Redesigning Mathematical Curriculum for Blended Learning

Abstract

The Coronavirus pandemic has thrown public schooling into crisis, trying to juggle shifting instructional modes: classrooms, online, home-schooling, student pods, hybrid and blends of these. This poses an urgent need to redesign curriculum using available technology to implement approaches that incorporate the findings of the learning sciences, including the emphasis on collaborative learning, computer mediation, student discourse and embodied feedback. This paper proposes a model of such learning, illustrated using existing dynamic-geometry technology to translate Euclidean geometry study into collaborative learning by student pods. The technology allows teachers and students to interact with the same material in multiple modes, so that blended approaches can be flexibly adapted to students with diverse preferred learning approaches or needs and structured into parallel or successive phases of blended learning. The technology can be used by online students, co-located small groups and school classrooms, with teachers and students having shared access to materials and to student work across interaction modes.