Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools

Blended learning is the new and upcoming buzz in the education world. Differentiation is a license to have more guilt about what you cant provide for your students. Blended learning is modernizing education making differentiation realistic in a class of 34. This books gives various models of blended learning. They also have QR Codes attached to videos of each model in practice in a classroom. This great read also gives an implementat ion plan for schools beginning with a rally cry for why. It truly changed how I provide instruction for my students.

The Christensen Institute scholars and experts have done it again. No matter how much of their work you have read before, they can't stop to amaze you. In this case in particular, it was great to see evidence of when the market is ready for an interdependent architecture to be disrupted by modular one, and which of the blended models are disruptive, and which are not. As the faculty member of one of the university, I have found the model that I want to try out. Can''t wait to see the results

The book has a lot of research and good writing behind it. Teachers who pick it up might question the practicality of some of the arrangements that are promoted in the book, such as a lot of costly and time consuming efforts to bring blended learning up to date. However, that is somewhat the point of the book: educators, above all, need a wake up call to being technology and methodologies into the range of the 21st century learners. This book will stretch most teachers who are willing to look at new perspectives about blending technology into our current status quo.

This book has been a wonderful tool for our school. I work at a PBL school that is now emphasizing blended learning and we have started a book club to try and consider our next steps in forming teams of "disruptive innovators". I've enjoyed the book, but sometimes the most helpful parts are the summaries at the end. I recommend this book to educators and administrators who have realized that traditional schools may not be what this generation of students need.

I purchased this book as part of a group book study among modern educators. It does a good job of describing the practice of blended learning, which involves sharing pre-recorded lessons with students who can then use class time for practice exercises. There are many variations, and they are covered in the book. Nevertheless, I don't agree with the title referring to this as disruptive innovation to improve schools. In reality, blended learning simply takes what would have been done in a live lecture format and lets students access the lecture at their own time and pace. There is certainly some advantage to the control of pacing. However, one is simply taking an outdated approach to learning (teacher-directed, textbook-style) and making it a little better. It is doing the wrong thing better rather than doing the right thing. Modern understanding of learning shows that student ownership and engagement are critical for real learning (not artificial academic memorization). The brain only functions most effectively when the emotions are involved, e.g. when students care about learning for their own purpose rather than to satisfy an adult or artificial requirement like a test score. Real disruption in education requires creating such a learning environment where teachers and students learn together and work on authentic issues while they learn. I encourage educators to look elsewhere such as student-centered, project-based learning and related approaches if they want all their students to be successful.

I love this effort to make it practical. We bought 6 copies for our Leader Team at Sevenstar. The writers blended their book by including 20 videos (accessed easily by a QR code) of Blended Learning in action at real schools. Nice!

This is an excellent read for educators. This is especially helpful for school leaders considering a move to a personalized learning model. Michael Horn's work and insight is a must in building a case for this shift.

Concisely written and easy to understand for individuals with no previous knowledge of blended learning.