Implementing Blended Learning in Upper Elementary Writing Lessons

Guiding an entire class of students through the writing process can be stressful even for seasoned teachers. We all know how it goes: Maybe four students—the ones who actually enjoy writing—are engaged. Then there are the students who struggle to put words on the page for a variety of reasons.

After spending a whole-group lesson modeling the writing process, it can feel like you then have to reteach the same lesson to almost every student, especially when students are ready for different stages in the writing process. With a high student-to-teacher ratio and limited time for both whole-group instruction and independent practice, teachers start to ask, how can writing time be more effective for all students?

The answer? A blended classroom. Blended learning is a balance of in-person and video-based instruction. With a blended writing workshop, students learn through a series of instructional videos recorded by the teacher in replacement of whole-group instruction. Think of the videos as bite-sized lessons: short, sweet, and to the point. Students work through lessons but do not move on to the next stage of writing without first showing mastery of the skills in the current part of the writing process, such as writing a hook in an introduction. Blended learning allows students to take their time with each step of writing without feeling rushed or, on the contrary, stalled. 

Allowing students to learn at their own pace

So if students are learning through prerecorded videos, where is the teacher in all this? Replacing whole-group instruction with this blended model allows the teacher to be readily available for more individualized support. Instead of teaching in front of a class for 20–30 minutes, then barely having time for individual questions, the teacher is constantly moving around the room meeting individual needs as they arise.

The beauty of this is that if a handful of students are stuck on the same thing, like coming up with an introductory sentence, you can pull those students to the back table, give them a supplemental lesson, guide them in creating a topic sentence, and then send them back to their seats. This can happen even while others are in different lessons. Students can move more easily through the writing process as they go at their own pace. My favorite part: I can touch base with every student in the 30 minutes allotted for writing.

The benefits

While prerecording lessons that are typically taught as whole-group sessions may seem like just another thing to add to a to-do list, the impact of giving every student the opportunity to work at their own pace outweighs the time spent on planning. In my class, I remind students that if I were standing in front of the room teaching, many students would miss some part of the lesson, due to an interruption, loss of focus, or one of the many other distractions that are bound to happen. However, having access to these lessons through video allows them to rewatch them as many times as they need.

Through this model, students do not feel rushed or stalled in the writing process, either. Of course, there are boundaries and due dates for certain assignments, but the process gives students a little more freedom to work to their highest potential, instead of having to feel like they need to keep up.

Getting started

It can be overwhelming to change the way we do things, especially as experienced teachers. In the case of turning traditional writing instruction into a blended model, I recommend starting small. To introduce this method of learning, you can create a mini-unit that requires students to write only a paragraph or two, instead of a full-blown essay. To do that, break down the different skills into lessons, just as you would if you were teaching a whole-group lesson. For example, it might take one lesson to teach how to write a proper introduction for a particular genre, another lesson to focus on the components of a body paragraph, another on how to wrap everything up with a conclusion, and so on.

Once you have your lessons planned, it’s time to record them. I usually include some slides, so that students have a visual. During my lesson, I model what I expect from my students in that particular stage of writing. I make the recordings short and explicit—just like they would be in a whole-group lesson. WeVideo and Screencastify are great tools to record yourself teaching while showing your screen. Once your videos are ready, post them in a module with whatever learning management system your school uses.

This may seem like a lot of work up front, and it does take preparation. However, after the planning piece, the heavy lifting is done. After students watch the lesson video, they apply their learning to their own writing. Once students show mastery and completion, and the teacher approves their work from that particular lesson, they are able to move on to the next. Naturally, some students will need to rewatch the video a few times, while others will complete the lesson without a problem, but that’s the point. Each student gets what they need. As students are working, the teacher can easily catch more areas of need and pull small groups as needed.

No more frustrated students falling behind, no more bored students flying through prompts, and no more feeling that students don’t have enough time to write.