About the Project

Project Goals

The broad goal of the project was defined by the Ministry of Education who were interested in capturing stories of success in hybrid learning that could help inform activity among other educators, and some of which may be scalable beyond the immediate context they were trialed.

The project was guided by the principals of the two focus schools, each of whom expressed ideas about what they hoped might be achieved through this programme. Both schools were already actively using digital technologies to support their teaching and learning, and staff at Bream Bay College have been involved in the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning (NPDL) programme for the past seven years.

Chris Bell, Principal of the Bay of Islands International Academy saw the opportunity to create an environment where learning is a seamless activity regardless of whether students are at school or at home.

Wayne Buckland, Principal of Bream Bay College, had a similar aspiration, focusing on creating experiences for learners to participate interactively with classroom-based learning from home or other remote locations.

Within the broad parameters of these aspirations each participating teacher was then given license to pursue their own ways of demonstrating hybrid learning in action.

Chris Bell, Principal of Bay of Islands International Academy

Wayne Buckland, Principal of Bream Bay College

Lead Team

The two lead principals began by building a team to support them. This included some key internal staff, and a group of three external facilitators/mentors to help with the detail of the project design and facilitation. This group worked as a team, initially to design the programme overview and then meeting regularly throughout the programme to ensure things were progressing as planned. While there were overlapping areas of skill and ability among the team, the particular skill-sets involved were:

1. Two lead principals: Wayne Buckland & Chris Bell

2. Internal IT support and project co-ordinator: Emma Scobie-Jennings – meaning immediate help available on-site for most teachers

3. Locally based, external support facilitators: Tania Coutts – providing both IT and pedagogical support on-site and virtually

4. Remote external support facilitators: Margot McKeegan & Hoana Te Aika – providing both IT and pedagogical support virtually

5. Project mentor: Derek Wenmoth – supporting the integrity of the project design and providing input at different levels to ensure the delivery of project goals in a sharable form.

Programme Design

In concept the programme involved the following:

1. A start-up event where the goals of the programme were explained, and participants coached through the process of designing the ‘experiment’ they were planning to undertake.

2. Monthly check-in sessions (virtual) for all participants. Each participant was required to capture a short video (40 seconds, using FlipGrid) of themselves providing an update of their progress to that point. These videos were a powerful way of communicating very succinctly the key points for each person.

3. Regular support provided by the internal and external facilitators for teachers regarding their use of technology, everything from the selection of the appropriate tools and platforms to some specific skills training with things that were new to them.

4. Periodic check-ins with an external mentor who provided feedback and support regarding the overall design of their experiments and providing ideas and input where required to ensure the story behind it was being captured in appropriate ways for sharing with others.

Culture of Experimentation

At its heart the programme involved giving teachers permission to try things out and providing them with the resources required to achieve this. To help ensure there was a level of discipline and focus in the way this was carried out, the facilitation team introduced a simple template that participants used to help them structure their approach.

The sections in the template provided guidance for teachers to think about and provide responses to key questions about what they were doing, why they had chosen to do this and what they were looking to achieve. Their responses helped inform the design of their ‘experiment’ and also provided the basis of shared conversations with the project facilitators and the external mentor.

One of the keys to success of the project was how this simple tool provided a level of rigor to the way in which teachers planned and organised their experiments, while at the same time enabling them to take risks they may not otherwise have felt empowered to pursue.

The ‘short cycle’ of experimentation involved meant that any problems or roadblocks could be dealt with immediately, and in the same way, early successes could be repeated or amplified.

Hybrid Pilot Planning.docx (1).pdf

Role of Technology

Initially, an emphasis was placed on the role of digital technologies in this, with many of the teachers opting to invest in specific pieces of technology as part of their investigations. This included a range of technologies to enable greater levels of interaction and collaboration among students learning in-class and remotely, such as large screens in learning spaces, better cameras and microphones to improve the audio and visual experience, and tablets to enable simultaneous interaction online.

Other choices included purchasing licenses for specific online collaboration software or a drone for creating movies to support virtual outdoor education experiences. Evidence of how these technologies were used is referenced in each of the individual teacher case studies on this site.

For a number of the participants, as their projects evolved, their focus shifted from being primarily about the role of technology to a greater focus on what was emerging for them in terms of their pedagogical practice, and the ways in which new forms of learning relationships could be formed and developed within the virtual environments being used.