Rocketship: Blended Learning Network Changing Its Model
The blockbuster news at the end of John Merrow's NewsHour segment on Rocketship I linked to this morning was that, in response to concerns about lack of timely information sharing and coordination between the computer labs and the classroom -- and the model "not really working" -- Rocketship was abandoning the lab concept and bringing the computers back into the classroom as next year.
Lack of timely coordination among lab assistants and teachers was a concern raised last spring by John Fensterwald in a Scholastic Administrator story I helped edit (here). Rocketship has touted the labs both for their learning and for their cost savings.
However, the change isn't anything immediate or dramatic as it sounded on TV, according to Rocketship founder John Danner. Danner says via email that the changes aren't taking place until after 2013-2014 and aren't taking place because the model isn't working:
"We are integrating [the lab] and classroom because [the lab] is working well enough now that we feel the cost of managing it for teachers is outweighed by the benefit of increased learning by giving them more direct control of student centered learning."
Image via Wikipedia
So they're jettison the lab, or the cheaper "para-educators"?
Posted by: Education Realist | January 03, 2013 at 17:16 PM