Understanding Digital Integration

Introduction

Post-pandemic (if that’s even a thing, since it feels like we are still squarely in the thick of things), we as teachers have learned to be even more flexible than we ever thought we could be. And I’ll be honest, flexibility can cause some real stress. That cortisol is pumping into my stomach everytime we “redirect” at the tip of a hat. But, what did come out of all this is that I became better at making sure that all of my information was easily transferable, which in turn pushed my curriculum and classroom (online and in-person) to be more universally designed. 

In this article I will share what I have learned about incorporating technology effectively in online, face-to-face, and mixed modalities while teaching high school and college students. You will notice that we begin with basic face-to-face classroom digital integrations and then go all the way to a full flipped classroom. Move through each based on your comfort level and what you have time for in your busy schedule. Some of these may just be an idea to implement over a longer period of time.

Face-to Face 

Many of us are back to a fully face-to-face classroom experience. While being fully face-to-face means a lot more paper (especially if you are not a one-to-one computer type school), there are still a few digital integrations that I add to make sure that I can support students and parents no matter the circumstances. My LMS is essentially my savior. My county uses Canvas LMS to give students access to digital materials and, even though my school is in a “bring your own device” district and not everyone has access to the same technologies, I was able to add extensive online access to our course materials.

I would take my lesson plans and put them up into a module page for each week. This allowed me to plan directly into the LMS and all I had to do was change the words to meet my student audience. Plus, if parents or absent students ever want to know what is happening in class, I don’t have to take extra time typing things out into individual emails every time someone needs something, and they Always need something. My students often hear “Have you checked Canvas?” before I answer any further questions. Even though there is more work up front, adding this online access made my life so much easier later on. I could also indicate where each class stopped reading or working on an activity to remind me and the students what we completed during that class period. Plus, when everything started hitting the fan and going digital, my students already knew how to get the information they needed and the transition was much easier for all of us. 

Even if you are not able to add full lesson plans, you can still help students by adding PowerPoints, extra resources, and a place to submit assignments. Even when students turned in a physical copy of an assignment, I had them turn in a digital one as well.  Then there is no way I can “lose” a paper and everything is time stamped in the LMS. 

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Teaching Online

I mostly teach or tutor online nowadays. I never expected to truly enjoy setting up everything online for students to access and review at any time. Apparently, I have a knack for organization and content writing. Who knew? It definitely comes with its own set of challenges, though. Essentially, some of the best online classroom tools are those that are the most simple. 

Teaching online is a lot of prep work before it can work for you as the semester goes on. Students tend to be confused when there is more work in place of class time and are not sure how to adapt to that. Plus, there can be a lot of information to move through and a lot of room for misinterpretation, especially when you are teaching a brand new topic that students have very different, pre-existing ideas about. For instance, I teach first year college composition fully online. In this class, we break down everything that students know about writing and turn it on its head to see if they can look at writing from a research perspective; how do you write about writing? They learn research strategies, data collection, research writing structures, data analysis, and revision strategies. To say students are lost in a face-to-face class where I can immediately answer their questions is an understatement, let alone teaching it fully online. 

But over the years, I learned that teaching online is all about the set-up and consistent structure. I added videos of what I would have lectured on in class, added simple 3-question video quizzes where the last question was always asking what clarification they needed, and a weekly reflection on that week’s learning. Students were also given a survival guide for the class and a quick-and-easy first week module on learning styles to help them prepare for the semester. Students needed space to be able to ask questions easily and quickly (quizzes) and know where to get information as the semester progressed (survival guide). In an online environment, there is a lot of repetition (like we do naturally in the classroom). But in the online environment, the writing is changed a little each time in order to meet multiple students' perspectives. 

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You can also access my Free Digital Feedback Guide to help get your toes wet in this area.

Blended Learning

So what’s blended learning? Blended learning is where teachers purposefully integrate digital aspects into their curriculum and activities in order to enhance student learning. Now, this is not just having a computer in the room, just for the sake of it. True blended learning is a little more complicated than that. But, fear not, I am here to help!

Blended learning is a lot about purpose and efficiency. When integrating digital tools into my classroom, I always ask myself why I need this techy aspect: Is it just the cool factor I’m searching for? Will students be more engaged? Does it enhance my learning objective or make it easier to understand it? How will students use this technology to work through the content in an easier or more accessible way? Ultimately, try and see how digital tools help students learn. 

Once you have determined that you actually need to integrate technology into the classroom, you can use classroom tech in various ways. Blended learning can be as simple as incorporating a Kahoot (again only to enhance learning and not just because) or Socrative Space Race effectively, using laptops in different stations that can help with research or revision or lecture, or even to have students share information more easily. Each tool or use has its own caveats of course; but overall, I have found that blended learning does help when used appropriately.

In my classroom, I love using blended learning stations in particular. Some stations do not have any technology while others have students working on laptops or phones, in groups or individually. For instance, while introducing students to Edgar Allen Poe for our short story unit, I designed stations. One station included a web search to learn about Poe’s life and go on a virtual tour of a Poe Museum. Other stations did not include technology and instead had students writing notes from a printed PowerPoint (sometimes I found/recorded a video lecture and included that instead), a game to understand literary device definitions, and a mini lesson with me where we read through the first part of one of Poe’s stories to understand exposition, setting, and the elements of suspense. 

As you can see, digital integration was not necessarily needed in every station and so I made use of the limited computer access in my classroom and only made one station predominantly technology based. 

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Mixed-Mode

Mixed-Mode classrooms may not be available to a lot of high school teachers, though some dual-enrollment teachers might see this modality. I see mixed-mode used predominantly at the college level. As such, when I teach this modality to college freshmen, I use a lot of digital tools and sequences to help me. A mixed-mode class is where part of the class is online and the other portion is in person. Essentially, you are using strategies from online teaching as well as those in face-to-face teaching environments. Personally, I love this modality because it allows a more focused design for student learning. 

Mixed-modality courses can have a variety of structures: such as meeting on Monday and Wednesday, but Friday’s lesson is online or meeting on Tuesday and online on Thursday or vice versa. Each of these structures will influence how a mixed mode curriculum is delivered. I have had the opportunity to teach in all varieties and have learned a few things about my face-to-face and online course curriculum while designing mixed-mode. 

For mixed-mode, it helps to have everything planned out ahead of time (at least structure wise), just like you would in a fully online class. My first semester teaching mixed-mode I took over for another instructor during the first week of school. To say I was a tad stressed about the limited planning time in a new modality, would be an understatement. I like to see if I can put content learning and smaller individual assignments online, so that students can come to class and focus on discussion or application of that content while they have me as a direct resource. This modality takes on a semi-flipped classroom perspective. The goals of a flipped classroom model are different from mixed-mode; however, you are able to adapt some of those concepts to work in a mixed-modality classroom. I find that this makes class time far more important for students. 

Within mixed-mode classes, you are able to optimize what happens during class time and make sure that students have access to the content whenever they need to review (since it is already online). Mixed-mode may only be available to college instructors, but I found the concepts and structures that I learned when designing activities and curriculum for this modality impacted all of the other modalities I taught as well.

Flipped Classroom

The official flipped classroom model includes four pillars, i.e. F-L-I-P. A flipped classroom must have: flexible environment, learning culture, intentional content, and a professional educator. Now, these terms may sound extremely vague and broad, because, on their own, they are. I will go into each one briefly here and then discuss some options for incorporating flipped classroom principles into your classroom. If you would like more information on the flipped classroom strategies, subscribe to my Newsletter so that I can send you updates as more articles are released on this topic and others. 

Remember that an entirely flipped classroom is a huge endeavor. I did not start by flipping my entire classroom. I look like the emoji with the eyes popping out whenever I think about trying that in one sitting. Instead, I started with one lesson and it grew from there. And sometimes, the flipped classroom model just didn’t work for a particular face-to-face or virtual outcome/activity/class day, so I used other strategies. The integration of any digital tools or strategies is all about how it helps the students, and sometimes, technology just isn’t needed.

Having a flexible Environment simply means that you are going to change the space for students. This may mean using online learning at home or it might mean moving the physical space of your classroom for groups or independent study. Ultimately, students are able to have choice in how they are learning. This flexibility also adjusts timelines for when learning is being completed and when assessments occur. 

Learning Culture can be translated as having a student-centered learning environment. You move away from teacher-centered activities and make students responsible for their own learning in order to deepen knowledge and actively include students in their own education. We all want students to invest in their own learning, so this part is more than likely a part of your regular classroom routine. 

Just like we have discussed before, the strategies must be intentional. As such, intentional content means that you, as the instructor, provide adequate resources and accessibility to content that students need to deepen their learning. Teachers provide this, but they also allow students to work through the materials and explore on their own. 

A professional educator is pretty on the nose. In other words, be you! If you are reading this right now, I have no doubt that you are a professional educator that wants to learn more about better serving the students in your classroom. You are reflective of the pedagogy that you teach, use feedback to adjust, and allow students to work through their own learning with your support. 

Now, to implement the flipped classroom, you will want to really plan out your lesson. Starting to notice a trend about digital integration? Hint: planning is essential. Then, determine which lesson you want to flip and why. This will make sure that you can identify what parts of the lesson should be before class, during class, or after class. 

In a flipped classroom, the remembering and understanding parts of Bloom’s Taxonomy come before class. Create a video (or find one already on the internet) that teaches the concept that you would like to teach and have students review this online before class. I will also add a reading or something else with this video and even go as far as to add it to EdPuzzle with questions throughout the video to ensure that students are understanding the concepts before class. 

When students come to class, you can review the very basics, but don’t spend class time going over the before class content. Going over the flipped content will only teach students that they do not have to do the previous work and you end up wasting class time teaching the concept (aka extra work for you and what you were trying to avoid). 

So when students enter class, you can begin with a brief quiz or journal entry or note check to test their knowledge of the previous material. Then, jump right into your class where you focus on the application and analysis of the content students learned before class. This may be a discussion, a game, a worksheet, an essay, stations, etc. Homework transitions into evaluating or creating something to extend and solidify what was done in class. 

A set-up like this is pretty standard for a flipped classroom; however, there are other options, including having stations in class that have part of the class learning the content and part of the class analyzing or applying the content. 

In my classroom, I had students watch Edpuzzle videos that were Crash Course YouTube videos on Romeo and Juliet, as well as some reading or watching of the play itself before they came to class. Then, during class, I set up different group stations to discuss each scene and analyze a specific topic: characterization, plot development, author’s choice, etc. For homework, students had to write a short evaluation paragraph of how all those aspects came together to support a major theme in the play. 

Just keep in mind that using the flipped classroom model is not an all-or-nothing strategy. You can try this out for one lesson, you can create your own recordings, you can incorporate it throughout. Whatever you decide should work for your circumstances. 

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Overview

Deep breath…that was a lot of information on different options to integrate technology into your classroom. And these were the succinct versions! I’m proud of you for making it this far! Okay Jewels, calm down with the exclamation points; don’t want to scare anyone off…

There is a ton that you can find about each of these strategies, depending on what you want to learn. This article serves as a way to see which options work for you and focus on said topic(s).

Subscribe to my Newsletter if you would like to see articles about any of the above topics. I add new (and free) information all the time and give my email subscribers some bonus materials as well.

You can also look at the resources for sale in my TeachersPayTeachers store, which are formatted for both online and face-to-face uses.