Thanks to a grant from the Charles Butt Foundation, students in blended learning classrooms at H.D. Hilley and James P. Butler elementary schools are becoming more independent in their learning.
Blended learning combines the best of in-person classroom teaching with online technology. This allows educators to use data to personalize instruction, while giving students more control over their learning.
The program has been a great success for students like Diego De La Cruz, a second grader at H.D. Hilley. De La Cruz and his classmates rotate through IStations, which are computer-based reading and math programs, allowing them to learn at their own pace.
“All stations have skills,” De La Cruz said during a student panel on blended learning at the school on Feb. 20. “We can work together or by ourselves. We can work on a skill to move to higher scores. It’s mostly about you choosing the right station for you because you see in your data tracker that you have to move to higher scores in IStations.”
The Socorro Independent School District has been so successful in implementing the program that the Charles Butt Foundation, an organization aimed at improving public education through grants and initiatives, will feature the district in an upcoming video promoting blended learning.
H.D. Hilley and James P. Butler also hosted showcases on Feb. 20 and March 20, respectively, to highlight the program's achievements at their schools. During the showcases, they shared best practices with other school leaders and discussed their plans to expand the program at their respective campuses.
Administrators from Elfida P. Chavez, Sgt. Roberto Ituarte, and Sgt. Jose F. Carrasco elementary schools, as well as Salvador H. Sanchez and SSG Manuel R. Puentes middle schools, attended the showcase at James P. Butler. These schools are planning to collaborate with SISD’s Academic Services and Instructional Technology teams to adopt the best practices of blended learning in the upcoming academic year.
“James Butler has actually been implementing blended learning and those best practices the last three years,” said Erica Sustaita, Instructional Technology specialist and project manager for Ignite Innovation. “With the support of Academic Services and Instructional Technology, we wanted to highlight those best practices that have been implemented by giving students a choice, experience of personalized learning as well as student agency that our students experience during their station rotation model in RLA (Reading Language Arts), and now infusing it into our math framework as well."
The Socorro Independent School District was the first in the El Paso region in 2020 to receive $300,000 in grant funding from the Charles Butt Foundation’s Raise Your Hand Texas to implement blended learning in the district. The school launched the blended learning program, Ignite Innovation, in March 2021.
H.D. Hilley began introducing blended learning in kindergarten last school year. This school year, the program has expanded to first and second grades.
Darlene Hernandez, the school’s principal, said they track students’ reading data, fluency, and phonemic awareness every month across all grade levels and have seen growth.
Hernandez said that blended learning uses best practices to teach foundational skills to students so that they can become independent learners, fluent readers, and critical thinkers before transitioning to the upper grades and taking state assessments.
“We’re seeing a lot of growth and a lot of success in the reading area,” Hernandez said. “The kiddos are reading on their own now, so that's what we want ultimately for those kiddos to have that independence and be able to speak of what they're learning and what they still need to develop.”
Teachers like Gabriela Rivas have successfully integrated blended learning into their first-grade classrooms at H.D. Hilley. Rivas meets with her students every month to analyze their IStation reading data. By allowing students to track their progress, they gain a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses in each of the IStation domains.
During H.D. Hilley’s teacher panel, Rivas said that blended learning has helped to close learning gaps that students might experience, while also challenging them to reach new levels of growth.
“I think blended learning supports student agency,” Rivas said. "Scholars are able to make informed decisions about the learning process based on their data. Students are able to (determine) how and when they want to demonstrate mastery. It also develops their confidence in supporting each other and collaborating during stations.”
H.D. Hilley first-grade student, Jayden Salazar, said he hoped to continue with blended learning in his future classes.
“For my future classes, I hope that we can continue working in stations so that I can continue learning while I’m doing fun activities,” Salazar said.