Expertise, Complexity, and Self-Regulated Engagement: Lessons from Teacher Reflection in a Blended Learning Environment

Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. P.O. Box 719, Waynesville, NC 28786. Tel: 828-246-9558; Fax: 828-246-9557; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://www.aace.org/pubs/jolr/

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Blended Learning; Teaching Methods; Reflective Teaching; Metacognition; Middle School Teachers; Public School Teachers; Teacher Attitudes; Technology Integration; Computer Software; Problem Based Learning; Critical Thinking; Authentic Learning; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Student Responsibility; Learning Processes; History Instruction; United States History; Units of Study; Cooperative Learning; Reading Skills; Student Attitudes; Middle School Students; Faculty Development; Technological Literacy

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Blended learning has been touted to have substantial benefits for both teachers and learners. Enacting blended instruction with students provides data and other information sources to support teacher reflection. However, reflective accounts from practicing teachers in these blended environments are missing from research literature. With these understandings in mind, I, a practicing teacher in a public middle school, collaborated with two researchers serving as critical friends to form a research team that reflected on blended learning in my class. By engaging in this study, reflection served my goal to integrate Google Tools into reading support, use authentic problem based learning (aPBL) to develop critical thinking, and increase student responsibility for learning. Findings center on my development of expertise in subject matter and technology, the complexity of the gathering and interpreting data produced in this blended environment, and engagement that changed through self-regulation used by myself and my students.

As Provided

2021

EJ1290778