1. Blended & Personalized Learning in the Middle School Classroom
John Sessa
Multi-Classroom Leader
Lincoln Middle School

3. Today’s Agenda Today’s Objectives
Do-It-Now (5 minutes)
Introduction to Blended & Personalized Learning (15 minutes)
Tools to Support Us! (10 minutes)
Practice (20 minutes)
Closure (3 minutes)
Today’s Objectives
SWDAT describe how a blended and personalized classroom may help specific students.
SWDAT explain best practices and instructional tools that will help personalize the classroom.

4. KAHOOT! Go to: kahoot.it Enter the game PIN: ______
Sign in using an appropriate username.
Prepare to showcase your knowledge!

5. https://todaysmeet.com/BPLSCSD
Go to
Create an appropriate username.
Respond: What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century?
Respond to at least one other person!

6. 21st Century Literacy
“Active, successful participants in this 21st century global society must be able to
Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;
Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;
Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;
Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;
Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts;
Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.”
National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE)

7. BPL will help develop 21st century learners!

9. Personalizing our Classrooms!
Blended learning is a modality of personalized learning.
Use technology to support individualizing the activities.
Use specific data to plan and shape your lessons, units, and assessments.
High accountability for scholars.
Self-paced literacy programs (Language Live, i-Ready, Read 180, etc.).
Project-Based Learning (with unit- wide outcomes).
Differentiated Learning Stations
Scholar accountability with self- tracking of data.

10. Re-Thinking the Classroom Set-Up
Learn from others! Read, research, and discuss!
Use the technology you have! (Don’t over-stress, technology should be a support, not a replacement!)
Let students make choices! (Playlists, PBL, etc.)
Choose the best content-delivery method! (Video, audio, hands-on, etc.)
Assess as you go!

11. Offering High-Quality Instruction
Reflect on some learning activities you’ve used in the past to decide which were successful and which need to be refined or replaced.
Instead of always lecturing to scholars and showing them a PowerPoint during class time, try to give them screencasts or videos to watch during class or at home.
Example: in a typical story unit, scholars can choose between just reading and reading along as they listen to a story. They can also decide whether to annotate online or on a printed copy. They can take notes on paper or record their thoughts verbally as they analyze the story. Offer options: writing a traditional essay, creating a website, or writing a script for a video that scholars then record.

12. Rotation-Station Model: One Step Further
Each station could offer a different form of assessment or learning activity.
Stations could be set homo or heterogeneously.
Stations can be differentiated based on reading level.
Stations could allow for student choice.
Stations can rotate every 15 or 30 minutes, or each day.
Stations can be used to better organize a project or writing assignment.

14. Using Data Efficiently and Effectively
Student’s should monitor their own progress.
Student portfolios help keep students accountable and helps track progress.
Students receive immediate and actionable feedback on their proficiency.
Monitoring of their work in progress on Google Docs.
Use exit tickets, which assess the class’ comfort level with new concepts.

16. Leading Literacy Platforms
Wonderopolis:
Rooted in the power of learning through curiosity, exploration, and everyday moments, providing thousands of “Wonders of the Day.”
Each “Wonder of the Day” is a launching pad for students reading and learning, maximizing multi-disciplinary content with nonfiction text and multimedia as well as commenting, submit-your-own Wonder, and other features designed to keep students—and entire classrooms—engaged with the site.
Wonderopolis facilitate students’ studies in the classroom as well as self-guided learning at home and on the go.

17. Leading Literacy Platforms
Newsela:
An online platform that helps students develop reading comprehension and other literacy skills.
Provides a wide array of news and other non-fiction texts that are Common Core aligned and organized by category and reading standard.
Students and teachers can track learning progress using built-in quizzes that display students’ reading-levels and standard-specific results.
DOGOnews:
An online news platform tailored for students to enable them to engage with digital media, such as news articles, infographics, videos and online comment boards.
Features engaging non-fiction texts and multimedia that help students develop literacy and digital skills.
The platform also connects students with a large online network of peers around the world.

18. Instructional Tools for Your Classroom!

19. Let’s
Review

20. Today’s Reading
Based on your assigned group, read your section of the text using a Voice Level 0.
As you read, annotate using our “reading detective” strategies!
Summarize your chunk of the text when you have completed the reading.
Prepare to share, using a Voice Level 2, when instructed.

21. Think About It (10-15 minutes)
Reflect on a lesson that you have taught in a more “traditional” manner. This could be whole group explicit instruction, whole group read aloud, grammar worksheets, etc.
Brainstorm a list of BPL strategies or best practices that you could use in the future to personalize this lesson.
Reviewing the listed instructional tools, choose one and describe ways in which you could use this tool to support a particular lesson.

22. Text JOHNSESSA794 to 37607 to join the session
Exit Ticket:
Text JOHNSESSA794 to to join the session

23. Contact Information:
John Sessa
MCL (ELA/SS)
Lincoln Middle School