5 Crucial Skills for Blended Learning Teachers

With changes in the educational model come changes in teacher roles. There was once a time when a teacher’s role was to manage the classroom and ensure each student was learning. In the 21st century, a teacher’s role can run from counselor, planner, mediator and even coach – on top of still managing the classroom and ensuring each student is learning.

With blended learning on the rise in schools across the country – that is, the combining of online curriculum with face-to-face instruction - teachers are finding themselves in new and different classroom settings that require a variety of skills. The educators at Nexus Academy of Royal Oak, a tuition-free, blended learning public high school, have shared five crucial skills needed to be a blended learning teacher:

1) Technology Skills. This is obvious, as teachers need to be able to use the technology provided to them proficiently. Additionally, teachers must be able to teach with technology, by incorporating it into lessons and being creative with it to engage students.

2) Adaptability. Teachers in blended models should be able to go from a formal classroom setting to team-based or one-on-one situations quickly, and make adjustments to instruction based on a particular student’s learning habits and performance.

3) A Focus on Enrichment. Blended learning teachers should be prepared with a wide breadth of content knowledge because they’ll be teaching practical applications and skills more than structured lessons. A blended teacher’s ability to implement new teaching strategies, activities, and enrichment is crucial.

4) Analyze Student Data and Make Decisions. Blended learning tends to be very data-driven. This goes along with technology prowess, but teachers will be asked to analyze and aggregate student data and make adjustments and decisions on lesson plans based on student performance.

5) Be Guides. All teachers must do this, but in blended learning, teachers must be able to show students how to learn, find information, and ask the right questions. Given that blended learning can be individually accelerated by the student, this is especially important.

To learn more about the blended learning and the teachers at Nexus Academy of Royal Oak, please visit their website or attend an information session in the coming weeks.

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