The Effects of i2Flex Learning on Students' Holistic Well-Being and Academic Success

With rapid changes taking place in today's society, individuals need more than ever to be equipped with tools that will assist them to cope with the changes they are faced with within multitude domains of their lives: school, work and social environments. As learning is a life- long process that touches and interacts with many domains of one's individual life and overall functioning, individuals must be flexible and able to adapt to the everyday changes around them. More specifically in education, students over the last decade with increased technological advances, have opportunities that extend beyond the brick -and- mortar traditional learning environment, thus indicated as “blending learning”; a combination of web-based teaching and learning experiences along with structured individual and collaborative interaction among students and their teachers. The i2Flex model, piloted at the American Community Schools of Athens, Greece will be examined and illustrate how learning within this framework, assists students in being flexible, adaptive and skilled 21st century learners.

The Humanities Program

Innovative since its inception, the ACS Honors Humanities program has a long history of more than 40 years as an interdisciplinary team-taught course that examines essential questions through literature, visual and performing arts, philosophy and history. This innovative approach has continued to motivate successive teaching teams to modify and enhance a program that challenges students academically, utilizing the best possible resources and taking advantage of new technology. The program consists of two year-long, completely integrated i2Flex ACS Athens Honors diploma courses and three i2Flex 20-week enrichment courses accessible to students anywhere. This chapter presents two case studies which explain the transformation of the Honors Humanities course from Face to Face to i2Flex. The authors describe and present examples of how they redesigned the courses. They present data on student feedback and findings regarding the benefits and challenges of adopting the i2Flex methodology for this program. This chapter is intended as a reference for teachers, teachers in training and professionals who train teachers.

Flipping and Flexing in Science

The Digital Native is experiencing education during a very unique time. Learning with the help of technology, becoming independent and flexible learners, will only build on the skills they need to face a rapidly changing world and truly become architects of their own learning. The i2Flex model (a blended learning model) allows curriculum demands to be met while creating a learning environment whereby Middle School Science students are motivated and become engaged in higher order skills. This chapter will discuss the i2Flex philosophy and how the flipped classroom complements this methodology and allows students to build on higher order thinking skills within a K-12 international school setting.

Towards a Model of Playful Learning

What is the role of play in learning? What ways can we as educators leverage our students' extracurricular digital lives in meaningful ways in our digital and physical learning environments? What roles can the elements of game mechanics and game thinking serve towards these ends, especially in a blended learning environment? These are some of the initial questions that guided my action research at the American Community Schools, Athens (ACS). My project considers the efficacy of employing gamification strategies within a blended learning environment. This chapter in turn provides a brief narrative account of my research experience, focusing on an entrepreneur simulation in the ACS Academy (High School), and a series of gamified interventions done with ACS middle school students. It closes with a brief gamification toolset, a series of practical considerations drawn from this field experience and relevant research that may be helpful for teachers and administrators interested in exploring ways to gamify their own digital and physical learning communities or spaces.

Hooked on Mathematics

Within a flexible-learning framework, blended learning offers a unique opportunity to fully amalgamate pedagogy and technology in teaching and learning. It may also lead to significant enhancements and integrations of curriculum design. This chapter discusses the implementation of the i2Flex methodology, which is a type of blended learning, in a math classroom at ACS Athens, Greece. The definitions of the methodology are stated and the classroom applications are described. A middle school math teacher and the Math Studio coordinator designed a specific unit of work in mathematics in order to convert it to i2Flex delivery. The classroom atmosphere is described in detail, and a range of considerations about the methodology is discussed. Finally, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework is discussed as an evaluation tool of the methodology for the success of the methodology.

Meeting the Professional Development Needs of Special Educators in 21st Century Classrooms

This chapter describes the challenges personnel preparation programs meet when preparing pre-service special educators for service in today's technology rich classrooms. The author used action research methodology to explore the feasibility of developing a virtual Professional Learning Community (PLC) for the purpose of building a collaborative culture of learning in special education and providing pre-service and novice special educators access to networks of support. A wiki and Ning provided the basic infrastructure for the virtual PLC and the data collected from the websites were analyzed using the eight essential characteristics of PLC development. The results showed that the PLC membership participated in community work primarily as observers only, relying almost entirely on the teacher educator to direct and manage all facets of community work. The implications of the research are discussed with respect to how personnel preparation programs prepare teachers for service in in 21st Century classrooms.

The Flipped K-12 Classroom

New technologies are changing how best to support and facilitate learning in primary and secondary education. Many of these new technologies are available through the Internet, which is an important resource for learning and instruction at all levels and in nearly all contexts. Among the changes that are occurring is the possibility of integrating Internet resources into curricula, which are often linked to mandated standards in schools in the USA and other countries. Among the many possibilities of leveraging these classrooms is the concept of flipping the classroom so that primary presentations of content take place outside the classroom, with classroom activities focused on practice, interaction and feedback. To make a flipped classroom successful requires training teachers about technology integration, providing ongoing professional development, and developing supportive school and home environments with strong educational leadership. The focus of this chapter is on the needs and requirements involved in making flipped classrooms successful learning experiences for students.

i2Flex and the Community of Inquiry Framework

In this chapter the goal is to describe my implementation of the i2Flex in two consecutive academic years in an attempt to meet more effectively the educational needs of the new generation students. Starting with the description of the i2Flex methodology in an IB French class as a member of the pilot i2Flex faculty at ACS Athens, I will present the instructional (re-)design of my Moodle shell to reflect the new teaching methodology, and the need to evaluate this pilot year via an appropriate framework. Then, I will describe the same class in the second year, from how i2Flex was at this point implemented to how it was evaluated and what data was collected from the students. Finally, the goal is to share under the umbrella of best practices how meaningful and efficient the i2Flex is, taking in consideration the new role of the teacher in and out of class and its unique potential for student learning.

“Reverse Engineering” of IB History Exemplars

The following chapter traces the philosophy and rationale behind one application of the i2Flex blended learning methodology in the context of an International Baccalaureate (IB) History class. The author shares his goals and processes for assisting students to improve their analytical writing in one of the most challenging IB courses through a process he calls, “reverse engineering” of exemplars. The lesson design carefully combines phases of the student engagement, first focusing on the use of technology to provide students with careful guidance as they work independently to examine and assess exemplar papers, with emphasis on deepening their understanding of the official IB History Assessment criteria. The chapter emphasizes the goal of maximizing the collaborative face-to-face classroom design to further students' understanding. Throughout the chapter the author reflects on how the methodology has shifted students' thinking and processing; additionally, he shares the challenges that he has faced in implementing the process.

Principals' Corner

This chapter presents and discusses the fundamentals of the i2Flex teaching methodology from the perspective of the elementary and middle school principals. First, the Elementary School Principal (Ms. Makropoulos) will present how she has set the groundwork for students and faculty to embrace this new paradigm shift in the teaching and learning at American Community Schools (ACS) Athens. Then, the Middle School Principal (Ms. Augoustatos) presents and discusses the two-year implementation process of the i2Flex methodology of instruction.