research and innovation: The Perfect blend for implementing change

As we conclude another class as part of our M.Ed. in Digital Learning and Leading, I wanted to take this time to reflect on some of the things I learned in this course "Digital Learning in a Local and Global Context".  As part of this course, we were invited to review several readings and research on digital initiatives from all over the world.  It's amazing to see how may school systems and organizations are constantly looking to better student learning outcomes through the use of technology.  What I mainly focused on were the initiatives that more closely matched my innovation plan: Blended Learning Professional Development: Preparing Teachers for the Blend. One of my overarching questions was "what is the relationship between research and innovation?".  Because I've heard people say research is in the past and innovation is about forward movement and progression.   I took this question to our district's Learning Forward consultant, Linda, and she helped me make sense of it.  She said that research is what points us to the things that are effective -the things that work.  Innovation comes when we take that research and answer the "what" and "how" we will accomplish what is effective.  When you think about it, no one argues with Marzano on his strategies, but many have found creative, innovative ways to incorporate those effective strategies in their learning environments.  Linda's response helped me to really appreciate and dig deep for research that supported the need for blended professional development. In fact, based on my research I updated a variety of components in my innovation plan.

what I learned

When it comes to teacher professional development, researchers have found that a blended learning model is effective in reaching today’s educators with its flexibility and ability to meet the needs of the busy, time limitations of classroom teachers (Ho, 2016).   One way they did that was in the way they designed their blended professional development course.  In Vietnam, their Ministry of Education posits that teacher professional development is effective when it has the following key management components: knowledge co-creation, knowledge internalization, knowledge sharing and knowledge evaluation (Ho, 2016).   In fact, when it came to planning for their blended professional learning course, they made sure that these key components were a part of their virtual model as well (Ho, 2016).  Their design and that of Jason T. Green as mentioned in their book, Blended Learning in Action, helped me to see the importance of design and the research-based components for designing effective blended professional development.  Jason T. Green shared research from Stanford on the four promising practices that have emerged for effective professional development: duration and distribution (ongoing and over time), coaching and collaboration (teachers learning from other teachers with guided support), simulation of practice (should explicitly include constructing something they can use in their learning environment, and technology (for differentiation and flexibility) (Tucker, Wycoff, & Green, 2017).  I appreciated seeing that this was not just a great idea but that the concept of creating blended professional development for our teachers helped them to sit in the seat of the learner and realize the benefits of blended learning from a different perspective.

​I'm looking forward to learning more in our professional learning course for what my blended professional learning course will look like.

References:
Ho, V., Nakamori, Y., Ho, T., & Lim, C.P. (2016) Blended Learning Model on Hands-On Approach for In-Service Secondary School Teachers: Combination of E-Learning and Face-to-Face Discussion.  Education and Information Technologies, 21(1), 185-208.


Tucker, C. R., Wycoff, T., & Green, J. T. (2017). Blended Learning in Action. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.