The Learning Collective was recently in Detroit working with four of the city’s traditional public and charter schools. Several of those schools rely heavily on digital learning programs.
The Learning Collective has noticed that in these and other blended learning schools there are two areas that tend to get left behind: writing and discourse.
Long-form essay writing – with a thesis, supporting paragraphs and based on a rigorous rubric – is often replaced by multiple choice and very-short-answer questions. Extended academic discourse and debate in classrooms is also hard to find in many blended schools … Students may make short comments in online forums but in-person discussions are often stunted.
We at The Learning Collective are doing what we can to keep critical thinking alive and complex problem solving alive!