to create a blended instruction model that allows teachers to be more effective, efficient and innovative."

The marketing team at Democrasoft - led by Mark Kithcart, a new media communications executive with deep experience in online media - has a strong presence in social media. "They are extremely excited about this Blended Learning book and intend to publicize it on the Collaborize Classroom website and elsewhere. Democrasoft plans to buy copies of to give away at conferences and events where I will be speaking. I believe they would be very enthusiastic to partner with Corwin to promote and publicize my book," Catlin reports.