Blended Learning Program Working in Georgia

By Aaryn Valenzuela

WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

TIFTON, GA (WALB) - A new computer-based program at 8th St. Elementary School in Tifton is helping young people learn faster, and more effectively.

These days, young people almost always have a device in their hands, and now some schools are taking advantage of that, using computers to enhance learning.

"Its takes our class size and we are able to go much smaller, In a classroom of normally 24 the teacher would then only two days a week have 12 to 13 students, and they can accelerate the learning during that time," says Chad Stone, Principal of 8th Street Elementary School.

It's a new blended learning program.

Rebecca Rucker spends part of her time in the computer lab learning spanish.

Rucker says it makes the lesson easier, she can pause, rewind, and take notes in between

"She tells us about that certain part of the lesson and we can go back to the video and watch it again and pause it and take notes. That's what I do. It helps a lot,"says 13-year-old Rebecca Rucker.

And students can put their headphones on, and really focus.

"When your in a classroom you get distracted. And with other people talking to you and just random you can't really concentrate on the teacher and you get distracted and you lose focus,” says student Sawyer Bass.

In some cases students will spend two days out of the week in the computer lab, and the other two with the teacher.

The teachers pull the data to see how the students are comprehending.

"We can look and see the students did really well on this so I don't have to spend a lot of time on this, and I can aaccelerateit, or they did not do as well so they have to spend more time reviewing," says Stone.

The idea came from a school in North Georgia. School officials say they'll keep evaluating as time goes on to see how the program does.