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Initially in many institutions the move will be crude pedagogically, with an emphasis on video recording of lectures and flipped classes, or merely increasing the amount of online learning supporting regular classes. Over time, though, as instructors get more experience in hybrid learning, get more instructional design support, and greater pressure from the administration, full course re-design will increase, but major redesigns around hybrid learning may take as long as five years in many institutions. One reason for this slow adoption of re-design is the current lack of appropriate models for hybrid learning that have been tested and evaluated; this will change though as experience grows. Best practice for hybrid learning will emerge, as it did for fully online learning.

10. Expect the unexpected: One year: 100%; Three years: 100%; Five years: 100% These are the monsters lurking in the shadows. In online learning, the only thing you can really be certain of is the uncertainty. These are Donald Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns, so by definition they are unpredictable or non-forecastable. However, there are also some known unknowns that perhaps we should discuss. (MOOCs are good examples – they were known in 2011, but the likelihood that they would take off in 2012 in the way they did was not known, at least by most pundits.) Here are some possible bogeymen to lie awake worrying about:

the privatization of post-secondary education in the USA. Many states are in dire financial trouble. Will this result in some states privatizing their public post-secondary education systems? What price would Alabama State University fetch from a commercial buyer and how would that affect the state’s finances? If some states do decide on privatization, expect online learning to increase – indeed, online learning will likely increase in financially challenged states without privatization, because, rightly or wrongly, it will be seen as cheaper; also expect federal student financial aid to take a hit in the USA as Congress grapples with the deficit. a major Internet player (Apple, Google, Facebook or Amazon) jumps into the online learning market, perhaps in partnership with some elite universities, and takes a major share of the for-credit online market, because of lower costs, quality content, and accreditation from elite universities (but with a different category of degree from their on-campus programs) The US Congress backs publishers and shuts down all publicly funded open educational resources; copyright legislation is tightened on US-based Internet companies making it all but impossible to use educational resources over the Internet for free major power shortages/outages, due to bad weather/a surge in energy prices/political activists (pick your reason) makes online delivery increasingly unreliable during winter quantum computing arrives at a reasonable cost and completely changes the game.

Blended learning can be a great way to make use of whatever technology tools you do have, rather than needing specific technology that you don’t have. Blended learning doesn’t require you to have a 1:1 classroom, a certain number of iPads, or particular software, though you can put any and all of those things to use as you choose. Thus, blended learning covers a lot of ground – and in the process it helps to make learning more engaging, effective, and efficient.

Careful planning and a strong understanding of blended learning will help make the transition much more smooth.  Enter: the handy infographic below. It takes a look at how to set up a blended learning environment, some of the features of a great blended learning program, and some other tidbits of information. Keep reading to learn more!

Content and apps are aligned with CCSS Standards aligned performance and assessment tasks Comprehensive learner profiles including student portfolios Consideration of learning level, student performance, and best learning modality Good reporting functionality

The Shanghai teacher and Singapore teacher ratios of teaching time to collaboration time reveal even larger disparities. The Shanghai teacher reported teaching 15 hours a week and collaborating 7.5 hours a week. The Singapore teacher spends 18 hours teaching and 15 hours collaborating each week. Spending so much time collaborating with other teachers every week is not a reality for U.S. teachers who feel lucky to chat with their colleagues at lunch or in biweekly faculty meetings. The differences in professional development systems do not end here though. In Singapore, teachers are expected to do 100 hours of professional development (paid by the ministry of education) every year. That would be 500 hours in five years. In Shanghai, teachers are expected to do a minimum of 360 hours of professional development every five years -- compare that to the mere 120 hours of professional development that is typically required of U.S. teachers every five years.

To hear some ed tech enthusiasts tell it, online learning is sweeping aside the barriers that have in the past prevented access to education. But such pronouncements are premature. As it turns out, students often carry these barriers right along with them, from the real world into the virtual one.

These dismally low numbers provide a reminder that “access” to education is more complicated than simply throwing open the digital doors to whoever wants to sign up. So how can we turn the mere availability of online instruction in STEM into true access for female students?

One potential solution to this information-age problem comes from an old-fashioned source: single-sex education. The Online School for Girls, founded in 2009, provides an all-female e-learning experience.

Fixed mindset people dread failure, feeling that it reflects badly upon themselves as individuals, while growth mindset people instead embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and improve their abilities.

We have to really send the right messages, that taking on a challenging task is what I admire.

In my mind, a solid 4 rating means that your adult professional embraces feedback, both formal and informal and has strong systems and processes in place that encourage feedback - things like annual faculty,  parent, and board surveys, intentionally designed evaluation processes for students, faculty, staff and leadership that happen at minimum annually, but even better quarterly, regular audits of programs, curriculum, pedagogy, time and space.  Other good signs that your culture supports feedback might be meetings that end with questions like, "How are we working together as a team/department?" and "What can we do to get better at this work?"  and school leaders who ask their reports with genuine curiosity,  "What can I do to better support your work?"  "What do you think about this idea?" or "How did this meeting go for you?"

What if you spent a week "playing anthropologist" with the following question in mind: "What evidence do I see that our adult community has a strong culture of feedback?" 

Good self-control has also been shown to be a key component of grit — perseverance in the face of educational challenges. It’s no wonder, then, that colleges have placed great emphasis on teaching students better self-control.

But the strategies that educators are recommending to build that self-control — a reliance on willpower and executive function to suppress emotions and desires for immediate pleasures — are precisely the wrong ones. Besides having a poor long-term success rate in general, the effectiveness of willpower drops precipitously when people are feeling tired, anxious, or stressed. And, unfortunately, that is exactly how many of today’s students often find themselves.

Efforts to emphasize willpower and executive function to achieve self-control are largely ineffective in helping those students.