Developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, the SAMR model helps educators infuse technology into teaching and learning. Its goal focuses on transforming learning so that students experience higher levels of achievement and a greater sense of individual learner-based empowerment. Keeping this model in mind as we plan for blended learning helps us to see whether we moved a textbook online or truly changed the way that the learner interacts with the content. Take a moment to review the SAMR graphic below starting at the bottom and working your way to the top.

Now, think about your own blended learning program or better yet, think about one instructional unit or activity. How would you classify the online portions according to the SAMR model? For example, in one of my music classes, we used a lot of staff paper and students were required to write certain chords as they learned the basics of music theory. If we move this activity online to digital staff paper, all we have done is substitute one tool for another. At the Augmentation level of the model, the digital staff paper might be able to help students identify chording mistakes. To get to Modification and ultimately Redefinition, we need to rethink the original task. In the case of the chording example, when students have the ability to write music, fix chords, have it played back, share it with others and open it up for peer review and editing, we changed the whole instructional approach and transformed the interaction between the student and the tool.

For many students, the relevance of the blended instruction depends on how well we have kept these levels in mind when selecting or developing instructional materials for use in our blended learning programs.

We thank Dr. Puentedura for sharing many of his presentations, slides, and papers on his blog and for graciously providing Creative Commons-licenses presentations and allowing for reproduction, with attribution, on other sites. We also thank him for keeping the SAMR model focused on how our students learn in blended, digital environments.