State Superintendent Paolo DeMaria led a discussion with the Westerville Educational Technology team about the benefits of blended learning.
The Superintendent of Public Instruction, Paolo DeMaria, paid a visit to Westerville City Schools on March 6 to learn more about the Ohio Blended Collaborative (OBC). DeMaria met with the Westerville Educational Technology team to learn about the positive outcomes the district is seeing connected to the work of the OBC. The Ohio Blended Collaborative is comprised of more than 15 districts across Ohio and is the product of discussions and work focused on creating content to help teachers teach in a blended environment by improving internal teacher capacity for blended learning, identifying a common method and practice to design digital content, and pinpointing a process to evaluate content. The OBC has worked together to build blended course materials for 30 courses.
DeMaria led a Q&A with Westerville City Schools (WCS) Superintendent John Kellogg, WCS Curriculum Director Jennifer Knapp, WCS Technology Integration Coordinator Jennifer Fry, Ohio Department of Education Director of Integrated Technology Stephanie Donofe Meeks and WCS Technology Integration Coaches Drew Farrell, Lane Halterman and Caley Nestor-Baker.
Following this collaborative discussion, the group visited Westerville South High School Honors Chemistry teacher Beth Eddy to see blended practices and course materials in action. DeMaria had the opportunity to talk with students and Eddy to learn more about how her blended model of instruction is creating a more personalized, student-driven learning environment.