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Saturday, August 29, 2020

NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers

NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers

Magical Blended Teachers



It's taken me days to understand what the last DOE memo meant. I've discussed it with several people, I've been to a meeting, and now I finally get it.
You have four kinds of teachers--you have the remote teacher, who teaches five full classes on line. You have the live teacher, who teaches five partial classes in person. Then you have the Blended Learning Remote teacher, the one everyone is complaining about around the net. 
There's one more, a Virtual Content Specialist. This position would be posted and people would have to apply. I'm going to ignore that one for now. I don't know what the hell that person does, and I'm not gonna bother finding out. Given the issues with the blended teachers, I''m not sure that one's worth talking about. In fact, I very much doubt any principal has the capacity to engage such a person. This system has created a pretty severe teacher shortage that won't be corrected any time soon.
So this is what a Blended Learning Remote teacher does--Let's say that you and I each teach English One five periods a day. Let's say we both teach onsite, in person. That means we see somewhere between seven and twelve students live, every period, each and every day. Under this model, the Blended Learning Remote teacher would teach all of our other students from both classes.
So this Blended Learning Remote teacher could have between 44 to 55 students each period daily. That's a hell of a student load. Now that teacher could teach them all at once. Or, that teacher could see them in smaller groups. Or, that teacher could figure out some other way to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers