Creating Successful Blended Courses

Marj Kibby School of Social Sciences ─ Faculty of Education and Arts

Hybrid / Blended / Mixed Mode Teaching

What is blended teaching?

•Courses that combine face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning.

•Courses that combine face-to-face classroom time with independent online activities.

•Courses that move a significant amount of learning activity online and as a result reduce the amount of classroom ‘seat time’.

Blended Courses

Blended courses provide an opportunity to combine the best elements of face-to-face instruction with the best elements of on-line learning.

Blended courses are not:

• Distance education or off campus courses.

• Taught entirely online.

• Traditional courses with an accompanying web-site.

• Course material published on the web.

• All the same – many different formats are possible.

Basic Blended Teaching Concepts

• Students spend more time working individually and collaboratively on assignments, projects, research and activities.

•Staff spend less time providing information and more time reviewing and evaluating student work and guiding and interacting with students.

Examples of Blended Teaching

• Anthropology of Religion Meet once a week for three weeks of lectures, then have three weeks of online case-based activities, and so on.

• Communication and Culture Reduce lecture from two hours to one hour and replace with online research tasks which are discussed in the tutorial.

• Australian Society Share online learning objects with Australian Politics, use tutorial time to apply information in a way that meets specific course goals.

• Writing Have students post written exercises for online feedback and discussion. Meet face-to-face to set parameters for the next exercise.

• Statistics Online interactive exercises and quizzes. Lectures tailored to address learning areas uncovered by the quizzes.

• Biology Real research experience using online tools and data in preparation for lab sessions.

Teaching Benefits

• Staff can teach in new ways.

• Face to face teaching can be organized around staff strengths.

• Value of f2f time is maximized.

• Burden of delivering all information to students is lifted.

• Opportunity to relate to students as individuals is maximized.

• Greater opportunity to link teaching to research interests.

• Increased opportunity to teach transferable skills.

Core Skills

• Teaching more closely connected with principles of Andragogy.

Principles

• Greater flexibility in organizing timetable.

• Staff can document, examine and respond to student work more effectively.

Learning Benefits

• More learning, better understanding and retention.

• Ability to follow individual interests.

• Student centered approach more likely.

• Greater opportunity to interact with staff.

• Less passive learning and more active learning.

• Students more accountable for their own learning.

• Learning is more applied, hands on.

• Greater opportunity to learn in different ways.

• Can accomplish personal learning goals and objectives.

• Can develop research skills early in undergraduate program.

Admin Benefits

• Course enrolments not limited by physical constraints.

• Solutions for over-enrolled courses.

• Ability to cater for different cohorts within one course.

• Possibility of combining courses for some learning activities.

• Time-shifting can accommodate off-campus commitments.

• Economies of scale possible.

• Flexibility in managing workloads.

Primary Drivers

Improved learning, including increased enjoyment of teaching and learning.

Increased integration of research and undergraduate teaching.

More effective use of available resources.

Greater convenience for students.

Increased flexibility for staff.

Considerations

• Allow for lead time.

– Incentives for staff

– Advance planning

– Provision of support

• Focus on pedagogy not technology

• Integrate components.

– Avoid having two parallel courses ─ online and f2f.

– Avoid having a course-and-a-half.

– Link learning activities to teaching goals.

– Online learning is more than managing access to data.

Considerations

•Modularization is needed to achieve economies of scale.

– Deconstruct courses into re-usable learning objects.

– Develop templates for discussion forums, tasks etc.

– Use rubrics for assessment.

– Develop universal policies on hybrid learning.

– Publish manuals for staff.

– Use student feedback to prepare student survival guide.

– Evaluate using frequent classroom assessment techniques.

– Use hybrid techniques initially with ongoing, large-enrolment courses.

Tips for Hybrid Course Developers

Start early.

Keep it simple, course re-design is incremental.

Keep course goals in mind.

Avoid trying to do too much.

Integrate the various course components.

Make use of existing resources.

Develop templates and rubrics.

Manage student expectations.

Anticipate problems.

Use ‘reality check’ evaluations.

Resources• University of Central Florida

Mixed-Mode/Reduced Seat Time Courses http://online.ucf.edu/courses_programs/1230.html

Presentations and Publications http://distrib.ucf.edu/dlucf/present.htm

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Hybrid Course Project http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/LTC/hybrid/

• Norquest College, Canada

Hybrid Learning Model http://www.norquest.ca/distance/hybridlearning.htm

• University of Illinois at Chicago

Workshop on Blended Learning http://www.uic.edu/depts/oee/blended/findings.htm

Resources

The Instructional Use of Learning Objects http://www.reusability.org/read/

Learning Object Tutorial http://www.eduworks.com/LOTT/tutorial/index.html

Understanding Rubrics http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/thinking/docs/rubricar.htm

Online Rubric Builder http://www.landmark-project.com/classweb/tools/rubric_builder.php3

Just in Time Teaching

http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/cst/tls/private/curricular_grants/jittJust_in_time_teaching.pdf

Establishing Discussion Groups

http://www.utas.edu.au/teachingonline/develop/webct_tools/communications/establish_discussion.html

Journalling Resources http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/learn/links/journaling.html

Web Quests http://webquest.org/

Acknowledgements

Robert Kaleta, Alan Aycock & Johnette Caulfield

Learning Technology Center

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

This study of Hybrid Teaching was made possible by the

University of Newcastle Teaching Excellence Award 2004

Questions?