Learning Accelerator Grantee BetterLesson Launches First Videos of Blended Teacher Practice

    CUPERTINO, CA, February 24, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The Learning Accelerator (TLA), a nonprofit organization supporting the implementation of high-quality blended learning in school districts across the U.S., and grantee BetterLesson, today launched the Blended Master Teacher Project, a new online resource showcasing the practices of top blended learning teachers nationwide.

"We hear time and time again from educators that what they really need is to be able to see real-world examples of teaching practice that showcase effective blended learning strategies, in action and authentically," said Beth Rabbitt, Partner at The Learning Accelerator. "We initiated this project with BetterLesson to help meet that need."

BetterLesson is an education technology company that helps teachers "share what works." With TLA's support, BetterLesson identified 11 Master Teachers from across the country who were on the leading edge of blended learning implementation in their classrooms. Selected based on their track records for driving student achievement and sharing their success with their peers and colleagues, the Blended Master Teachers have worked together with coaching and support from BetterLesson since the summer of 2014. Their teaching practices were captured in video and narrative form for sharing on BetterLesson's new platform.

"We are thrilled to share the opening chapters of the first comprehensive body of effective blended practice," said Jeff Liberty, BetterLesson's Senior Director responsible for the design and launch of the Project. "The quality of our classroom footage and the clarity of our Master Teachers' explanations of their strategies will help demystify what blended learning is and what it looks like in practice in different contexts."

The first phase of the project includes 53 videos and can be viewed at: www.betterlesson.com/blended.

"This first set of videos features strategies ranging from how to set academic expectations during independent computer time to making sure peer-to-peer collaboration is successful. These teachers are great at what they do and it's exciting to get to see their work in their classrooms with their students made available for others to learn from," said Rabbitt.

This initial launch will be the first in a series over the next eight months, according to BetterLesson's founder and CEO, Alex Grodd. "This is just the start. Our Master Teachers and development team are still hard at work," explained Grodd. "Over the next several months, we will be adding more content, including hundreds more exemplar videos as well as related artifacts and resources, and tools for educators to search within specific teaching strategy areas."

For more information about TLA, contact Beth Rabbitt at [email protected]. For additional information about BetterLesson, contact Alex Grodd at [email protected].

The Learning Accelerator is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming education by accelerating the implementation of high-quality blended learning in schools districts across America. Learn more at learningaccelerator.org. What is blended learning? Watch this brief video: (http://vimeo.com/78871778).

BetterLesson is committed to empowering teachers to learn what works best for their students as quickly as possible. We support this mission in two ways: 1) our free curriculum-sharing community with over 500,000 registered teachers is building a living, breathing body of knowledge around effective instruction and 2) TeachCycle, our continuous learning platform, brings teacher-led, continuous learning within reach for every teacher.

Learn more at www.betterlesson.com

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