Barrington 220 to address concerns about blended learning

Ten Barrington High School teachers have volunteered to implement elements of blended learning - in which some classwork is completed on district-issued laptops online and sometimes off-campus - into their curriculum next year.

To educate the community on the emerging practice and assuage fears among some parents that blended learning could lessen the district's quality of education, the Barrington Area Unit School District 220 will host a Parent University event on blended learning Wednesday night.

"We're doing this very slowly," said LeeAnn Taylor, the district's director of media services. "Really all we're doing at high school level next year is starting to give students a little more choice about the pace their instruction takes place."

In general terms, any time a student has some control over the time, pace, path or place of their instruction it is considered to be blended learning, Taylor said.

One of the teachers who volunteered to implement the practice did so to allow for one-on-one meetings with her students to review important papers they'd written, she added. Using blended learning, the teacher can schedule student meetings during class time while the rest of the students have writing time outside of the classroom.

"We want parents to know that if you're uncomfortable with this, the student can always come to the classroom every day," Taylor said.

The district is hosting the Wednesday night event in part because some parents, during discussions about start times at the high school, spoke out against blended learning as something that would lower the quality of the curriculum. District officials disagree.

"We're not the first ones to do blended learning, but it is the first time doing it in Barrington and we have high standards for what we want in our classrooms," Taylor said. "If we are going to do this it is going to meet our standards."

The blended learning Parent University event will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, at Barrington High School.

Taylor said the district is planning to host another educational event in August specifically for students who choose to enroll in classes that will use elements of blended learning next school year.