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Marci Theobald began teaching at Ben Davis in 2000, and has been teaching Spanish at Ben Davis High School in a blended setting for the past six years. In her blended course, Marci was teaching multiple levels of Spanish simultaneously by allowing students to blend live instruction and enrichment with level-appropriate online lessons. When the Blended Spanish class was created, it was originally intended to offer one section of Blended Spanish to students who had previously failed and needed to try to make up two semesters of Spanish within the time constraints of a single semester. Each year, this course has evolved into something bigger. Now, she teaches five sections of this course throughout the day. Each section has students enrolled in six varying levels of Spanish proficiency which has allowed some students to earn up to 3 credits over the course of one semester.As Wayne Township moved to a hybrid model for the secondary schools, Marci’s experience in a blended setting gave her the confidence and the experience to easily transition to this new environment. Though COVID-19 precautions have prevented her from using all of the aspects of the blended model that she truly enjoys, such as small-group learning and the use of the recording studios for oral assessments, she has been able to adapt her curriculum to meet the individual needs of her students during the pandemic. She has integrated the ItsLearning platform seamlessly into her instruction and is able to provide her students with choice and agency in their progression through their studies. “I am able to spend more time preparing individual learning plans for students. This also allows me to spend more one on one time with students, [and] I am able to provide a lot of quality feedback through the technology resources as well.” When asked about which particular tools she uses in her class she responded, “I keep it simple. I stick to the ItsLearning platform with embedded links to Google apps, Youtube, and practice websites. The more platforms the students need to learn, the more confusing learning becomes.”
Written by Brayton Mendenhall, BDHS iTEC teacher