Blended learning: When partnerships spark innovation

HANDS-ON Experience Learning October 2023 | Issue 25

OPPORTUNITY

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Accelerate learning for learners failed by the system

BLENDED LEARNING: WHEN PARTNERSHIPS SPARK INNOVATION This learning brief explores how partnerships between government, civil society and communities led to innovations aimed at tackling a number of challenges impacting quintile 1–3 schools in South Africa, serving some of the country’s poorest children.

FROM DISTANCE LEARNING TO BLENDED LEARNING When schools faced extended closures during the lockdowns at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, public schools like Apex High School in Eersterivier, Cape Town, had to embrace distance learning. Catering to poorer children lacking Wi-Fi access at home, Apex High, a Collaboration School (part of Public School Partnerships), shifted its classes online for all grades in 2020, ensuring uninterrupted teaching throughout the year. They found that easy-to-consume, bite-sized chunks of educational content worked well for teaching on Facebook and WhatsApp. However, buying mobile data for each child and managing data loading before the school day began proved impractical. Based on its Covid-19 experience, the school adapted its approach to distance learning. By 2022, Apex High had introduced a blended learning model to meet the demand for high-quality education in the community.

The school sought a digital solution because there are more learners than available spots at the institution. At the end of 2022, the school received 2 800 applications for Grade 8, despite only having 240 available spots.

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BLENDED LEARNING: WHEN PARTNERSHIPS SPARK INNOVATION

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What is Blended (or Hybrid) Learning?

What is a Collaboration School?

Blended learning combines both technological and face-to-face teaching and learning methods. In Apex High’s model, technology takes centre stage, with teachers, learners and administrators engaging in a dedicated computer lab.

Each learner has their own computer and works through pre-recorded content on a learning management system with teachers and administrators providing support. In the blended learning classroom, teachers focus on how learners engage with the content rather than on simply presenting it.

The Collaboration School model is a partnership involving a no-fee public school, the Western Cape Education Department and a non-profit civil society organisation specialising in education management. This partnership aims to bring innovation to no-fee public schools through collaboration with non-profit organisations (NPOs).

The goal is to bridge the quality gap in education between rich and poor learners in South Africa.

The term Collaboration School applies specifically to the Western Cape.

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Apex High Principal, Renata van der Westhuizen says: “Being a part of the Collaboration School programme allowed us to do innovative stuff and be involved in major upliftment for the community.

I’ve always been blown away by the things we can do because of the Collaboration model.

We work together to find the best solutions for the children. One example of that is the blended learning class”.

PARTNERSHIPS CREATE SPACE FOR INNOVATION Inspired by their successful shift to blended learning during the Covid-19 lockdowns, Apex High launched a blended learning model at the end of 2022. Despite the internet challenges faced by the Eersterivier community, the 2022 Grade 9 blended learning class was successfully taught primarily with pre-recorded learning content, structured according to the curriculum.

Starting in November 2022, Apex High and their non-profit partner Acorn Education collaborated with the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), the Eersterivier community, parents, service providers, learners, funders and EdTech partners to establish a dedicated blended learning lab from scratch.

GOAL 3 /// All young people on pathways to productivity

In 2023, due to the blended learning model, Apex High was able to accept an additional 100 Grade 8 learners.

The current blended learning class will continue to use the same classroom until they matriculate, after which a new Grade 8 blended learning class will start the five-year process again. In keeping with the spirit of partnership and community that drives Public School Partnerships, the classroom’s desks were crafted by learners from Jakes Gerwel Technical, a fellow Collaboration School.

For Apex High and Acorn Education, partnerships offer a path forward in addressing the education crisis, recognising that teaching and learning are intricate, long-term social processes that cannot be tackled single-handedly.

OPPORTUNITY 8 /// Accelerate learning for learners failed by the system

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PARTNERSHIPS ARE THE GLUE THAT BINDS IDEAS

LESSONS LEARNED

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Daily class observations enable Apex High to tweak and refine their model at a rapid pace.

Partnerships played a pivotal role in launching the blended learning model. Apex High needed to ensure it had buy-in from school leadership, staff and parents. In addition, the school needed to find people with the right skills, funding, service providers who would work in Eersterivier and a construction team that was willing to work quickly over the December holidays.

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A dedicated team has been crucial to Apex High’s success in establishing blended learning.

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A people-centred approach is crucial, especially when the primary mode of teaching is through technology.

“I only had to focus on the stuff that I’m good at: education.

Our Collaboration partner does all of the rest,” says van der Westhuizen.

The Collaboration School model enabled Apex High to innovate quickly, and in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in an ordinary public school bound by capacity and funding constraints. In addition, Apex High had the support of the WCED and its e-learning directorate, which provided guidance and support throughout the process.

WHAT HAS BLENDED LEARNING ENABLED AT APEX HIGH? One of the biggest learnings for the school is around the social nature of teaching. Apex found that, in the context of technology-centric learning, the teacher’s role becomes even more crucial. Learners need the personal touch of a teacher to guide them, believe in them, show an interest in their growth, support them, and celebrate with them. Because blended learning lightens the administrative load on teachers, they can fully focus on what they do best: teaching.

“We are a no-fee school so we don’t have the resources to do anything out-of-the-box.

The blended class is an excellent example of how we saw a need to help the community, but couldn’t, and then the Collaboration partner stepped in to help us with that.

With more resources, you can help more children.”

Apex High Principal, Renata van der Westhuizen

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BLENDED LEARNING: WHEN PARTNERSHIPS SPARK INNOVATION

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FOR TEACHERS

FOR LEARNERS

Reduced teacher workload

Enhanced access

Apex High’s blended learning model delegates administrative work, planning and assessments to facilitators and technology, freeing up educators to devote more time to teaching and assisting learners.

Improved student-teacher ratio Overcrowded classrooms pose a major challenge in South African public schools. Learners in large heterogenous classes often don’t get individualised attention. As a consequence, those lagging their peers risk being left behind. The blended learning class features a teacher and two facilitators, improving the adult-to-learner ratio and enabling teachers to offer more targeted support to learners.

Personalised learning with real-time data Unlike in a traditional classroom setup, blended learning equips teachers with real-time data. They can immediately assess a learner’s progress and identify areas of misunderstanding. This allows teachers to address learning gaps effectively and enables students to work and learn at their own pace.

Learners who work quickly can move on to supplementary activities outside of the curriculum.

For example, they can choose courses like speed typing, animation, extra-curricular maths and coding, and from a wide range of international courses.

As Apex High’s reputation as a financially accessible, high-quality school grew, so did demand for enrolment.

Given learner intake limitations, blended learning emerged as a solution to reach more learners.

Learners are also not limited by the lesson. They can access experiential learning content that they might not encounter in a conventional classroom setting.

The learning platform used by Apex High features a built-in text reader that can audibly read to learners or translate English into their mother tongue.

Practical skills for the workforce In 2021, when Apex High’s first matric class graduated, it became evident that some matriculants were entering a job market that required computer literacy, yet many of them had never touched a computer. Given the focus on technology in most jobs, computer literacy makes learners more employable.

FOR SCHOOLS Addresses teacher shortages Blended learning empowers schools to use their teachers in a more efficient way, allowing them to focus on their teaching and professional development. Moreover, the model eliminates the need to hire niche subject matter experts.

Cost reduction The blended learning model uses facilitators, who hold junior posts, resulting in lower employment costs compared to hiring additional skilled teachers.

GOAL 3 /// All young people on pathways to productivity

OPPORTUNITY 8 /// Accelerate learning for learners failed by the system

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WHAT’S NEXT? While Apex High is hesitant to prematurely draw conclusions about the impact of blended learning, it aims to ensure the blended learning class performs at the same level as students in traditional classroom settings — a goal the school has achieved thus far. Some students in the blended learning class are among the top performers in their cohort, with the top marks in certain subjects.

Apex High and Acorn Education are now extending their support to Streetlight Schools, a private institution in Johannesburg, with their blended learning model. In the second half of 2023, they will also begin supporting Imbeleko Academy in KwaZulu-Natal with that institution’s blended learning rollout. Given the novel model and the appetite for it, they’ve created a community of practice for teachers involved in the blended learning model. This peerto-peer learning group meets monthly to exchange ideas and discuss their progress.

“At the end of 2022, the blended learning class was the second highest-performing class in the cohort with a 94% pass rate – 1% lower than the top class.”

While the Apex High blended learning model was designed for replication, its success is anchored in a foundation of strong school leadership and a robust school culture.

Apex High principal, Renata van der Westhuizen

This learning brief was co-authored by Jana du Plooy and Darsha Indrajith, and edited by Rahima Essop.

Th i s i s t h e l e a r n i n g ex p e r i e n c e of :

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BLENDED LEARNING: WHEN PARTNERSHIPS SPARK INNOVATION

Issue 25 /// October 2023

"With more resources, you can help more children."

Apex High principal, Renata van der Westhuizen

GOAL 3 /// All young people on pathways to productivity

OPPORTUNITY 8 /// Accelerate learning for learners failed by the system

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