Innovation Plan

Dear Colleagues,

I am currently taking some amazing courses on digital learning at Lamar University. I have learned and grown a great deal and am passionate about using my research, collaboration and personal learning to drive change and help future teachers discover the world of blended learning that tears down the confines of their classrooms and turns the educational experience of students into something magical.

I propose that I provide, by modeling and co-teaching, blended learning experiences to the Instructional Practices in Education and Training (IPET) senior level courses. Allen ISD has a lot of great teachers that are innovative, creative and who are using available technologies is engaging ways. So much of what they have done and are doing was learned on the job as they craved more options for the creation and sharing of authentic, real world student work. There is incredible value in building capacity among the teachers by working alongside their colleagues who have tried, learned and tried again. However, I'm focussed on the pre pre-service teachers. Catching them while they are still in high school and laying the foundation for the experiences and expectations they should have in their future college level teacher preparation programs.

How does this proposal go from idea into action? When is this really going to happen? What are the next steps? Please see my proposed timeline. Being flexible and fluid will be important and some adjustments may be needed to accommodate for pre-scheduled activities. I am so excited about the initial conversations and questions that this proposal will bring to the surface. Questions like:

Why blended learning?
What is in the TEKS regarding blended learning?
What are our learning environments?
How do we set up the blend? What does it look like? (I have some ideas and video/article resources)
What are the goals? My personal goal for this semester would be for IPET students to deliver two well planned, blended lessons before graduation.
How do we align outcomes/activities/assessments?
How do we know learning is happening and our program is successful?

My literature review provides research and documentation to back up my passions. Blended learning positively impacts student engagement while the increasing availability of various technologies is constantly evolving and improving. Preparing future teachers to leverage available technology in seamless, meaningful ways is not something that happens accidentally or by chance. This preparation happens through intentional exposure, modeling and training of blended learning systems and strategies that future teachers will be able to set in motion in their own classrooms. Deliberately teaching blended learning in a blended learning model is the path to getting the most engaged and prepared teachers in front of our students. Additional articles that have caught my attention to review are included here.

Thank you for your consideration and I hope you will approve my proposal to work with the IPET classes.

-Ann Crowe