Blended Education Offered in Hortonville Area School District

Now more than ever, students have numerous opportunities to learn, as well as multiple avenues to do so. That's why blended education is an option for students in the Hortonville Area School District (HASD).

Blended education is a class format where students have a mixture of face-to-face time with instructors as well as time to work online during and outside of class. Independent learning typically involves participating in online learning tools and activities, such as:

• Learning from key educational videos and recommended articles in the subject area
• Researching related information to specific topics
• Engaging in discussion boards with peers on learning targets
• Participating in online simulations
• Collaborating with students and experts outside of Hortonville Area School District
• Receiving personalize support from educators and experts in the subject matter

Currently, there are three departments in Hortonville High School (HHS) offering blended education opportunities. Examples include Infant and Toddler Development-an Early Childhood Education course taught by Stephanie Halverson, Integrated English 9 and Social Studies taught by Anne Brahe and Kristine Compton, and the Sociology course taught by Karen Koss.

While blended education is predominantly offered at the high school level, there are middle school teachers who have gone through training to be able to teach in this format. Currently, middle school classes are engaging in blended education on a unit or project basis within their classes.

Blended education is important to the future of education because it provides many benefits to students and fits well with how they learn. As Karen Koss put it:

“Students live in a world where everything is available online.  Blended learning is a good way to tap into student desires to network and collaborate online while also being guided by an instructor.  I think it works because students want to be creative and autonomous online, but still need to be guided.  Teachers and students are able to work together through a guided, collaborative learning process in a blended format.”    

Why blended education? "In blended classes students have more control of their learning. The flexibility and convenience allows them to access materials at any time, and anywhere, working at their own pace but they still retain social interactions with weekly face-to-face contact with the teacher and other students," explained Stephanie Halverson, FACE teacher. Another benefit is that blended/online activities free up teachers to provide more personalized instruction and meet individual student needs.

With seeing the benefits that this learning format can provide to students, HASD will continue to expand blended education offerings in the future. Scott Colantonio, HASD technology director, shared "one of our district strategic planning goals is that within three years, each high school department will offer at least one class that can be taken online or as a blended education course." While many students depend on the structure and schedule of traditional education environments, more and more students will develop the self-initiative to advance at their own pace within blended and online learning courses.

Members from the strategic planning committee are meeting with each department to ensure that all teachers learn how blended education meets the learning style of certain students, what courses are appropriate to offer in this format, as well as which teachers will develop a blended version of the course. Support for these teachers will be provided using blended educational resources. District curriculum leaders will monitor and assist educators to develop effective courses.

Learn more about blended education from iNACOL, the international association for K-12 online learning.