4 Things to Understand About Blended Learning Schools
Blended learning school basics for parents: how online and offline study combine, why teachers act as tutors and how parents guide children at home.
The development of information and communication technology has created a new learning system known as blended learning. A blended learning school is now becoming more common, particularly since the pandemic caused by the coronavirus outbreak. If you have school-age children, here are a few things to understand about this learning system.
Things You Should Understand About Blended Learning
1. Combining Face-to-Face and Independent Learning
If you are not yet fully sure what blended learning is, it helps to know that this learning system combines face-to-face learning with independent learning. As you know, face-to-face learning has been around for a long time, even before today's advanced technology was invented.
That existing system is now combined with independent learning, in which students can study on their own at home using many learning sources. Those sources are not limited to teachers or the school library; they can also be reached online, regardless of space and time.
2. Is Technology-Rich Teaching the Same as Blended Learning?
A blended learning school makes use of advanced technology like much of what is widely used today. But technology-rich teaching cannot always be called blended learning, because the internet cannot truly deliver instruction and content in this case.
On top of that, students have no control over the path or pace of learning, or over where and when it happens. The internet tools used here serve only a functional purpose, such as completing tasks or following instructions, and not for content.
3. Teachers Act as Tutors
As mentioned, technology-rich teaching is not always blended learning if it relies on the internet alone. Teachers are needed to act as tutors here. The teacher guides students throughout the teaching and learning process.
Students, in turn, are expected to raise whatever problems they run into while blended learning is under way. This raises students' engagement in learning. That is why teachers are still needed as tutors, even though blended learning includes an element of independent study.
4. Collaboration Between Teachers and Parents
Because children will study independently at home at certain times in a blended learning school, teachers and parents need to collaborate to guide the child. If the teacher plays the role of tutor, parents take on the role of mentoring.
Those are some things you should know and understand about blended learning. This learning system is what is needed today, in step with technological developments and adaptation to the pandemic period. The leading school SMM is one that has applied it for a long time, so its preparation is very thorough.
