Dive Brief:

• Some advocates of blended learning believe that technology can help alleviate teacher shortages by spreading effective teachers further.
• In response to shortages, some schools have begun hiring less-qualified candidates, and blended learning advocates like Beth Rabbitt of The Learning Accelerator believe that giving highly effective teachers a leadership role, with less-experienced teachers as apprentices, in blended classrooms could provide an alternative.
• Oakland Unified School District, which is experiencing a teacher shortage this year, began to move toward a blended learning model three years ago, in part to save money on textbooks and pay for teacher salaries.

Dive Insight:

Using technology to alleviate the need to hire more teachers is a controversial approach. And even when the goal is to support teachers already in the classroom and place newer teachers in an apprenticeship role, blended learning doesn’t solve several of the issues most say are at the core of shortages: low teacher pay and polarized education discourse.

But some say the issue it can address — unqualified teachers — can make a big difference, even down the road, if shortages let up. “Part of the challenge of having an unexperienced teacher in the classroom is that in traditional models that person is totally isolated from other more experienced people to learn from,” Rabbitt told EdSurge. “An exciting thing about blended learning is that it can give us more flexibility about how to use teacher time and learning space. Imagine having a bigger, more dynamic classroom with a very experienced teacher and a new teacher working together.”