Blended learning means a combination of online and face-to-face teaching. This can mean using the best of the best - the best use of online learning to enable classroom activities to be active and engaging learning experiences (Graham, 2006).
The aim is to encourage students to be active learners by using online technologies to enable or support learning activities that continue outside of the lecture hall, classroom or lab, and encourage students to arrive in class well prepared.
The following quote provides an additional perspective:
If technological advances are used expeditiously and teachers are less shackled by the need to provide students with access to knowledge, their skills in pedagogy can be directed towards higher level thinking abilities, and developing a climate of positive, enthusiastic learning contexts in which rigorous intellectual work can flourish. This in turn will enhance students’ self-image as effective learners. From such confidence the ability to be self-directed can develop (Arnold & Ryan, 2003).
There are many different approaches to achieving this end. You will be able to explore some of these, in relation to your own discipline and courses, during the workshop and associated activities.
We aim to bring what we have learned from educational theory and research, and from experience in working with academic staff to develop courses and modules using educational technologies, to the workshop to enable participants to benefit from and to apply appropriate theories and experiences to their own course development.
Following this workshop series, you should be able to:
Identify opportunities for course enhancement or transformation, or problems that may be addressed using a blended learning approach.
Use the educational design process to design learning activities that will realise the enhancement opportunities or resolve specific problems.
Plan an online course structure, or application of an existing WebCT Vista course template, and associated materials and tools to enable or support the desired learning activities.
Build a WebCT Vista course based on the above plan.
Plan evaluation activities for the above course.
This workshop is part of a series of 3 activities as follows:
|
Activity
|
Time frame |
Details |
| 1. |
Educational design workshop |
Half day |
Considers the reasons for different approaches to using online resources and how these can be used for course enhancement. The process of designing learning activities and online resources is explained and applied to learning tasks associated with your course.
|
| 2. |
Planning an online course |
Flexible |
A range of planning methods are considered to enable participants to design a course structure and course materials that will make the most effective use of online tools and templates to support the planned learning activities. This may involve a series of short meetings and online discussions as an alternative to a workshop.
|
| 3. |
Building an online course in WebCT Vista |
Half day |
This is a hands-on activity with support from educational developers and the eLearning Team. Participants bring some prepared materials and build their WebCT Vista course during the workshop.
|
One aim of a blended learning approach is to encourage student engagement with the course. There are many ways to do this. A way that encourages stduents to be active learners is to focus student activity on learning tasks that require the students to follow a series of actions that will lead to effective learning. Such actions could include:
Conducting investigations or surveys
Carrying out fieldwork or observations
Case studies
Investigations or reports
Reflective tasks on learning at different stages of the course
Design projects
Group investigations and reports
Group presentations and debates
Literature searches and reviews
Research projects
Design an experiment and conduct it
Gather a portfolio of activities or evicence for skills
Contribute to an ongoing online discussion.
A whole course can be based around resolving a problem scenario or a series of these.
The UNSW Guidelines on Learning That Inform Teaching provide a valuable framework for thinking about course development around active and engaging learning activities. These should be condidered in any course development process.
See also the Learning and Teaching Unit (LTU) list of Learning Activities that UNSW students perceive to be challenging, fun, interesting, relevant and practical. This list may also suggest good learning activities for your course.
When designing learning activities provide:
A good purpose to complete the activity.
Links to the learning outcomes. Give some guidance as to how the activity relates to the learning outcomes of the course.
An explanation of how to respond to the activity
Resources needed to complete the activity. Advise students what resources they may require before attempting the activity.
Learning activities embedded within the content of the course. This may help the students to relate theory to practice.
Educational design, like any other kind of design, provides a process for reaching the outcome you want, even though the way to do this isn't apparent at the beginning. The process is there to help you to rethink the issues, to take some new ideas on board, and to find creative ways to reach an effective resolution. The process has distinct stages as set out below. These, however, are iterative rather than linear. You may frequently find that you are revisiting earlier stages, or making a start with a specific idea or resource and looking back to earlier stages rather than the other way around.
Good online course design is based on good educational methods. A lot of expensive course developments have had fairly ho hum outcomes (flops) because the educational underpinning is trivial or unsound. We will discuss methods first in the program. The emphasis on technology will increase over time and according to need.
The design process we will use begins with the following stages:
Consider the real nature of the problem or goal. Illustrative examples below are intended to be general. Yours will be more specific.
Problem - Students are not engaged.
Possible questions:
How do the students show lack of engagement?
Non attendance? Is this lack of engagement or do they get the information they need elsewhere? How many don’t attend? What is the attendance pattern?
Non participation? What are the rewards for participation? Is it more effective for students to use their time on other matters? What do they say?
Problem – students can’t relate theory to practice
Possible questions:
What is the evidence that they can’t relate theory to practice? Examples may be:
Can’t do certain types of problem – what types?
Can apply formulas but can’t select the appropriate one in a complex problem – what makes types of problem too complex? What analytical process do they need to learn and don’t?
What percentage can’t do this?
What do they do that takes them down an inappropriate path?
Goal – use technology to develop a problem-solving or support tool
Possible questions:
What is the task?
What specific thinking processes to the students need to apply to complete the task?
At what point do they currently have difficulty?
What are typical or frequent misconceptions?
What level of analysis is required?
Other important considerations are:
What do student evaluations currently tell you?
Students don’t do x or y, which means they misapply the formula and can’t analyse or solve z correctly,
or
students often surface read the literature and don’t perceive critical distinctions or structure and can’t construct an appropriate analytical argument.
Reconsider the problem or goal you articulated at the beginning of the workshop to make it more specific. Discuss this with other participants if necessary but write your own on the worksheet.
These worksheets are for your own planning, and are there for you to record ideas from this workshop that you can build upon later. We would like you to share these with the program team at the end of this workshop, so we have a record of where you want to go. This will provide a basis for further support for your project.
Resources: Handout on learning outcomes and Bloom's Taxonomy of learning outcomes
The key questions at this point are:
What do the students need to be able to do that they can’t do now?
How will you know that the outcomes have been achieved?
Draft a first cut of your outcomes, using the worksheet. You may want to revisit these later.
Resources – Guidelines, Graduate Attributes, Student favourite activities, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Quality & Timesaving material.
What do we factor in as sources of ideas or parameters for the design?
Some examples that may be relevant/important are:
Results from steps 1 and 2
Guidelines on learning that Inform Teaching at UNSW
UNSW Graduate Attributes – general or faculty specific
Learning activities students perceive to be interesting
How to achieve high quality outcomes and save time
Affordances of specific technologies – such as:
Online discussions
Wikis, blogs
Online peer review
What ideas do any of these sources suggest? Note a range of ideas or factors that you would like to include in your course development, and how these might enhance your course? Use the worksheet to note the range of ideas, and the specific Guidelines and Graduate Attributes that you feel you wish to include.
Resources – Notes on learning activities
What will students do to be engaged in active learning processes that solve the problems, attain the outcomes, and include relevant factors and parameters for the design?
What will the students do?
How will that be assessed?
How will we evaluate the outcomes?
Consider the range of learning activities that you will include in your course to attain the outcomes you have set. Note these on the worksheet.
An online course that is designed to make the most effective use of blended learning activities needs to be structured to encourage students to carry out the activities. Workshop 2 of this series will concentrate on planning a course design and developing or sourcing suitable materials for learning activities.
Arnold, R. and M. Ryan, (2003). The Transformative Capacity of New Learning. Melbourne: Australian Council of Deans of Education.
Graham, C. R. (2006). Blended learning Systems: Definition, Current Trends, and Future Directions. In C. J. Bonk. & C. R. Graham (Eds.), The Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs. (pp. 3-21). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.