“What great things have happened thanks to the generosity of the Jennings Foundation,” says Twinsburg Superintendent Kathi Powers, who received the Foundation’s 2019 Ohio Outstanding Superintendent Award to expand the Tiger Learning Lab Project in her district. Begun in 2018-2019 as a pilot program, this blended learning project combines active, engaged learning online with similar classroom instruction. This allows students more control over the time, place, path, and pace of their learning. Through independent, small group, and studio work, teachers are building strong relationships with students - both personally and academically – fulfilling an effort to educate the whole child.

Twinsburg is still at the very beginning steps of implementing blended learning as a district initiative, says Mrs. Powers, who was able to use award funds to hire former Twinsburg elementary teacher Lauren Pfenning as a dedicated blended learning coach. Her role is to design professional development and support teachers as the work they slowly adopt blended learning practices. 

Ms. Pfenning first dabbled with blended learning herself after attending an introductory professional development session on the topic in October, 2018.  A sixth grade classroom teacher at the time, she says she was intrigued by the idea of “pace, place, and path” and creating an environment where students truly have a voice in their learning. With input from her students, she began her blended learning work by changing the “space” in her classroom from a more traditional setting to one that encompassed four different studios – small group instruction studio; digital content studio; independent studio; and future ready studio, which involves communicating, collaborating, creating, and critical thinking. Each studio offers a different approach to learning content, is designed to give students a variety of experiences, and allows students to take ownership of their learning. In practice, the studios take place in the classroom simultaneously and students choose which one they prefer to work on any given day. In one class session they may rotate through a couple studios.  A weekly checklist guides the students’ work and insures they ultimately complete assignments in all four areas.

“They love this,” remarks Katie Glavic, a third grade teacher at Samuel Bissell Elementary, who embraced blended learning early on and has embedded the strategies in her third grade mathematics classes.  “I have only been teaching five years and these are the concepts my professors talked about -- getting our students to be 21st century learners; making sure you are not the ‘be all end all’ in the classroom; making sure they take ownership of their learning; letting them decide which studio they want to work on depending on how they feel on a given day. That’s the great thing about the studios – students decided what they do.”

“Letting go of control was the hardest thing for me when I first attempted blended learning; but I just had to do it” admits Ms. Pfenning, who was thrilled to take on the role of dedicated blended learning coach in Twinsburg. In 2019-2020 she worked with 19 teachers in 16 classrooms throughout the district to implement the model. “In my 24 plus years of teaching,” she adds, “I have never had better relationships with my students. Because we make sure we touch base with every student every day.”

“So far we have enough interest and a growing interest for additional classrooms to be open to this model,” remarks Mrs. Powers, thinking ahead to the role she hopes blended learning will take on in the district.  “But if anything is going to take root well it has to be a true partnership between administration and the teaching staff; there has to be a desire on everyone’s part. We are asking teachers to change, shift paradigm, look at teaching in a different way, step away from being the teacher on the stage and allowing children some independence to take hold of their own learning. Thanks to the generosity of the Jennings Foundation we are able to have Lauren here and offer professional development to our staff.

Samuel Bissell’s Principal, Misty Johnson acknowledges the growing interest she has noticed in her staff as a few early adopters model the strategies for their colleagues: “Any time you have a new initiative, people are curious about it. It brings out a level of excitement because it’s something new. It opens up conversation and dialogue. For some teachers it’s rejuvenating, because there are new ways to present strategies to students that are very beneficial.

“I am very excited about it,” she continues. “When we were growing up, we sat in the classroom with our hands up waiting to be called on. Now there is a lot of collaboration among peers, partner work, self-directed work. It changes the whole dynamic of teaching.”

“The enthusiasm of my staff is at such a high level,” Mrs. Powers adds. “Veteran teachers as well as those new to the field are energized by what blended learning is doing in their classrooms. That’s so important because when you talk about what makes a successful classroom, first and foremost it’s the teacher and what he or she is doing to help students reach their own personal levels of success.

“If I had a magic wand, I’d like to see blended learning here in all my classrooms. But anything great takes time to grow and lots of resources to support it.”

How was virtual teaching/learning in your district during the COVID-19 impacted by the work you had done with Blended Learning?

Mrs. Powers: The fourth quarter of the 2019/2020 school year was a unique time, however our educators quickly transitioned to remote teaching while our students transitioned to remote learning. Thanks to the strong partnerships we have with our families, our students were provided rich instruction, developed and taught by our teachers, and supported by our parents.  Students in our Blended Learning classrooms were more successful in their transition to distance learning as they had experience in using chromebooks as instructional tools. The Blended Learning model increased the capacity of our students to work on independent tasks as classroom experiences had engaged them in learning online.  Further, classroom activities were student-centered and provided opportunities for students to take control of their own learning.  Our students had become proficient in their control of the time, place, path and pace of their learning while in the classroom, thus, the transfer of these skills was seamless.  Our Blended Learning teachers continued to motivate their students, leading them in academic discovery and connecting concepts with personal experiences.