September 2002 — Features
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Bringing Induction to the Teacher: A Blended Learning Model
As we bring new teachers into the district, how do we optimize our time during induction week so that we can focus on our critical goals and not be sidetracked by so-called "administrivia"? What is the best way for them to learn our previous districtwide professional development experiences? How can we do a better job of getting them in the loop with how we do things? How do we make learning, knowledge building and knowledge sharing core values for new hires? These were the central questions we asked ourselves as we began planning the next induction period.
We have a weeklong induction experience. While it has been effective, we knew we could do better. It covered all the details of payroll, insurance and absence procedures, along with core professional expectations, such as "operationalizing" the district's mission, setting up classrooms and designing instruction. While new staff appreciated the crash courses, almost all said there was too much new learning, too fast. One of our district's central beliefs is that learning is not an event, but a process. And while there was one feedback session scheduled 30 days into the school year, the new teacher experience was: They came, they saw, they were buried.
We needed a way to dole out pieces of our district's know-how in manageable chunks. But, before we could do that, we needed to get a handle on exactly what our district knew. So, we became committed to building what we call our organizational memory. Rosenberg (2000) defines it as "a storehouse for collective intelligence." We decided to construct our organizational memory in our Web site, PrairiePride.org, making the content accessible both on and off campus.
The Model
We were committed to changing induction from an event to a process, but we needed a model to make this happen. While we loved the power and convenience that e-learning offered, we also knew that for our most important and complex ideas we would need some face-to-face time, as well. So, we adopted a blended learning model that com-prises both electronic and face-to-face interaction. Our blended learning model has four pieces:
1. Web-based delivery. We decided the best way to confront the time issue was to put the learning content on the Web. Instead of letting loose a blitzkrieg of information in five days, we now could dispense it in small chunks over the course of several weeks, depending on when the person was hired. The learner can then revisit the subject matter or tutorial as often as they need. Each chunk contains an expert's contact information in case the learner is confused or wishes to go deeper. Ultimately, this also reinforces our core value - learning. It also promotes independence and self-reliance, moving away from the notion that everything must be taught in a class to be learned.
We created a system where a new hire can expect to get six e-mails that contain links to Web-based, multimedia-rich newsletters.
