Partnership will profile work of 10 master blended learning teachers
Cupertino, CA – May 14, 2014 – The Learning Accelerator (TLA), a nonprofit organization supporting the implementation of high-quality blended learning in school districts across the U.S., announced a grant of $780,000 to BetterLesson to identify, capture, and share the work of 10 master blended learning teachers. BetterLesson is an education technology company that was founded by a group of teachers from public schools to help educators create, organize, and share their curricula and teaching practices.
“Teachers across the country are excited to integrate blended approaches in their classrooms, but many of them are saying they struggle to find real-world examples that showcase effective strategies as well as challenges,” said Beth Rabbitt, Partner at The Learning Accelerator. “BetterLesson brings thousands of teachers together across the country in an innovative manner to share practices online. They are a great partner to help us tackle this need.”
Over the next year, BetterLesson will be working with a pilot team of Master Teachers to create the “first, living, breathing body of knowledge around effective blended instruction and practice,” says BetterLesson Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Alex Grodd. “We believe that blended learning models have the potential to help teachers personalize instruction and reach every student. But there very few examples of what effective blended practice looks like in an authentic classroom environment. We are going to capture and share examples of the top blended teachers so that teachers across the country will have the knowledge to begin implementation in their own classrooms.”
BetterLesson will recruit ten blended learning Master Teachers in the early summer. Master Teachers will be selected based on their track records for driving student achievement and sharing their success with their peers and colleagues. They will continue to work full time in their schools but will receive a stipend and coaching, which will reward and support their efforts. The first series of digital case studies, which will be freely available to teachers and leaders, will be released in the fall of 2014. BetterLesson will capture and share additional resources and video over the course of the academic year.
This award is one of several in a series of coordinated investments by The Learning Accelerator to identify and overcome the human capital barriers to implementing blended learning in American schools. The outcome of TLA’s efforts will be multiple scalable solutions to improve the content, structure, and delivery of blended learning supports for teachers at the the state, district, and school levels.
For more information about TLA, contact Beth Rabbitt at beth.rabbitt@learningaccelerator.org. For additional information about BetterLesson, contact Alex Grodd at alex.grodd@betterlesson.com.
