Kindergartners Blend E-Learning, Face-to-Face Instruction

At the KIPP Empower Academy in Los Angeles, which serves kindergartners and 1st graders, Principal Mike Kerr has devised a schedule for kindergartners in which they spend about 30 minutes on laptops in their classrooms twice a day. He says the blended learning approach has allowed him to preserve small-group instruction.

—Jonathan Alcorn/MCT

By Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report

Los Angeles 1st grader Lena Barrett clicks through a series of icons and logs on to a laptop under the fluorescent lights of her classroom. Before long, a cartoon version of a game-show announcer appears.

“It’s time to show what you know by finding words,” the announcer says. “In this game, you will click on words that mean the same thing as the word the narrator says. Click on the word that means the same thing as ‘marvelous.’ ”

Lena, dressed in her school’s burgundy-plaid uniform, clicks on “wonderful,” and the announcer doesn’t waste time with praise. “Pay attention. Go as fast as you can and do your best,” he says. A few words later, she hesitates over “fragile,” before...