Great examples, Michelle, and wonderful observations of the benefits of blended learning. I agree that it can enhance and centralize the thinking process for the student and it can also expand the scope of any course - students can now include informtaion beyond the immediate curse and/or the ideas of the immediate instructor. The instructor's ideas are part of a variety of inputs and numerous ideas from those inputs. While the instructor is necessary to guide the process and support the learning, the student can now be central to the actual learning path and how the learning is applied.
In many courses, such as eCommerce that I teach, blended learning or a hybrid environment can greatly enhance the amount of material covered, the level of student involvement, and the ability to match course content to student interest and current level of awareness.
Since eCommerce is so wide-spread, I ask students to provide examples that demonstrate concepts we’re discussing, helping them see the implementation of the concept in their own experiences.
Additional material is assigned for outside of our face-to-face class-time to expand upon text and discussion content, with choices offered where students are encourage to pick items that match their interests, background, or a recognized need for knowledge. Links to online materials, such as videos, podcasts, articles, and web sites, can be easily distributed and assigned, matching the environment in which students are now very familiar and accustomed to using. If they want to know something, they ‘google’ it… why would an eCommerce course be any different?
Other posts I’ve reviewed here echo some of these same concepts, including this ‘immediacy’ of access to information, as well as the customization of it – providing information that’s meaningful to them, that is more recently so often expected and assumed. To start going ‘blended’ or dynamic, try encouraging students to look up related or tangential information for the topic or concepts currently being discussed, having them help you explain and expand upon those concepts and everyone’s understanding.
The primary advantage that I see, as an instructor incorporating online and dynamic content into a face-to-face class, is that students begin to realize it’s not about what the instructor ‘says’, but much more about what the learner ‘thinks’!
Yes,Cleve, have you decided why this is so? I have found in my experience that the direct connection each student online provides them with the idea of individual one-to-one communication, which takes away the anxiety of larger groups. I like your extension of the learning in the blended model. I would suggest that you "work" during class and leave more self-directed learning to the online portion of the course. That will give students a feeling of using the F2F time purposefully.
I have found that students are more open to participating in class discussions through the online portion of a blended class than in the classroom.
I have taught online classes for about three years, and I have just started instructing my first blended class last week. What I have planned for the classroom experience will help the students learn material that is not in the textbook as well as group learning activities.
Excellent points, Andrea. The blended delivery designs maximize both the self-directed aspects of online as well as the interpersonal aspects of F2F. Both can be immediate, however, each should augment the other rather than become counter-productive.
Blended and hybrid courses offer students the potential to increase learning in ways those of use who came up before the Internet did not have. It is now immediate: students can search for any information they want to know; they can have information delivered directly to their cell phone; they have the capability to interact with others whom they otherwise would not have been able to. Stating the obvious? Perhaps, but by the same token, we learn from each other, and as we continue to interact, be it in formal educational settings or on social media, we discover what we did not previously know. Sometimes the learning is obvious; other times, it's more covert. But in the end, learning is occurring.
Great points, Marilu. In a very real sense, students can customize their learning journey like never before and I agree with you, the structures and designs of courses and programs of study will continue to change to suit those realities. While those change, however, teachers are still needed to facilitate that learning journey and to help students learn how to learn - the greatest skill any teacher can help develop in any student. The hybrid or blended learning environment can truly help students towards that end by integrating various modes of learning and various resources, so that more students can benefit and the idea of customizing the learning path can truly happen.
Angela I agree with you on this. As our student's change and the individual pressures increase it is necessary for institutions of higher learning to also become more flexible. The market has changed in many ways, allowing us to teach anytime, anywhere to any student located anywhere around the world. This poses challenges to our ability to understand cultural differences and individual learning skills. I think in many way this enriches our teaching experience in many ways. In a hybrid environment you can still rely on perception and non verbal cues to help gauge understanding which is often lost in a purely virtual environment.
Good points, Virginia, and that is why the blended environment is more successful for most students - precisely because it merges the structure of F2F and the self structure of distance. The challenge is for instructors to maximize those strengths of each environment into one learning experience for students.
I still think its attractive to be able to work both within ones own schedule and when one is in a high energy phase, what we used to call "biorhythm." I have to take advantage when I'm "in the zone" and my peak periods do not always fit neatly into typical North American scheduling.
Conversely, I enjoy human interaction as well. Having attended "brick and mortar" classes all my life, I like having that structure, too.
Thus, hybrid learning offers flexibility in self-directed learning as well as enhanced networking capabilities.
I agree, Cindy. Hybrid also enhances the actual learning experience and provides access to technology and course design that suits more students.
I believe that the hybrid courses give those learners with busy schedules an option for flexibility. Having to meet on campus only half the time makes taking that college course feasible for some.
Dr. Reynard,
I am hopeful, but I have been communicating all day today with the few students who have tried to access their online resources to no avail. God willing, it will be resolved tomorrow.
What do you suggest to encourage students to wade through technical difficulties until the kinks are all worked out?
Excellent, Mariska, and the more streamlined the experience is between online and on ground, the richer the learning and the more self-directed students become.
Indeed, Virginia. The immediacy of information availability changes the role of teachers dramatically - teachers don't have to worry about providing information as much as guiding the use of that information.
I have been recently fascinated by all the online materials that are paired with the textbooks purchased by traditional students. I am doing my level best to make sure that e-book access, online practice tests, and study tools do not go unused by my students.
In only one day, I have run into numerous problems in the set-up and access to some of these tools, but I am willing to wade through so that the students get the best and most for their educational dollars. With just one course, students are able to read and make notations in their book online, be drilled in a personalized manner for medical terms, and take practice tests that I have virtually designed. Since this is not designed or advertised as a hybrid course, I find all of these to be quite impressive opportunities to use the technology available to us. This way I am able to engage students on a level that has already inundated nearly every other aspect of their lives.
I can still remember when I had to run to the library to get the answer to a question. I try to remember that when search engines have the answer to nearly everything imaginable instantaneously.
Thus, one can self-teach on the spot and perhaps seek clarification with teachers face-to-face.
...and, Richard, this develops a higher skill leele of self-directed learning and overall learner autonomy, which has always been a huge challenge for teachers to develop in students.
students now have another avenue to research material beyond the structured class room enviroment.
the can get in depth explaination on material that maybe there isnt time for or the designed curriculumn doesn't contain or allow for.
they csan do it on their own time.
and come back to the class room to discuss what they may have l;earned about from another resource.
I think the biggest oppurtunity that the hybrid or blended instruction offers to students is the flexibility. Students do not have to be in the classroom setting at a specific time. I think this is also important because it adds responsibilty to the student. They have to be responsible enough to complete their online work. The hybrid learning also provides more interaction between students and other students as well as students and teachers.
