Have you ever dreamed of writing and publishing your very own novel?
I sure have!
It's on my bucket list for sure.
So what's a great way to practice?
Well I can try to get an article published, of course!
These past few weeks have been a whirlwind of research, exploration, writing, and editing! What fun to create and master the art of writing with the hope of becoming published in an educational magazine!
First of all, my first draft required IDEAS and... an outline.
Hannah’s Publication Overview Outline
Outline Subject/Topic:
“Blended Learning”
What is the topic of your article?
The topic I wish to continue researching and would eventually enjoy publishing includes the ideas surrounding “blended learning.” This would be both a relevant and helpful topic for businesses, educators, and learners everywhere at this time, especially with the onslaught of working from home and online learning due to the health and safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
What is the connection to your innovation plan or initiative?
Growth and personalization can help everyone! My innovation plan focuses on how “blended learning” creates personalized ways for each learner or customer to fully benefit from a unique approach or pathway, created just for them. “Blended learning,” as explained within my innovation plan, can target users and learners to create a best-fit experience for each situation.
How can this information help others?
Schools and workplaces around the world have shifted perspectives. Due to the recent state of affairs concerning global health, many companies and education systems have shifted temporarily or long-term to an online format. Meetings can now be held online with ease and distance learning has become a common phrase among educators. The implementation of “blended learning” within any context can help assist and strengthen the organization, motivation, and relevance of tasks which must be completed.
Lessons learned or hoped to learn?
While further diving into this topic, it would be great to better understand how mixing in-person learning with digital learning can better create a unique and differentiated user experience within a classroom or a business setting. I already know and have seen how immediate feedback can create a positive working environment for young student learners. This creates a wonderful combination of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation when relevancy and choice are added into the mix. I hope to learn and research more about how businesses can adopt and utilize this model as well.
What digital resources will be included in your article? Briefly describe.
When it comes to digital resources within the classroom, I would like to include resources I have utilized myself which have helped see exponential growth within my middle school students. One of these is the website Newsela, which allows students to: annotate articles of their choice including highlighting and adding margin notes, choose their own Lexile reading level for the article, complete a writing prompt upon completion of the reading, and also take a short comprehension quiz which offers immediate feedback and explanations for the answers. A second resource is the website NoRedInk, which allows students to: complete grammar tasks in self-paced gaming format, receive immediate feedback about correct and incorrect answers, work through examples and explanations of each task before beginning, and also expand their knowledge beyond the basic task itself. In addition to these websites, I would like to find apps and online resources which can connect similarly to the benefit of the business world.
Think of your audience, digital presence, and the message you hope to communicate.
The audience for my article would mostly consist of educators and business owners hoping to further engage their students or deepen their customer experiences. Publishing my knowledge and research through the means of a digital magazine or journal might make the most sense for the type of readership I might be hoping to reach, teach, and influence! The message I seek to communicate includes the overarching theme of “finding a better tomorrow, today” through explaining how the dark days of a pandemic can have a hopeful outlook on the future of our teaching and business perspectives, if only we choose to continue moving forward through innovation together.
Then, I realized that the next step to take was to write... my first draft!
Publication ROUGH DRAFT
Title: “It’s a Jungle Out There - How Blended Learning Can Help”
Written by: Hannah Anderson
The rainforest regions of Cameroon contain more than just beautiful ferns and chimpanzees. On a global scale, it also remains an area most affected by the presence of malaria (Nyasa et al., 2021). Pools of stagnant water tend to attract mosquitoes who harbor these parasites; they lay eggs and the cycle continues. Thirsty gorillas and gazelles will walk past these small pools of water instead seeking water sources that ebb and flow, changing over time. This is where our focus should lie when it comes to schools as well.
The world of education is never stagnant and it is forever seeking new best practices for both teachers and learners. For centuries, curriculum and learning systems have been constantly changing and evolving. When it comes to innovation, where have you and your school recently considered shifting its priorities and perspectives? Within current classroom environments, differentiated activities have plowed the way for methodology and teaching strategies to refocus on what really matters: student-centered learning. This pedagogical shift in focus has led to deeper data analysis, more student choice, flexible student seating arrangements, additional formative assessments, and more immediate student feedback. These ideas, however, are at odds with the actual current structure in place within educational school settings: with teachers still being the primary source of knowledge in the classroom. This can be remedied with one simple restructuring, toward the focus of blended learning.
Education throughout the 2020-2022 pandemic rollercoastered from complete district closure, to in-person but socially distanced classrooms, from fully online courses, to mask mandates, into hybrid learning, and beyond. Families have been forced to go with the flow, student focus has fluctuated, and teachers have been given the ability to reevaluate their lesson delivery and teaching practices. What a breakthrough! Globally, teachers have been pushed to form creative solutions to create amazingly unique learning experiences, for the better. Some educators may return to normal whereas the first opportunity presents itself, while other educators may enlist this time to shift, refocus, and grow. These teachers can consider the implementation of blended learning structures and strategies.
The ideas surrounding blended learning include technology use to create more differentiated learning experiences for each student in the classroom (Horn & Staker, 2017). The idea of utilizing technology to allow every student to pace themselves and expand upon each subject is a unique benefit to implementing this idea since it creates an immediate growth mindset classroom working environment (Dweck, 2017). No longer lost in the jungle, blended learning turns stagnation into success.
References
Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset: changing the way you think to fulfil your potential (6th ed.).
Robinson.
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2017). The blended workbook: learning to design the schools of
our future. Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.
Nyasa, R. B., Fotabe, E. L., & Ndip, R. N. (2021). Trends in malaria prevalence and risk
factors associated with the disease in Nkongho-mbeng; a typical rural setting in the
equatorial rainforest of the South West Region of Cameroon. PLOS ONE, 16(5).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251380
I was then able to receive feedback... from my peers!
On pages 3 & 4, you'll see some of the COMMENTS left by peers.
On page 5, you'll find the REFECTION I completed after my first draft was written. It helped me see where I'd like to focus my edits and where to continue to deepen my research.
I also received graded reviews and more specific FEEDBACK here on this chart my peer group created!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KWtSWbA_6OL5BGY7TBJk_eB_uUkLn8xi9imZ1J76O30/edit?usp=sharing
For my editing process, I made sure to take all perspective into account! One: from my peers. Two: From my professor and TA. Three: from myself!
The final draft of my essay grew into a longer written piece with a personal touch. I added stories and a connection to my own experiences!
Upon suggestion, I decided to also add in the perspective of the Social Process of TEAMWORK. It has really helped this article come together and interweave with my Innovation Plan's focus on Blended Learning ideas with strengthened connections. You'll find my final essay here, below.
Publication FINAL WRITTEN DRAFT
“It’s a Jungle Out There - How Blended Learning Can Help”
Written by: Hannah Anderson
The rainforest regions of Cameroon contain more than just beautiful ferns and chimpanzees. On a global scale, it also remains an area most affected by the presence of malaria (Nyasa et al., 2021). Pools of stagnant water tend to attract mosquitoes who harbor these parasites; they lay eggs and the cycle continues. Thirsty gorillas and gazelles will walk past these small pools of water instead seeking water sources that ebb and flow, changing over time. This is where our focus should lie when it comes to schools as well.
When reflecting upon the variety of classrooms in which I have taught, one thing rings true through them all despite grade or location. Teamwork. When students work together, amazing things can happen! Even over the course of a few short months, students change; especially when it comes to middle school students, they grow, they learn, they become more confident and inquisitive. Change is the great equalizer. In Thailand I will never forget my sixth grade student who never wanted to pick up a pencil at the beginning of the school year, but by December holidays was volunteering to take notes for their group project. In the U.S. I will never forget when my seventh grade student only read picture books at the beginning of the school year, but was reading Steven King by June. In the Dominican Republic I will also never forget when my eleventh grade student went from writing three-sentence paragraphs to multi-page research cited essays within one semester. These students truly embraced growth mindset (Dweck, 2017) and allowed the social processing lens of teamwork to spark their true inner potential.
In the same way, the world of education itself is never stagnant. It is forever seeking new best practices for both teachers and learners. For centuries, curriculum and learning systems have been constantly changing and evolving. When it comes to innovation, where have you and your school recently considered shifting its priorities and perspectives? Consider where changes can and should take place. Within current classroom environments, differentiated activities have plowed the way for methodology and teaching strategies to refocus on what really matters: student-centered learning. This pedagogical shift in focus has led to deeper data analysis, more student choice, flexible student seating arrangements, additional formative assessments, and more immediate student feedback. These ideas, however, are at odds with the actual current structure in place within educational school settings: with teachers still being the primary source of knowledge in the classroom. This can be remedied with one simple restructuring, toward the focus of blended learning.
Education throughout the 2020-2022 pandemic rollercoastered from complete district closure, to in-person but socially distanced classrooms, from fully online courses, to mask mandates, into hybrid learning, and beyond. Families have been forced to go with the flow, student focus has fluctuated, and teachers have been given the ability to reevaluate their lesson delivery and teaching practices. What a breakthrough! Globally, teachers have been pushed to form creative solutions to create amazingly unique learning experiences, for the better. Some educators may return to normal whereas the first opportunity presents itself, while other educators may enlist this time to shift, refocus, and grow. These teachers can consider the implementation of technology through blended learning structures and strategies.
Blended learning is not a new idea. The origins can even be traced back to the 1990s (Friesen & Lowe, 2012) when companies began to utilize additional technology into their training methodologies describing the technique as a way to blend together face-to-face and technology-centered learning (Cronje, 2020).
The ideas surrounding blended learning include technology use to create more differentiated learning experiences for each student in the classroom (Horn & Staker, 2017). The idea of utilizing technology to allow every student to pace themselves and expand upon each subject is a unique benefit to implementing this idea since it creates an immediate growth mindset classroom working environment (Dweck, 2017). No longer lost in the jungle, blended learning turns stagnation into teamwork success.
References
Cronje, J. (2020). Towards a new definition of blended learning. The Electronic Journal of E-
Learning, 18(2-Feb 2020). https://doi.org/10.34190/ejel.20.18.2.001
Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset: changing the way you think to fulfil your potential (6th ed.).
Robinson.
Friesen, N., & Lowe, S. (2012). Learning with web 2.0: social technology and discursive
psychology. E-Learning and Digital Media, 9(4), 375–384.
https://doi.org/10.2304/elea.2012.9.4.375
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2017). The blended workbook: learning to design the schools of
our future. Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.
Nyasa, R. B., Fotabe, E. L., & Ndip, R. N. (2021). Trends in malaria prevalence and risk
factors associated with the disease in Nkongho-mbeng; a typical rural setting in the
equatorial rainforest of the South West Region of Cameroon. PLOS ONE, 16(5).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251380
You can also locate my final draft on pages 6-8.
I am still hoping that my article can be published into an educational magazine or online journal. My tops choices remain as the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education
or the The Association for Middle Level Education Magazine, the former of which I subscribe to regularly and appreciate the user-generated content. I will continue to update this post if I am able to be published through the work I've done for this course!
It was so fun to see all the steps and research come together through this project. The research was enjoyable as well. I think the most fun part was the collaborative efforts made with others in this class. It was exciting to read their proposals and potentially help them become published too!
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