Dear Superintendents, Curriculum Department, and Principals of NISD, 

Student engagement is vastly essential to all of our administrators here at NISD. We have discussed numerous times during our district walks that we do not want our students’ engagement to be simply “managed.” Instead, we want to see highly engaged, learner-centered classrooms. While this is our expectation, our teachers naturally lean toward a traditional classroom model where the teacher delivers the content and students show their knowledge via tests, quizzes, and worksheets. As a result, we as a district have felt it necessary to change our approach to student engagement.

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Additionally, while our district has been one-to-one since COVID-19 in 2020, it is clear that our teachers were thrown into a “blended learning” environment without proper professional development or expectations for blended learning. Blended learning transforms our classrooms from teacher-centered to learner-centered and allows our students to learn in an environment where collaboration, ownership, voice, and authenticity are highly valued and implemented. Therefore, the solution to our district’s issue is to empower our teachers with the knowledge they need to properly create a blended, learner-centered classroom and supply them with the resources necessary to best serve their students and the desired learning outcomes.

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As the district’s Instructional Technology Specialist, I am proposing to pilot a Blended Learning Leadership Program (BLLP) in which: 

• Teachers have the choice to apply, and from the applications, two teachers from each campus are chosen.

• Teachers are immersed in a modeled blended learning environment, and, as a result, teachers are equipped to build a blended learning environment in their classrooms that they, too, will pilot, test, and share with others.

• Teachers participate in multiple models of blended learning with an emphasis on the Rotation Model (station rotation, lab rotation, flipped classroom, and individual rotation).

  • Because of this, teachers learn the benefits of blended learning and applicable ways to apply it in the classroom.

  • Teachers gain a deeper understanding of how to match tech tools and apps to desired learning outcomes.

• Teachers build a supportive community with the other BLLP members via professional development, collaboration, and creation time throughout the year.

• Teachers become blended learning leaders on their campuses and share their learning with others.
   

This program will be designed to motivate our teachers to learn for themselves how blended learning can completely transform a classroom, how it increases student confidence and ownership, and, lastly, how it makes teaching exciting again. Creativity, collaboration, authenticity–these are the things that change the world. If we want our students to believe this, our teachers must model it first. Therefore, I believe the Blended Learning Leadership Program will be our solution to transforming our classrooms from teacher-centered to student-centered and from managed to highly engaged. 
 

I am eager to begin this monumental shift in our district, and, while I realize nothing like this has been done before, I believe this is an exciting opportunity to transform the way we view learning. I ask that our superintendents, curriculum department, and campus principals support this plan by allowing me to meet with our participants throughout the year for ongoing professional development. Together, we can empower our teachers, and, in return, empower our students as they leave our classrooms and step out into the world. I look forward to discussing the prospect of implementing the Blended Learning Leadership Program. 
 

Sincerely, 

Shaneigh Smith