Essentials for Blended Learning, 2nd Edition: A Standards-Based Guide (Essentials of Online Learning) [2 ed.] 1138486310, 9781138486317

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Foreword by Kelvin Thompson
Introduction to this Guide
i.1 A Unique Guide to Designing Blended Learning
i.2 Who Is the Guide for?
i.3 A Standards-Based Approach
i.4 How to Use the Guide
i.5 Terminology in this Guide
PART 1: Understanding Blended Learning
1. Blended Teaching and Learning
1.1 Changing World, Changing Learners
1.2 Types of Blended Learning
1.3 Why Blend?
1.4 Key Concepts for Blended Course Design
1.5 Choosing the Right Tools and Technologies
1.6 Expect to Spend Teaching Time Differently
1.7 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
2. Examples of Blended Learning
2.1 Things to Look for in Blended Course Examples
2.2 Course Example: American Literature Since 1865
2.3 Course Example: Introduction to Oceanography
2.4 Course Example: Technology for Elementary
Education Teachers
2.5 Activities and Assessments
2.6 Summary
3. Blending to Maximize Engagement
3.1 Engage Learners’ Hearts and Minds
3.2 Build Learner Engagement Through Interaction
3.3 Design Content Interaction to Engage Learners
3.4 Maximize the Human Element in Interactions
3.5 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
4. A Process for Blended Course Design
4.1 Avoid These Common Blending Pitfalls
4.2 Focus on Outcomes by Going “Backward”
4.3 Simplify Course Design with Iterative Development
4.4 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
PART 2: Designing Your Blended Course
5. Begin Your Blend from Outcomes
5.1 Succinctly Describe Your Course
5.2 Articulate the Course Goals
5.3 Write Specific Learning Outcomes for Each Goal
5.4 Fit Goals and Outcomes into a Timeline
5.5 Plant Goals and Outcomes in Your Course Website
5.6 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
6. Blending Assessments to Improve Learning
6.1 Assessments in Blended Environments
6.2 Assess Onsite for Live Performances, Interactions,
and Observations
6.3 Assess Online for Time-Savings, Flexibility,
and Feedback
6.4 Set Expectations with Clear Instructions
6.5 Encourage Academic Honesty Online
6.6 Design Students’ Projects to Be Showcased
6.7 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
7. Blending Learning Activities Online
7.1 Blending as a Way of Questioning the Status Quo
7.2 Blending to Improve How Students Learn
7.3 Present Content Online for Flexibility and Efficiency
7.4 Make Online Content Engaging and Effective
7.5 Foster Community with Online Social Activities
7.6 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
8. Blending Learning Activities Onsite
8.1 Make Onsite Learning Active
8.2 Encourage Students to Support Their Peers Onsite
8.3 Leverage Onsite for Authentic, Face-to-Face Activities
8.4 Invigorate Community Interaction with Onsite
Discussions
8.5 Connect Onsite to Online to Onsite
8.6 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
9. Setting Up Your Online Environment
9.1 Set Up an Online Environment for Your Blended Course
9.2 Build a Blended Lesson Online
9.3 The Course Home Page as a Hub
9.4 Ensure Usability from Start to Finish
9.5 Construct the Blended Syllabus
9.6 Prepare and Motivate Students for Greater Responsibility
9.7 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
10. Ongoing Improvement of Your Blended Course
10.1 Make Improvement Part of the Process
10.2 Prepare to Teach Your Blended Course
10.3 Ways to Uncover What Is Working (or Not)
10.4 Revising Your Blended Course Design
10.5 Teaching as Sharing
10.6 Summary and Standards
References and Further Reading
Appendix 1: Blended Course Standards Checklist
Appendix 2: Matching Learning Outcomes to Cognitive
Processes
Index

Citation preview

Essentials for Blended Learning Essentials for Blended Learning provides a practical, streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences by blending online activities and the best of face-to-face teaching. Effective blended learning requires rethinking of teaching practices and a redesign of course structure. Suitable for instructors in any content area, this book simplifies these difficult challenges without neglecting important opportunities to transform teaching. The revised second edition is more streamlined and easier to use, and includes more real-world examples of blended teaching and learning, the latest technologies, and additional research-based learning activities. Jared Stein is Vice President of Higher Education Strategy at Instructure, and Advisor with RareBird Consulting. Charles R. Graham is Department Chair of Instructional Psychology & Technology at Brigham Young University, USA.

Essentials of Online Learning Series Series Editor: Marjorie Vai

Essentials of Online Course Design: A Standards-Based Guide, Second Edition Marjorie Vai and Kristen Sosulski Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide, Second Edition Jared Stein and Charles R. Graham Essentials of Online Teaching: A Standards-Based Guide Margaret Foley McCabe and Patricia González-Flores

Essentials for Blended Learning A Standards-Based Guide Second Edition Jared Stein and Charles R. Graham

Second edition published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Jared Stein and Charles R. Graham to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2014. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Stein, Jared, author. | Graham, Charles R., author. | Routledge   (Firm) | Taylor & Francis. Title: Essentials for blended learning : a standards-based guide / Jared   Stein and Charles R. Graham. Other titles: Essentials of online learning series. Identifiers: LCCN 2019051726 (print) | LCCN 2019051727 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Blended learning. | Computer-assisted instruction. |   Educational technology—Standards. Classification: LCC LB1028.5 .S715 2020 (print) | LCC LB1028.5 (ebook) |   DDC 371.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051726 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051727 ISBN: 978-1-138-48631-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-48632-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-04399-1 (ebk) Typeset in Helvetica Neue and Optima by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK Visit the eResources: www.routledge.com/9781138486324

Contents

Foreword by Kelvin Thompson

Introduction to this Guide i.1 i.2 i.3 i.4 i.5

A Unique Guide to Designing Blended Learning Who Is the Guide for? A Standards-Based Approach How to Use the Guide Terminology in this Guide

ix

1 1 2 3 4 5

PART 1: Understanding Blended Learning

7

  1. Blended Teaching and Learning

9

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

Changing World, Changing Learners 9 Types of Blended Learning 10 Why Blend? 13 Key Concepts for Blended Course Design 18 Choosing the Right Tools and Technologies 21 Expect to Spend Teaching Time Differently 22 Summary and Standards 23 References and Further Reading24

  2. Examples of Blended Learning

26

2.1 Things to Look for in Blended Course Examples 26 2.2 Course Example: American Literature Since 1865 28 2.3 Course Example: Introduction to Oceanography 34 2.4 Course Example: Technology for Elementary Education Teachers40 2.5 Activities and Assessments 43 2.6 Summary 45

  3. Blending to Maximize Engagement 3.1 3.2

v

Engage Learners’ Hearts and Minds Build Learner Engagement Through Interaction

46 47 49

Contents

3.3 3.4 3.5

Design Content Interaction to Engage Learners 51 Maximize the Human Element in Interactions 53 Summary and Standards 57 References and Further Reading58

  4. A Process for Blended Course Design 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

59

Avoid These Common Blending Pitfalls 60 Focus on Outcomes by Going “Backward” 61 Simplify Course Design with Iterative Development 65 Summary and Standards 69 References and Further Reading69

PART 2: Designing Your Blended Course

71

  5. Begin Your Blend from Outcomes

73

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

Succinctly Describe Your Course 74 Articulate the Course Goals 75 Write Specific Learning Outcomes for Each Goal 79 Fit Goals and Outcomes into a Timeline 82 Plant Goals and Outcomes in Your Course Website 83 Summary and Standards 84 References and Further Reading85

  6. Blending Assessments to Improve Learning

86

6.1 Assessments in Blended Environments 86 6.2 Assess Onsite for Live Performances, Interactions, and Observations89 6.3 Assess Online for Time-Savings, Flexibility, and Feedback 91 6.4 Set Expectations with Clear Instructions 102 6.5 Encourage Academic Honesty Online 103 6.6 Design Students’ Projects to Be Showcased 105 6.7 Summary and Standards 107 References and Further Reading109

  7. Blending Learning Activities Online 7.1 7.2 7.3

vi

Blending as a Way of Questioning the Status Quo Blending to Improve How Students Learn Present Content Online for Flexibility and Efficiency

111 111 113 115

Contents

7.4 7.5 7.6

Make Online Content Engaging and Effective 121 Foster Community with Online Social Activities 130 Summary and Standards 135 References and Further Reading137

  8. Blending Learning Activities Onsite

139

8.1 Make Onsite Learning Active 140 8.2 Encourage Students to Support Their Peers Onsite 140 8.3 Leverage Onsite for Authentic, Face-to-Face Activities 144 8.4 Invigorate Community Interaction with Onsite Discussions149 8.5 Connect Onsite to Online to Onsite 152 8.6 Summary and Standards 153 References and Further Reading154

  9. Setting Up Your Online Environment 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7

Set Up an Online Environment for Your Blended Course 156 Build a Blended Lesson Online 157 The Course Home Page as a Hub 163 Ensure Usability from Start to Finish 165 Construct the Blended Syllabus 166 Prepare and Motivate Students for Greater Responsibility 171 Summary and Standards 172 References and Further Reading173

10. Ongoing Improvement of Your Blended Course 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6

155

175

Make Improvement Part of the Process 175 Prepare to Teach Your Blended Course 177 Ways to Uncover What Is Working (or Not) 178 Revising Your Blended Course Design 185 Teaching as Sharing 187 Summary and Standards 188 References and Further Reading189

Appendix 1: Blended Course Standards Checklist190 Appendix 2: M  atching Learning Outcomes to Cognitive Processes195 Index198

vii

Foreword

I am delighted to have the opportunity to provide a framing word about Stein and Graham’s second edition of Essentials for Blended Learning. That word is: clarifying.  In nearly ten years of sharing blended learning design practices through the “BlendKit”1 open courseware on blended learning course design, distributing decades of collective blended learning insights from the work of the University of Central Florida (UCF) and beyond, I’ve had occasion to interact with many thousands of faculty and instructional designers interested in how to design effective blended courses. I have found that questions and confusion predominate. Perhaps that is because of the many variables at play in blended learning, many more than when designing online courses or face-to-face courses.  Over time, I’ve found myself repeating several statements that I’ve come to think of as truisms about blended learning: 1. When designed well, blended is best. 2. Blended is hard to design well. 3. Perhaps the single greatest design challenge in blended learning is the successful integration between the online and face-to-face portions. In their second edition of Essentials for Blended Learning, Stein and Graham address these truisms and more. They provide coherent guidance in making sense of the varied terminology and models extant in the blended learning literature (e.g. blended, hybrid, flipped, hyflex, etc.). They offer readers operational definitions and an approach to integrating concepts that reduces cognitive load and facilitates each reader’s ability to find their own way forward in blended learning course design. The division of the new edition into two overarching sections is helpful. Readers are invited in Part One to get a broad conceptual understanding of the nuances of blended learning before turning

ix

Foreword

their attention in Part Two to taking on the tasks involved in designing (or redesigning) a blended course. Chapter 4 is pivotal in making the most of this organization of topics as it offers a process model for carrying out blended design that bridges the gap between “understanding” and applying this understanding in “designing”. The backbone of Essentials of Blended Learning continues to be the “standards” Stein and Graham have synthesized from the updated research and professional practice literatures on blended learning. Within each chapter, at the end of each chapter, and pulled together as a whole checklist in Appendix 1, readers are invited to engage with each design standard and consider how it might be applied in their own unique design work. However, readers are admonished that these standards are “not set in stone”, emphasizing the autonomy of each designer alongside the synthesized design principles. This autonomy is underscored by the emphasis throughout the book on personal reflection. Each reader is encouraged to give thoughtful attention to her or his own unique design challenges and personal preferences despite the clear general path offered through the book. The theme of continuous improvement that runs through the book also encourages readers to take on what is manageable now and to iterate over time. This is quite helpful to those who might otherwise become overwhelmed with the complexity of blended learning course design. Jared Stein and Charles Graham are both respected figures in the broad community of higher education digital learning. Together they make a formidable team of scholarly practitioners, with experiences spanning institutional higher education and corporate technologyprovider contexts while attending to evidence of what does and doesn’t work. In this guide, the authors offer a clarifying perspective on how to make the most of blended learning. Whether you are just considering engaging in blended learning, or whether you are looking for guidance in iterating your course redesign, you will find help in this book. 

x

Foreword

I recommend Essentials for Blended Learning for individual faculty, for book discussion groups, and for use in formal faculty development programs. Those who apply the principles from this book are sure to make blended learning even better. Kelvin Thompson, Ed.D. Creator of The BlendKit Course Executive Director, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida Orlando, FL

Note 1. University of Central Florida. BlendKit: Blended Learning Toolkit. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://blended.online.ucf.edu/blendkit-course

xi

Introduction to this Guide

Hybrid versus Blended

This is the second edition of Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide, part of the Routledge series on Essentials of Online Learning. While this book is a stand-alone guide for teachers wanting to blend face-to-face with online learning, it is also complementary to Essentials of Online Course Design: A StandardsBased Guide, as many of the principles and standards apply no matter how you teach.

The term “hybrid” is often used to specify blended courses that are at least a third online, often replacing one or more classroom sessions with online learning. This guide is especially useful for the design of hybrid courses.

The overall approach to developing a blended course is different from developing an online course because it requires:

i.1

A Unique Guide to Designing Blended Learning

• • •

leveraging the unique strengths and weaknesses of online and onsite environments; emphasizing learning outcomes over technology; interweaving of activities between modes to keep students engaged.

This book uses examples from blended courses across disciplines to show how onsite and online experiences can be most effectively utilized.

This guide takes teachers and designers through a practical, thorough process for developing a blended course. This guide is:

•

•

1

Standards-based. Guidelines and standards are based on ­current research in the field, relevant learning theories, and practitioner experiences. Standards checklists enable readers to reflect and self-evaluate their work. Easy to use. The book’s design combines text, illustrations, and references to online resources to help readers make sense of concepts. The writing is concise and clear, and avoids jargon.

Introduction to this Guide

• •

• • •

i.2

Streamlined. The guide utilizes a simple but effective design process that focuses on designing (or redesigning) in phases and through small steps. Practical. The book uses real-world examples from different subject areas to help teachers understand principles in context. It is grounded in theory but not about theory. The book also provides tips, notes, and opportunities to pause and think through ideas. Expansive. Chapters include references for further reading, and a companion website enhances understanding. Contemporary. The book recognizes the increasing variety and power of modern, connected technologies that address a variety of teaching challenges. Forward-looking. This book presents ideas from current and future teaching methods that connect to the modern world, and encourages authentic learning experiences that extend beyond the limitations of the traditional classroom.

Who Is the Guide For? This guide is for those involved with blended teaching and training at all levels, including:

• • • • • •

2

Teachers or professors challenged with redesigning a face-toface or online course into a blended mode. Instructional designers and technologists working with teachers to apply models, examples, and principles of the blended course through a standards-based approach. Staff development trainers who may use this guide as a framework or primary resource for a staff development program on blended teaching. Instructors teaching courses on blended learning design in schools of education, who may use this guide to reduce the burden of developing resources of their own. Students in educational technology programs exploring blended learning in their studies or internship experiences. Leaders who want to learn more about blended teaching, or who may even be skeptical about the effectiveness and practicality of online or blended courses.

Introduction to this Guide

i.3

A Standards-Based Approach Education has recognized the impact of technology on the way we live our lives, and on how their students will interact in the world after school. Yet many teachers remain skeptical of online teaching and whether technology can effectively reproduce the experience they are used to in face-to-face classrooms. Perhaps this is because it is easy to misinterpret what technology can actually do for education. We believe that educational technology’s primary purpose is to save people time and provide flexibility so that effective educational practices are easier to implement. In some cases, the flexibility and time-savings that technology provides can make ideas that were not previously possible in face-to-face classrooms feasible in an online or blended mode. As much as we ourselves might be excited by the novelty of technology, we understand that the best way for any teacher to use technology effectively is by focusing less on the technology itself, and more on how it can enable evidence-based teaching and learning. This guide’s standards-based approach addresses those needs without overwhelming teachers with theory. Many standards that are applicable to online course design are similarly applicable to blended course design. Indeed, many of the standards set out elsewhere in this series are broadly applicable to learning design in general. However, because blended courses have fundamental differences, we introduce new standards to serve what we see as the critical needs of blended course design. We present standards in three stages: 1. Within each chapter, as they are discussed. At this stage, a standard will look like this:

Content and activities support learning outcomes. 2. At the end of each chapter, in summary. Use these lists to review or as a focused checklist. At this stage, a standard will look like this:

Content and activities support learning outcomes.

3

Introduction to this Guide

3. As a complete checklist in the appendix. Use this to guide and evaluate your blended course design. At this stage, a standard will look like this:

Content and activities support learning outcomes. The redundancy built into this guide around standards is meant to reinforce your understanding of the essentials of good blended course design, and should help you to recognize the sometimes subtle interconnectedness of the standards.

Blending Based on Evidence The standards that will guide you in this book have been adapted from published research results, educational theories, or “best practices” in blended teaching and learning. Some of the standards are born of the authors’ own experiences designing and teaching blended courses, as well as experiences training teachers to design and teach their own blended courses. We list key references at the end of the chapters in which the standards most prominently appear so you can learn more.

i.4

How to Use the Guide This book is designed to be used in two different ways, depending on your goals: 1. as a complete guide to redesigning a course as blended or hybrid over a period of weeks or months; 2. as a collection of learning activities that can be applied right away in order to blend a course in smaller steps. For those who intend to create a complete and intentionally blended course, we recommend that you read everything and examine each example as you work through the course design process. For those who don’t have time for a complete redesign of their course but want to start blending immediately, look for the activity call-outs that appear in Chapters 5–8, such as this:

4

Introduction to this Guide

Peer Instruction What? After students have learned a topic online, they gather together onsite with the teacher. The teacher presents a multiple-choice question to the class on a relevant topic (Figure 8.2).

These activity call-outs are designed to help you blend your teaching right away. They provide clear, direct instructions on how to either take a common classroom activity online, or enrich an onsite session with more active learning.

i.5

Terminology in this Guide For the sake of consistency, we have used specific words or phrases to represent, in some cases, a variety of possibilities for the sake of simplicity: Teacher. The course designer/developer, instructor, professor, facilitator, or trainer. While words such as “teacher” and “facilitator” may suggest two approaches that are fairly far apart, this guide only incidentally refers to the actual running of the course. In cases where the distinction between teacher/instructor or designer/developer is important, the context will make that clear. Student. The individual who is taking the online course (i.e. the trainee, class member, or participant). Learner. This term is used when we refer to a student beyond a course, with respect to the ways in which people develop knowledge. Course. We use this term for the teaching and learning experiences structured around a set of goals and outcomes as designated by the teacher or institution. “Course” covers any of the following: university or college course, high school course or class, training program, seminar, or workshop. In some places such as the UK, “course” refers to a program of study, not a single, semester-long, teacher-led class experience as we use it here.

5

Introduction to this Guide

Class. The community of teacher(s) and students organized around common goals of learning. Whereas “course” refers to the structure of content, assessments, and activities, “class” refers to the people engaged in the course. Lesson. Sometimes referred to as units, lectures, chapters, sections, or modules, a lesson is a cohesive unit of instruction organized around specific learning outcomes, and contains learning activities and assessments. Lessons are the building block of any course. In a blended course, lessons contain activities that happen online as well as onsite. Goal. Sometimes called a course-level outcome or objective, we use “goal” to refer to learning objectives that are broad and encompass several specific learning outcomes. Outcome. A specific, measurable statement of desired learning— whether in relation to knowledge, behavior, attitude, etc.—upon successful completion of a learning experience. Learning Management System (LMS). A web-based system of tightly integrated tools and technologies constructed to help teachers manage instruction, facilitate activities, and monitor learning. It is a commonly used virtual environment where learners engage with content and the class community. An LMS is sometimes called a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Onsite. Meeting or activities happening face-to-face, usually in a classroom setting. Online. Synchronous (real-time) or asynchronous activities happening via the internet.

6

Part  1

Understanding Blended Learning

Chapter  1

Blended Teaching and Learning

1.1

Changing World, Changing Learners We live in a blended world. Most of us weave online and face-to-face interactions with people every day, throughout the day. Information and media are available at our fingertips and on-demand, through smartphones, tablets, laptops. Connected, digital technology is becoming a natural part of our physical environments. We are each “blending” physical and digital activities to create personalized, optimal life experiences. This is what blended education is all about: designing learning experiences online or onsite, based on the relative strengths and weaknesses of each mode. Blended courses mix the best of onsite and online to create new, more effective learning experiences for learners. Research suggests blending can have a positive impact on efficiency, convenience, and learning outcomes. By moving more of the learning to online environments, blended courses add flexibility to participants’ schedules, provide clearer organization, and can support more active learning. Blended courses can also tap into the socially networked aspects of our modern lives to help learners venture beyond the traditional confines of the classroom. As technology becomes further integrated into our lives, we expect that education will eventually abandon the term “blended”. But, for many teachers, actively teaching and fostering learning online is still new and unknown. Even for teachers who are comfortable teaching online, blended learning creates so many possibilities that it may be hard to determine what’s most effective for learning. This book is written to guide all teachers to maximize the benefits of blended learning.

9

Understanding Blended Learning

A Day in the Connected Life The first thing Devlin does after waking up is check his smartphone to preview his calendar and task list. On his bus ride to work, Devlin’s phone notifies him that his teacher has posted a new grade and given feedback on his paper. Devlin quickly reads the feedback and annotations through a mobile app, and begins thinking about revisions he might make. At lunchtime, Devlin reaches out to a friend in another department via text message, and they both use online social media services to get recommendations for a local restaurant. The restaurant turns out to be pretty good, and Devlin rates it on his favorite social network site so his friends and family can learn about it. After lunch, Devlin starts a shared document with teammates in his business course so they can begin collaborating on a class presentation. He quickly searches the web for information, summarizes it with hyperlinks in an online document, and adds his teammates as co-authors so they can collaborate digitally. After work, Devlin arrives at home and asks aloud if there are any new announcements in his courses. A digital voice responds that, yes, there is one new announcement in his business course. He loads his university’s LMS on his tablet and watches the video announcement recorded by his teacher, providing some tips on how to close an oral presentation. Below the announcement, he reads some back-and-forth between classmates who are digging deeper in to the topic and clarifying the teacher’s announcement. Devlin now has a head start on his course responsibilities, and will process what he’s seen and read that evening. Thanks to nearly constant access to the internet, Devlin’s daily life is blended with online services and information that allow him to accomplish more, efficiently and in a way that is adapted to his lifestyle.

1.2

Types of Blended Learning Blended learning is a combination of onsite (i.e. face-to-face) and online experiences. The purpose of blending is to make teaching and learning experiences more flexible, efficient, and effective by designing for the best of each mode. This is why blended courses are different from both online and onsite courses, both structurally and pedagogically. If you imagine a spectrum

10

Blended Teaching and Learning

Figure 1.1  A spectrum of technology-enhanced teaching or learning of technology-enhanced learning, with traditionally onsite learning on the left and fully online learning on the right (Figure 1.1), blended learning could fall anywhere in between the two. Some will decide that a certain percentage of the course must be online, or that a certain amount of traditionally onsite meetings be replaced with online activities, but these measured determinations are often arbitrary. The most important aspect of the blend is the pedagogy, how you teach and how students learn during the online time to increase active learning, develop an engaged learning community, and promote learner autonomy. These pedagogical aspects are supported by the structural aspects of a blended course. We’ll explore this idea further in Chapters 7 and 8.

Hybrid: Blending by Regularly Reducing Onsite Sessions Blending a traditionally onsite course involves using online learning activities to supplement or support onsite learning. A hybrid course is a blended course where online learning activities are designed to replace a significant amount of onsite learning activities. A hybrid course design reduces the amount of time spent onsite. If you’re used to teaching completely online, introducing onsite, face-to-face meetings effectively turns your course into a hybrid. Reducing the number of onsite meetings is one way that blended courses move beyond simply “technology-enhanced” or “web-enhanced” courses. A three-credit college course that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays might, as a blended course, meet only on Tuesdays. Does that mean the Thursday session now simply happens online? Possibly. But you can also think about the Thursday onsite time as merging into a broader series of teaching and learning activities that already happen outside of the physical classroom (Figure 1.2). In a traditional class, those

11

Understanding Blended Learning

Figure 1.2  Moving learning experiences online learning activities may be simply reading a textbook, studying, or working on assignments. Often learning time that happens outside of class is spent how each student deems best. Online technology in a blended course gives teachers more options for guiding and engaging students in learning activities outside of class. Students may watch an online video, engage in an online discussion with their classmates, take an online quiz, or review peers’ papers or projects. In a hybrid course, some of these activities replicate what would normally happen onsite, but more often teachers choose online activities that wouldn’t be feasible onsite. Similarly, a blended course leverages the strengths of onsite environments. Teachers of a hybrid course in particular must maximize the limited onsite time, focusing students on activities that take advantage of the environment, including the fact that learners and teachers are faceto-face in real-time. Because of this, onsite learning in a hybrid course tends to be less teacher-centered and more active and hands-on for students, with teacher- or peer-supported learning activities.

Flipped Classroom: Blending by Swapping Learning Activities Especially popular in primary and secondary schools, the flipped classroom model puts lectures or presentations online while turning “homework” assignments into the onsite activities. The flipped classroom model works in higher education as well, though teachers of

12

Blended Teaching and Learning

Tip Avoid the “course and a half” syndrome, where a blended course becomes more work simply by adding to—not replacing—onsite activities. Chapter 4 addresses this challenge.

humanities and social sciences may find their course is already flipped because students read outside of class and engage in discussions or other activities onsite.

Hyflex: Blending by Letting Students Choose Online or Onsite Yet another way to blend a course is to design a fully online course with regular, optional onsite sessions for those students who want faceto-face interactions or need extra help. This is sometimes called the “hyflex” model, and provides maximum flexibility for learners as it allows them to choose whether to attend onsite sessions or not (Beatty, 2014). This model is more intensive to create, but empowers students to choose what’s best for themselves. Before you design your blended course you need to decide which type you plan to create: a hybrid, flipped, or hyflex. No matter which approach you favor in your blended course design, most of the key ideas and techniques in this guide can apply.

1.3

Why Blend? Because we live our lives as a mix of physical and online activities and experiences, blended learning simply fits a modern, connected lifestyle. More importantly for educators, blended learning provides direct benefits to students, teachers, and administration:

• • •

increased access and convenience; improved learning; decreased costs.

These benefits can be obtained if the blended course is designed intentionally to achieve these goals, with a purposeful design process and appropriate standards.

Increased Access and Convenience For many students, fully online courses are valuable because they don’t rely on students being in the same physical location at the same time. This lets students enroll in courses regardless of their geography, and plan their learning time around their personal schedules.

13

Understanding Blended Learning

By eliminating some of the required onsite meetings, blended courses provide greater flexibility over traditional courses, though not as much as fully online courses. The use of online and digital activities can add flexibility by itself: digital video allows students to control the speed and repetition of content. Online quizzes can provide feedback automatically, and allow students to try again. Being able to engage in learning via mobile devices while on public transportation or whenever users have spare time makes participating much more convenient and accessible. While blended courses don’t provide as much flexibility as fully online courses, they do provide advantages of their own. Not only is onsite learning more comfortable for teachers and students who are used to that environment, face-to-face remains advantageous for quickly building personal relationships, and supporting all the senses. Thus blended courses may be the ideal offering for students and teachers who need additional access and convenience, but don’t want to entirely sacrifice the comfort or benefits of face-to-face.

Blending for Non-Traditional Students Blended courses may be especially appropriate for non-traditional students seeking post-secondary education to improve their lives. Non-traditional students are usually older than typical college students, and work or have families. These students need the flexibility that online offers, but may find online learning too different from what they’re used to. The consistent rhythm of face-to-face sessions may keep them motivated and engaged.

Improved Learning Educational research suggests blended courses can be more effective compared to both face-to-face and online. A 2009 US Department of Education report examined fifty-one empirical studies comparing online education with traditional face-to-face courses and concluded, “students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course … face-to-face” (Yates, Bakia, Means, & Jones, 2009, p. xiv). The report also compared blended courses with fully online courses and found that “instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had

14

Blended Teaching and Learning

a larger advantage … than did purely online instruction” (p. xv). More recent studies have added to the argument that blended learning can be more effective, especially in specific disciplines such as language learning (e.g. Zhang & Zhu, 2018). Why might blended learning be more effective than onsite or online courses? Here are some possibilities:

•

•

•

•

•

•

15

Easier access to learning activities. Putting materials and activities online allows more of the class to engage with these on their own schedule. This may enable more students to participate and engage. Increased guidance and triggers. Students working in a faceto-face class receive guidance from the teacher during class time and from a syllabus when working on their own. In a well-designed blended course, the course environment provides a clear, detailed, guided path through resources, activities, and assessments. Individualized learning opportunities. Because digital materials may be accessed and reviewed on-demand, students have some control over the pace of certain learning activities in a blended course. Automated assessments often used in online learning environments may also provide immediate, corrective feedback that directs students to revisit materials. Increased social interaction. Students in a face-to-face course may have limited opportunities to engage with each and every classmate, and the face-to-face environment itself may inhibit some students from participating. Online discussions, collaborative documents, etc., can increase the amount of student-to-student interaction by easing the limitations of time and space. This may, in turn, enhance their engagement with the subject matter and provide motivational benefits from the increased social interaction. More time on task. Blended and online courses often have websites that guide and focus students’ attention on the tasks they need to accomplish in order to learn. Automatic notifications and reminders can help students engage in learning, increasing time on task. Improved instructional design. Blended courses (like online courses) require extra attention and therefore may be more intentionally designed than face-to-face counterparts. This may be due to the involvement of instructional designers or educational technologists who are trained on how people learn.

Understanding Blended Learning

Decreased Costs Blended courses can decrease costs to teachers, students, and institutions. For teachers and students, reducing onsite time can mean transportation savings, less travel time, and fewer parking costs. For institutions or departments, reducing onsite time can maximize physical campus resources such as classroom space. A simple example of this is the Tuesday/Thursday class referenced above (Figure 1.2). By blending the course we eliminate the Thursday onsite session. This allows another blended Tuesday/Thursday class to use that room— essentially doubling that classroom’s scheduling capacity for that time slot (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3  Two blended courses maximizing a single classroom

Trending toward Blending Technology will not replace teachers. But teachers who use technology will replace those who don’t. Various

As technology has advanced, we’ve seen more and more teachers adopt technology in their practice. This usually starts small, by sharing files online, communicating via email, or using an online grade book. This has allowed traditional courses to take advantage of technology efficiencies without forcing faculty out of their pedagogical comfort zone or without sacrificing the things we value in face-to-face interactions. Students’ expectations and desires for flexibility and convenience also influence teachers’ interest in blended learning. Most teachers want to

16

Blended Teaching and Learning

give their students an engaging and satisfying experience, and when technology saves students time or provides flexibility we can expect that students will have fewer obstacles in engaging. Technology also holds the promise of improving educational experiences, but we must be careful not to assume that technology itself improves learning. Technology is simply a tool; we must change our methods and practices if we want to change students’ learning outcomes. Technology can help us make those changes with greater efficiency and flexibility, and blended learning can be a catalyst for making those changes. And because positive changes in teaching and learning can be rewarding for everyone, blended learning can lead teachers on a path toward continuous improvement. Blended learning is attractive to academic leaders, too. Teachers who redesign and teach blended courses can serve as mentors or advisors to other teachers, which can lead to the sharing of innovative practices across campus. All of this can add to the institution’s body of knowledge and experience, supporting good practices in teaching and learning. And, by growing blended courses, an institution may increase its attractiveness to students who increasingly favor blended and online modes.

Reflection: Why Are You Blending Your Course? By picking up this book (and getting this far into it) we’d guess that you are committed to giving blended teaching a try. Why? Take a few minutes and write down your reasons.

• • • •

What do you hope will happen as a result of blending your course? How might your teaching methods or learning activities change? What do you hope students will take away from the blended experience? Perhaps you simply enjoy and value online technology. If so, how do you anticipate it may change (or affect) your teaching?

As you use this guide you may discover things about blended learning that give you fresh or creative reasons for blending.

17

Understanding Blended Learning

1.4

Key Concepts for Blended Course Design When a course is redesigned as blended, many new possibilities emerge. These can be overwhelming to a teacher new to blending, so this guide will simplify some of the decision-making by directing planning against learning time by focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of onsite and online environments.

Plan for Your Course Design against Learning Time One way to plan a blended course design is to shift our expectations for learning time spent onsite learning to online (or vice versa). In any traditional course, total learning time includes both the time spent in onsite class sessions as well as the time we expect students to use reading, completing assignments, studying, and so on. Table 1.1 illustrates this idea using the standard learning time formula used by many US colleges and universities: for each hour in class we expect at least two hours of “study time”. By reducing the number of onsite class sessions through blended course design, we simply add to the total time we can expect students to engage online (Figure 1.3), whether that’s through interacting with their teacher, course content, or other students. This credit hour approach is not without its faults. But because credit hour-based teaching is so commonly used, many teachers will find that using the total learning time provides structure and flexibility in planning online activities. While time on task is important, there are good reasons to focus on individual student attainment of outcomes rather than one-size-fits-all experiences. For instance, though we many want our students to attain the same outcomes, our students themselves are not the same. Some Table 1.1  Expected learning time for a three- and five-credit onsite college course in a fifteen-week semester

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Course Credits

Learning Time Per Week (Hours) Onsite Meetings

Offsite Learning

Total

3

3

6+

9+

5

5

10+

15+

Blended Teaching and Learning

begin with more background knowledge and experience, and some learn faster or more efficiently than others. This leads to a key advantage of blended learning: online content and activities do not have to be one-size-fits-all. They can extend beyond the needs of the average student, and provide additional instruction or remediation for students with less background knowledge. Teachers can construct frameworks whereby students engage with the teacher or their peers only as much as they need to. This allows students to take greater control of their learning path and pace. In this guide we emphasize the importance of starting with a clear statement of the goals and outcomes that describe a successful learner at the end of the course before deciding what activities to do onsite or online. A blended course will do more teaching and learning activities online. A blended course will even use different assessments and activities based on the strengths and weaknesses of online or onsite environments. But the learning outcomes of a blended course can be identical to those of the onsite version, as long as the decisions we make are done with attainment of outcomes in mind.

Learning outcomes for a blended course are identical to those of onsite or online versions.

Weave Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions Interactions that happen between people together and in real-time are synchronous. In a blended course, synchronous interactions may happen face-to-face during onsite meetings or in conversations. But synchronous interactions may also happen online, e.g. through live chat or video conferencing. Asynchronous interactions are those that happen without people having to be in the same place at the same time. For instance, I can send a message or post comments to a discussion forum whenever I want, and you can read and respond to that in your own time. This provides significant flexibility to teach and learn together regardless of individuals’ schedules. A blended course design purposely chooses synchronous or asynchronous learning interactions based on the strengths or weaknesses of each to achieve learning outcomes while maximizing

19

Understanding Blended Learning

Table 1.2  Online social tools designed for synchronous or asynchronous interaction Technology

Synchronous

Web conferencing (e.g. Zoom, Skype)

X

Asynchronous

Discussion forums

X

Blogs (e.g. WordPress, Medium)

X

Email

X

Text messaging

X

X

Chat (e.g. Slack, Pronto)

X

X

Collaborative documents (e.g. Google Docs, Office365)

X

X

flexibility. Table 1.2 lists a number of common online technologies that can support each. Flexibility in education is increasingly important if we want to enable more students to participate. Some blended courses offer both synchronous and asynchronous versions of activities to address the needs of students (such as schedule issues, time zones, etc.), and to offer students choice. Chapter 3 further addresses these kinds of interactions in terms of student engagement, and specific asynchronous and synchronous learning activities are explored in Chapters 7 and 8. What you should notice at this time is that one of the key strengths of online is in how it can provide flexibility and increase participation through asynchronous interactions.

Take Advantage of the Strengths and Limitations of Online and Onsite Perhaps the greatest advantage of blending is that a course can use online or onsite environments for activities based on the strengths and weaknesses of each. A course that only uses one or the other may not be able to engage all of the learners in the way that a blend of the two can. Throughout this guide we will point out the strengths and weaknesses of each online and onsite environments as we explore ways of building and assessing students’ knowledge and abilities. But do not rely entirely on our judgment of these different modes. Look for and understand

20

Blended Teaching and Learning

the strengths and weaknesses of each environment yourself, according to your teaching philosophy and students’ values. Keep in mind that, as technology continues to improve and expand, the strengths and weaknesses of online environments will also change.

1.5

Choosing the Right Tools and Technologies The “right” online tools or technologies for your blended course depend on your learning outcomes, the subject area, and the simplicity and accessibility of a technology for yourself and your learners. Above all else we advise that when choosing technologies for your blended course you keep the technology as simple as possible. This will help you avoid complications for yourself and your students, and help you focus on teaching and learning over technology. A blended course requires an online learning environment to organize and supplement the onsite sessions and to support interactions between members of the class. Many institutions will have a learning management system (LMS) that provides ready-made spaces for each course with a variety of tools and features designed specifically for blended and online learning. Many of the examples in this book represent tools or features from an LMS, and Table 1.3 provides an overview of common LMS tools. The LMS is not the only toolset at a teacher’s disposal. Easy-to-use, freely available tools on the web such as personal websites, blogs, and online media services open up many possibilities for teachers

Table 1.3  Common features in an LMS Class Management

Communication and Interaction

Content and Resources

Practice and Assessment

Class roster

Class announcements

Lesson sequencing

Grade book

Private messaging

Page creation

Quizzes and exams Surveys

Calendars

Discussion forums

Hyperlinking

Group management

Chat and conferencing

File upload

Peer review

Document annotation

Outcome alignment

Learning analytics

Alerts/notifications

Collaborative editing

21

Online assignments Self-check activities

Understanding Blended Learning

and learners to share and interact online. These online tools and services may be more authentic in that they reflect or produce realworld interactions that extend beyond the classroom wall or institution. These can be leveraged in blended learning instead of or in addition to the LMS. For example, students can create and host their work on their own blog or personal website, then share access to that work by submitting the URL rather than uploading a copy of a file. Our website lists a variety of tools that can be helpful in creating and delivering blended learning experiences. The use of real-world tools in educational settings can have downsides, particularly in terms of data ownership, privacy, and the added complexity of using multiple systems. But we shouldn’t ignore the fact that we live blended lives and our students will continue to be more engaged with online tools and services in their personal lives and in their future careers. Blended learning can take advantage of real-world online tools and services to guide students toward habits and practices that will enable them to grow and thrive both within and beyond the boundaries of the classroom.

1.6

Expect to Spend Teaching Time Differently Both teachers and students should plan to adapt their normal learning habits in order to succeed in a blended course. This doesn’t necessarily mean that teachers and students will spend more time in a blended course; rather, time will be distributed differently throughout a week, depending on the course design.

How Is Teacher Time Spent? There is no “typical” blended course, but you might expect to adapt your time usage as follows:

Daily Activities • • 22

Check for communication from students or notifications from the LMS. Identify students struggling to achieve outcomes and intervene.

Blended Teaching and Learning

• •

Respond to specific questions, either privately (e.g. via email) or for the whole class (e.g. via an online post). Read and contribute to online discussions or blogs.

Weekly Activities • • • • • •

Preview upcoming learning activities. Conduct onsite meeting(s) with specific lessons for face-to-face. Create, find, and share new material (as needed) for the course website. Provide feedback on student work. Enter scores into an online grade book or via assignment submission tools. Evaluate the blended design and online tools, and adjust as needed.

Laptops and mobile devices allows us to work and support our students anytime, anywhere. But that doesn’t mean we have to work all the time, everywhere. Throughout this book, we’ll offer tips and advice on managing your time efficiently, and avoiding common teaching time sinkholes. Every course redesign project is time and energy intensive, and blended courses are no different. They may require more thoughtful planning than either traditional onsite or fully online courses, as blending allows for greater possibilities for how activities happen. And while online and blended courses may require more upfront work, strategic development of content and activities can actually reduce the time you spend preparing for and delivering a course once everything is up and running.

1.7

Summary and Standards Continual advancements in technology and our connections to the internet are changing our way of life to the point that it is “blended” with online information and services. Blended learning offers teachers an opportunity to take big strides forward by not just employing technology to fit the changing world, but by adapting and redesigning their teaching to produce more flexible and effective learning experiences.

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Understanding Blended Learning

A blended course is a mix of onsite and online teaching and learning. Often a blended course begins with an onsite course that converts face-to-face learning with online experiences. However, good blended learning is not just a digital facelift of the traditional onsite course. Designing a blended course involves a purposeful selection of online or onsite based on the strengths and weaknesses of each in attaining learning outcomes. While onsite courses are typically synchronous, blended courses mix synchronous with asynchronous activities to maximize flexibility and attain outcomes. Planning these activities—whether onsite or online— can be based on an estimation of total learning time, rather than merely replacing one or more class sessions with online sessions. This provides a framework for design, but time on task alone doesn’t guarantee success. To this end, blended course design should be focused on the same learning outcomes as onsite or online versions. As we begin the blended course design process, it helps to know about a variety of technologies available, from institutional systems such as an LMS, to the real-world online tools and social media services that encourage creating, collaborating, and sharing on the open web. Before you begin redesigning your course with technology, plan for the time you will need to design activities and create online resources. Set your expectations so that teaching a blended course is different than a traditional face-to-face course, and how you spend your time will also be different. This will become more apparent as you begin considering how different activities may be stronger or weaker, easier or harder online vs onsite.

Learning outcomes for a blended course are identical to those of onsite or online versions.

References and Further Reading Beatty, B. (2014). Hybrid courses with flexible participation: The HyFlex course design. In Kyei-Blankson, L., & Ntuli, E. Practical applications and experiences in K-20 blended learning environments (pp. 153–177). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Campbell, G., & Groom, J. (2009). No digital facelifts: Toward a personal cyber infrastructure. Conference Presentation: Open Ed 2009, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada. August 13, 2009.

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Blended Teaching and Learning Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital revolution and schooling in America. New York: Teachers College Press. Cross, J. (2006). Informal learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire innovation and performance. Hoboken, NJ: Pfeiffer. Garrison, D. R., & Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Blended learning in higher education: Framework, principles, and guidelines. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Graham, C. R., Woodfield, W., & Harrison, J. B. (2013). A framework for institutional adoption and implementation of blended learning in higher education. Internet and Higher Education. Institute of Education Sciences. (2019). Using technology to support postsecondary student learning: A practice guide for college and university administrators, advisors, and faculty. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide/25 Kaleta, R., Skibba, K., & Joosten, T. (2007). Discovering, designing, and delivering hybrid courses. In A. G. Picciano & C. D. Dziuban (Eds.), Blended learning: Research perspectives (pp. 111–143). Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium. Sosulski, K., & Vai, M. (2015). Essentials of online course design: A standards-based guide (2nd edition). New York:Taylor & Francis. Yates, B. A., Bakia, M., Means, B., & Jones, K. (2009). Evaluation of evidencebased practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. US Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. Retrieved from http://edicswebed. gov/edics_files_web/03898/Att_ReferencesandGlossary.doc. Zhang, W. & Zhu, C. (2018). Impact of Blended Learning on University Students’ Achievement of English as a Second Language. International Journal on E-Learning, 17(2), 251–273.

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Chapter  2

Examples of Blended Learning

Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1876)

Understanding how others have designed and taught blended courses is extremely valuable for those who are new to blended teaching. Concrete examples can make principles of blended course design concrete, and can inspire your own teaching. For those who have taught online or blended before, looking at others’ designs can give you new ideas, or cause you to re-examine your own approach. Reflection and discovery of new ways of teaching are critical to the process of continuous improvement that we discuss in Chapter 10. This chapter showcases three distinct, college-level blended courses across subject areas and domains.

2.1

Things to Look for in Blended Course Examples There is no single ideal template for blended course design. However, we have seen that excellent blended learning engages students in learning activities and assessments that directly support desired learning outcomes. Every blended learning experience will be different, depending on the teacher, the student, academic requirements, or institutional factors. For example:

• • • •

26

How much learning time can be onsite versus online? What learning theories or teaching philosophy does the teacher subscribe to? How comfortable are the teacher and students with specific technologies? What core learning materials are available or required?

Examples of Blended Learning

Other variables can be addressed throughout the course design process, such as:

• • • •

Which mode—onsite or online—best fits the specific learning outcome(s)? Is limited onsite time being used to maximum benefit? What available technologies support learning without distracting? How can learners’ involvement change the dynamics of the course?

How you answer these questions will influence what assessments, activities, and rhythm you adopt in your blended course design.

Pay Attention to the Rhythm of Blended Courses Every course has a natural rhythm. Traditional courses have a rhythm marked by regular face-to-face, onsite meetings, weekly readings, independent practice, and a midterm and final assessment. The closeness of onsite sessions creates a rather tight, focused rhythm that requires all learners to be in sync. A blended course also sets a rhythm through onsite meetings, but also allows for more individual student variation in the rhythm, depending on the closeness of the onsite sessions. Some blended course models frame the course with one opening and one concluding onsite meeting, allowing the bulk of the course activities to happen online in between (Figure 2.1). These course models, sometimes called “multi-modal” or “framed”, require that students be in sync by the end of the course, and perhaps for particular online synchronous activities or milestones.

Figure 2.1  Framing a blended course with onsite meetings

27

Understanding Blended Learning

Other blended courses provide flexibility within each week by setting the rhythm with weekly onsite meetings (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2  Typical rhythm of a week-to-week blended course Some teachers who blend courses by moving one or more weekly sessions online will continue to use both days as milestones in the course schedule. For example, a Tuesday/Thursday course keeps only Tuesday sessions onsite, redesigning activities from Thursday sessions for online. The teacher may continue to use Thursday as a milestone in the course schedule, setting due dates or merely recommending personal progress for Thursdays in order to maintain the traditional rhythm of the course. In any case, because of the added flexibility provided between onsite sessions, blended courses put more responsibility for learning on the students, who must take the initiative to engage in many more online or independent learning activities. Let’s take a look at three blended course designs that illustrate some of these variables. A deeper analysis of many of the organizational structures, activities, and assessments will be found in the appropriate sections of this guide.

2.2

Course Example: American Literature Since 1865 Course Overview “American Literature since 1865” is a three-credit university course (forty-five “instructional hours” over fifteen weeks) for both English majors and non-majors. The course aims to develop background knowledge and critical contexts for great American literature and ideas since 1865 through reading, thinking, discussing, and writing.

28

Examples of Blended Learning

Focus of the Blend The blended redesign of this course focuses on taking advantage of the affordances of asynchronous online discussions and digital multimedia to improve student engagement and learning.

Blended Rhythm The teacher hosts one-hour onsite meetings, once a week, for all fifteen weeks. The activities of these face-to-face meetings focus on wholeclass discussions of the literary works.

Organization During the first week of class, students are oriented to the course in a live session with the teacher, which allows for discussion of the expectations as described in the syllabus. The teacher knows that students will be expected to interact with each other online, and so he takes some time during that first session to have students meet each other face-to-face to develop human connections. The first session finishes with the teacher directing students to review the syllabus on the course website independently. The course website is in an LMS, and begins with a simple web page as the hub for learning. This online home page is updated each week to direct students to the current week’s lesson (Figure 2.3). Each lesson is a highly organized sequence of instructions, materials, and discussion forums, with appropriate hyperlinks to support navigation. Each lesson is encapsulated in a single web page that:

• • •

introduces the authors for the week with a text or multimedia story; lists explicit instructions for students on how to complete the week’s activities; provides video or audio files of mini-lectures or popular interpretations of works that can be downloaded onto a computer or mobile device, or viewed online.

The lesson’s introductory web page is then immediately followed by one or more online discussions (Figure 2.4).

29

Understanding Blended Learning

Figure 2.3  The home page in an LMS focuses on the current week in the context of the whole schedule

Figure 2.4  Each lesson is organized by a page that lists both online and onsite tasks

30

Examples of Blended Learning

Activities and Assessments This course uses a variety of activities focused on content, interaction, and assessment:

Tip Project Gutenberg (http://gutenberg.org) is a library of public domain literary works available for download in a variety of formats.

Independent readings. These are readings of authors’ works and related material. Students have access to physical books, but the teacher has also provided links to public domain e-texts on Project Gutenberg when possible. Digital multimedia. This includes audio recordings of authors reading their own works, video clips from stage or screen productions to give context or perspective to authors’ works, or segments from documentaries to provide insight into the authors’ lives. The multimedia can be accessed online via links (to stream or download), providing important flexibility to students.

Figure 2.5  Multimedia is embedded directly within the page, with instructions for students on how to use it

31

Understanding Blended Learning

Class discussions interwoven between onsite and online environments. Sharing ideas and engaging in critical discussion of texts is a hallmark of literature instruction. Onsite meetings provide a chance for students and teacher to engage in the sensory-rich, highly human face-to-face experience. This helps them to develop a sense of interpersonal empathy and community. Each onsite discussion ends with the teacher reminding students to continue the discussion online. The online discussions often have a prompt or question, but students can also extend any thread of discussion they may have begun in class. The asynchronous nature of online discussions ensures that every student has a chance—and a responsibility—to respond, and can do so in their own time (Figure 2.6). This also means that students have

Figure 2.6  Discussions can continue online, bridging live onsite sessions with asynchronous, online interaction

32

Examples of Blended Learning

a chance to further study the literary work, to reflect on each other’s ideas, and to compose and edit a thoughtful response. Essay portfolio with peer reviews. Students’ participation in online discussions leads them to select and refine their best ideas for submission as more formal essays. This is done online, through the LMS’s assignments tool, which facilitates the use of rubrics and peer review as well. Rather than the teacher collecting, tracking, and redistributing student essays in class for peer review, the LMS can manage that for him. The LMS also provides student peer reviewers with the same rubric that the teacher will use for his reviews (Figure 2.7). This matches the students’ expectations to the peer review experience, and ensures that each student understands the objectives of the essay assignment. This is important, because each essay must be revised based on peer and teacher review feedback. The polished essays are collected in an online essay portfolio at the end of the semester. Because this is done online and automated by the LMS, precious onsite time is freed up exclusively for discussions.

Figure 2.7  Peer review assignments can be managed via the LMS so that student work can be automatically distributed to others—or teachers can manually give students additional work

33

Understanding Blended Learning

2.3

Course Example: Introduction to Oceanography Course Overview “Introduction to Oceanography” is a four-credit university course (sixty “instructional hours” over fifteen weeks) that introduces majors and non-majors to the history and scientific practice of oceanography. The course was created to intentionally include field trips that would help students connect classroom science to hands-on, physical experiences.

Focus of the Blend The blended redesign of this course focused on using technology to add flexibility and encourage students to individualize their learning through reusable multimedia and activities. This redesign also involved “flipping” the classroom to make onsite time more engaging and effective.

The Flipped Classroom The idea of a flipped classroom turns the traditional lecture and homework model on its head. Rather than having students absorb lectures and explanations during class time, and then sending them home with assignments and practice activities, technology allows teachers to flip these around (Figure 2.8).

Figure 2.8  A flipped classroom is based on putting video-recorded lectures or other materials online so that onsite time can be used for activities

34

Examples of Blended Learning

In a flipped classroom, lectures are no longer done onsite, but recorded, and put online where students can watch them in their own time, at their own pace, and as many times as needed. “Homework” is transformed into classwork, where problem-solving and practice activities are supported by direct interaction between students and teacher. A flipped classroom takes advantage of the web’s ability to deliver multimedia to anyone anywhere, while focusing onsite time on the kinds of activities that benefit from individually responsive and fluid interactions.

Blended Rhythm Introduction to Oceanography meets onsite in a classroom once a week for peer-supported instruction and discussion. It also meets once every three weeks for a three-hour field trip. Online activities are highly organized, but very flexible. Weekly deadlines help students stay on target, but otherwise the time and place of online participation is up to each individual.

Organization This blended course uses an LMS to organize lessons. The course home page reminds students what they need to do each week, with hyperlinks to the appropriate tools where activities take place (Figure 2.9).

Figure 2.9  Introduction to Oceanography home page lists common weekly tasks as well as a list of specific lessons

35

Understanding Blended Learning

A weekly lesson organizer begins with a list of required activities and resources to guide students through both online and onsite tasks. This includes due dates to keep students on track and help them plan ahead. Each week’s online lesson includes a self-check quiz (see p. XX) that informs the teacher’s selection of topics for onsite peer instruction activities. Field trips are organized through the school to locations near the coast, or museums, or laboratories in the area. Instructions for these field trips are provided online.

Activities and Assessments Independent readings. These come from the required textbook, available in physical form or as an e-text. Video lectures. Rather than repeatedly delivering lectures each semester to each class, the teacher recorded short versions of her lectures along with slides used. This was done in her office, using an off-the-shelf webcam and microphone that connected to her computer, and software to create the digital recording. For some topics, she opted not to record a lecture herself, but used existing lectures by professors at other universities that are openly licensed for reuse (Figure 2.10). These provide variety and alternative perspectives. When using these third-party lectures, she included a note to students describing where these came from and encouraged them to take the initiative and find other shared media or resources on the open web. Self-check quizzes. Each week, students are required to score at least 90% on an online quiz. The quiz allows for repeated attempts to provide sufficient opportunity for mastery (Figure 2.11). Quiz results provide feedback on answer choices to direct students to the appropriate material in the textbook or lecture (Figure 2.12). Each quiz attempt may deliver different questions from the previous attempt, as the quiz questions are randomly drawn from larger pools of questions kept in an online question bank. This encourages students

36

Examples of Blended Learning

Figure 2.10  This video was produced by UCLA and shared on YouTube. It’s just one of many open educational resources that can support a blended course

Figure 2.11  Putting self-check quizzes online allows students to take them when they are ready, but before the deadline

37

Understanding Blended Learning

Figure 2.12  Online quizzes provide different kinds of feedback for correct or incorrect answers to do more than just memorize one set of answers; they must actually master the several topics covered by the quiz. Each week’s quiz is due by midnight before the onsite class meeting. This is done so that the teacher can quickly review quiz results online, and identify any particularly troublesome questions. She uses these troublesome questions as the focus of onsite, peer instruction activities. Peer instruction activities. These activities are done onsite, leveraging the synchronous, face-to-face nature of the traditional classroom. The activity itself is based on Eric Mazur’s peer instruction model (see Chapter 8 for more on the peer instruction model). The teacher shows a challenging multiple-choice question on the classroom projector. Students register their answer to the question through an app on their cell phones. The results of student responses are immediately available for the teacher. If the class meets the threshold of mastery (85% of the class answers correctly), then she moves onto the next question. If not, then she directs students to pair up and discuss and negotiate toward the right answer. After five minutes, students register their answers again, and the cycle repeats until mastery is achieved. Discover technology that can support peer instruction in the classroom on our website.

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Examples of Blended Learning

Using peer instruction makes onsite sessions more engaging and effective than simple lectures. This activity is easier to do onsite than online, and fosters relationships between students as well as mastery of key concepts. Problem set assignments. Students solve and submit problem sets each week through the LMS’s online assignments tool. Students get a word processor document for each set of science problems so they can make their own copy, edit it, and submit it when complete. This not only allows students to access instructions and the problems online, but also facilitates submission of digital files. Field trips. Students work in groups during field trips, and are expected to bring a field notebook and a small video recorder of some type (either one they own, one built into their phone, or one checked out from the department). These are used to record phenomena such as geological formations, tidal patterns, ocean life, etc. The media and notes recorded by the student groups are shared with the class on the online discussion forum (Figure 2.13).

Figure 2.13  The discussion forum provides an online space where students can share the results of onsite activities

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Understanding Blended Learning

The teacher assesses each group’s work based on the media and explanation posted to the forum. This is done using an online rubric that is integrated with the discussion forum through the LMS (see Chapter 6 for more on designing rubrics). Group members can follow up on their original post to provide additional explanation as needed. Exams. The same pool of questions used for weekly quizzes are reused for randomly generated unit exams (four dispersed throughout the semester). Though the exams themselves are online and computerbased, the teacher uses a campus testing center to facilitate the exams. The LMS provides a way for the testing center to lock down all the exams from students who are not properly logged in to the testing center. But, by using the LMS, the teacher has access to all students’ exam results online, immediately, and is able to track question performance from quizzes to the exam. Note that, because the exams are online, they don’t have to be done through the campus testing center, but could be “unlocked” at other approved locations by a proctor. This is often done in fully online courses to ensure exam integrity.

2.4

Course Example: Technology for Elementary Education Teachers Course Overview “Integrating Technology for Elementary Education” is intended to help elementary education students to develop technological literacy and begin using technology in their teaching.

Focus of the Blend The course was originally a two-credit hour course with several sections of forty to fifty students taught by different teachers in a traditional faceto-face format. The teachers of this course collaborated on the blended course redesign, focusing on the key challenges that they all had seen in the traditional mode. Because students began the class with a wide range of technical skills, it was difficult to ensure that each student was progressing at their own

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Examples of Blended Learning

level. That is, if the teacher moved the entire class at the pace of the average student, advanced students would be bored while less capable students would get lost. Students therefore needed personalized instruction—but this was not possible in a face-to-face class because of the number of students. The focus of this blend was to provide personalization and variable pacing for each student. Further, the teachers aimed for a high level of teacher–student interaction so that the instructor would have a positive relationship with each student.

Blended Rhythm In the redesigned blended course, students enroll in one of several sections offered by different teachers but using the same curriculum. Students are required to attend class onsite for the first and the last day of the semester. Students complete the majority of the coursework through online activities. Additionally, every week students can choose to attend onsite lab tutorial sessions. This allows advanced learners to progress at their own speed and choose onsite or online learning as best suits them (Figure 2.14). These open-door onsite sessions are offered multiple times per week, each by a different teacher. Because the teachers collaborated on the blend and use the same curriculum they can welcome students from any of the sections. This allows each student to have a different blended rhythm throughout the semester based on their individual needs or preferences. Students work through an online agenda that contains instruction and

Figure 2.14  Students from any section (1, 2, 3) choose to attend any, all, or none of the onsite sessions (X, Y, Z), which are conducted by different teachers

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Understanding Blended Learning

assignments to be completed during the week. Some students may come to the optional onsite lab session each week and work through their online assignments with peers or the instructor to help them if they get stuck. Other students may do most of their work online if they find they don’t need additional onsite help. Students also interact with the teacher and their classmates in a weekly video discussion.

Organization The course uses an LMS to organize all of the learning activities. Each week in the course is clearly designated in class (i.e. onsite) or online (Figure 2.15). The onsite session held at the beginning of the semester is designed to be very social so that students will connect

Figure 2.15  The LMS schedule shows required onsite sessions versus weeks with online activities and optional onsite labs

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Examples of Blended Learning

with each other and their teacher on a personal level. This helps build a sense of community so students will feel more comfortable interacting later, online. The online activities involve contributing an online video reflection post to the class or group discussion along with project work. The project work is supported through a set of online video tutorials created as screencasts.

2.5

Activities and Assessments Pre-post assessments. The course begins with an online preassessment and ends with a post-assessment that measures change in students’ attitudes toward technology and general technology knowledge. In general, pre-assessments are important because each student will likely have different levels of experience and ability, and this helps both teacher and student understand where they are at and where they need to go. Screencasting. Much of the online instruction in how to use technology in teaching was created using screencasting software. This allows a teacher to create a video (with narration) of whatever is happening on the screen of their computer. So, instead of trying to explain a complex set of maneuvers or instructions in text, screencasting shows exactly how to perform the task in the software. Students also use screencasting to create videos that show instructors what they are able to do with technology in their teaching, and even to capture where they may have problems with software. By showing rather than telling, screencasting avoids a lot of miscommunication. Asynchronous video discussions. Students in this course are expected to participate in discussions as they progress through course topics, and use online discussion forums. The teachers encourage students to record videos of themselves speaking in these online discussions instead of just using text. This use of asynchronous video in online discussion forums provides the flexibility of communicating independently of time and place while still allowing participants to experience the human element—vocal and visual communication cues that indicate nervousness, humor, uncertainty, etc. Asynchronous

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Understanding Blended Learning

video helps maintain a high level of social presence when teacher and students are separated by time and space. Project-based assessment. The majority of the knowledge and skills in the course is assessed through projects that test students’ mastery of clearly stated competencies or outcomes. Mastery-based projects have technical requirements that must be met in order to be marked as complete. These are represented through an online rubric that students see and teachers use in assessment. A project is considered complete only when all of the criteria are met, and each project must be completed in order for a student to pass the course. ePortfolios. Students then bring these projects together in their own online portfolio (or ePortfolio) that are owned and maintained by the students (Figure 2.16). These ePortfolios will be useful for students when they seek teaching jobs after graduation.

Figure 2.16  Example of an online student portfolio made using Google Sites Mid-semester survey. Teachers ask students to complete a simple, online mid-semester survey (using the LMS’s survey tool) that provides anonymous feedback on the course. The feedback is used to improve the design and the teaching of the blended course. We link to an example of a mid-semester student survey for blended courses on the website.

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Examples of Blended Learning

2.6 Summary Each of the blended courses described in this chapter leverage the strengths online technology to add organizational clarity, flexibility, and efficiency to teaching and learning. These examples include:

• • • •

providing a centralized website where the structure of the course is clear and organized for students; using instructional multimedia where appropriate; keeping students engaged and connected with each other by linking onsite sessions with asynchronous, online discussions; automating assessment scoring and management.

We’ll revisit some of the activities from these example courses throughout the rest of this guide, so plan to revisit this chapter to remind yourself of the context. We’ll also share different examples of activities and assignments to help you explore more possibilities as you design your blended course. One of the most important things to note in the examples shared thus far is how onsite, face-to-face time is optimized. Rethinking your onsite sessions to leverage the strengths of the sensory rich, highly human face-to-face environment is the focus of Chapter 8. Maximizing the limited onsite time that you have is every bit as critical to blending as using online.

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Chapter   3

Blending to Maximize Engagement

The engagement of the imagination is the only thing that makes any activity more than mechanical. John Dewey (1916)

Any instructional experience can be evaluated using the three Es:

• • •

Effectiveness: How well have students achieved the learning outcomes? Efficiency: How impactful is an instructional activity for the resources spent (teacher/student time, effort, money, etc.)? Engagement: How much emotional and mental energy have students expended in a learning experience?

This chapter discusses how blending can maximize learner engagement. Instruction that does not engage learners will not be effective in the long run. This is especially true in blended courses, as moving activities online may increase the sense of distance between student and classmates. Every learner is different, and engaging all learners may require different strategies. Learners come to the table with different desires, goals, and limitations. Blended learning increases the range of tools and potential strategies that can be used to reach learners. Instruction that takes place online and onsite can mix approaches, which allows all learners to engage in meaningful ways. Through experience, instructors can learn which combination of approaches works best for different students.

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Blending to Maximize Engagement

3.1

Engage Learners’ Hearts and Minds Any training that does not include the emotions, mind and body is incomplete; knowledge fades without feeling. Anonymous

Gin Xin is a student from China in her first year of school at a university in the US. She feels very confident in her reading and writing ability, but less confident in her ability to communicate orally. She often has good ideas she would like to share during classroom discussion but is reluctant because of the fast pace of discussion and her anxiety about her speaking abilities. Fortunately, the instructor always extends the classroom discussion after class via an online discussion forum. Gin contributes her ideas to the discussion online, where she has more time to carefully and accurately articulate her ideas. Both her instructor and peers often praise Gin for her valuable contributions to the online conversation. This increases her satisfaction and creates a strong sense of connection between her and her classmates, both of which motivate her continued engagement in course activities.

Definition The affective domain deals with our motivations, attitudes, and emotions.

This highlights two important aspects of learner engagement: engaging learners’ hearts and minds. Reaching a learner’s heart is often referred to as “affective engagement” and engaging the mind in the content is often called “cognitive engagement”.

Reaching Learners’ Hearts Is a Precondition to Engaging Learners’ Minds A learner who is affectively engaged has a desire to learn and is willing to commit mental effort to the challenging mental tasks required in the learning process. Oftentimes, instruction, particularly online instruction, tries to focus entirely on the cognitive (mind) aspects of learning and overlooks the affective (heart) elements of learning.

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Understanding Blended Learning

Joe is a first-year university student enrolled in a college algebra course. He has never considered himself to be good at math—in fact, he struggled all through high school to understand concepts in his math classes. Algebra is a required course for the business degree that he hopes to graduate with and he has convinced himself that he will be satisfied if he can just pass the class with a C grade. On the first day of class, Joe is surprised when the instructor begins by telling of a personal experience of a time when she failed her first math exam at the university and thought that the world had ended for her. She explains that algebra is something everyone can learn, and learn well. “Failure is not an option!” she exclaims. The class will be using a mastery-based approach to learning algebra with a flipped classroom. Each exam can be taken as many times as needed to reach the 90% proficiency level. An online tutorial system is available for use outside of class. Students use the system to learn about and then complete practice problems for each algebra concept. The instructor monitors student performance on practice problems within the system and then schedules targeted in-class tutorial sessions to work through and explain problems that students are struggling with. Because his teacher expressed a thorough commitment to the success of each student, Joe left the first day of class energized and more willing to commit effort to learning algebra.

We sometimes assume that learners arrive motivated to learn. But that is not always the case, even with adult learners. Some learners need the help of the instructor and classmates to increase their passion and desire for, and confidence in, learning. Online and onsite instruction support different kinds of interactions between learners and content. One mode of instruction may support cognitive or affective outcomes better than another. In the algebra scenario above, the instructor had decided to use face-toface instruction to share her personal experiences with failure and to express encouragement and confidence in the students’ ability to succeed. The online instruction was geared toward providing personalized practice and feedback opportunities for the students. For each unique context, there may be some kinds of outcomes that are more efficiently achieved online and others that are more effectively achieved face-to-face.

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Blending to Maximize Engagement

Personal Perspective: Motivating Students by Reaching Their Hearts Charles R. Graham: Technology For Teachers as a Blended Course Early in my teaching career, I taught a class to help elementary school teachers learn how to use technology in their future classrooms. I didn’t understand the need to engage both students’ hearts and minds. I set up activities that ensured every student could master the knowledge and skills to use technology in their classroom once they graduated. You can imagine my surprise at the end of the semester when many of the course evaluation comments said, in effect, “I know how to do many things with computers now, but I don’t like technology and will never use it in my future classroom”. I felt devastated. I was so focused on getting every teacher to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that I neglected the dispositions that the teachers were developing along the way. I had helped students to achieve the cognitive outcomes for the course, but those outcomes were meaningless without the accompanying affective outcomes. In future semesters, I focused more energy in the class on reaching students’ hearts by helping them to develop a passion for the effective uses of technology in the classroom and a desire to try new and challenging things in their future classrooms.

3.2

Build Learner Engagement Through Interaction Frequent student–faculty contact in and out of class is a most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson (1987)

There are three general categories of interaction that can be built into any learning activity. Learners can interact directly with the instructor, with other learners, or with content materials. Each of these types of interaction contributes to the learning experience in different ways. Activities that use a mix of different types of interaction will generally be more engaging than those that focus predominantly on only one form of interaction. Student–instructor interaction. This is the interaction that a student has with theinstructor. This interaction can be one-to-one, as might occur during office hours or in a personal email exchange.

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Understanding Blended Learning

It can also be one-to-many, as when one instructor interacts with a group of students in a classroom lecture and discussion. Student–student interaction. Interaction between learners can happen informally (e.g. self-organized study groups) or it can be a formal part of a course with classroom discussions, debates, group projects, etc. Student–content interaction. Interaction with content has traditionally involved reading textbooks and other text-based materials. Now students may also have access to digital content in the form of videos, animations, simulations, etc., all accessible on the open web. Human interaction (student–instructor or student–student interaction) and content interaction both have strengths and limitations when it comes to engaging learners. Table 3.1 highlights some of the strengths and limitations that can be considered as an appropriate mix of human and content interaction is being designed into a course. Table 3.1  Some strengths and limitations of human versus content interaction

Human Interaction

Content Interaction

50

Strengths

Limitations

Emotions. Humans can connect on an emotional level (love, empathy, concern, etc.). Humans can be very effective at conveying excitement or passion for a topic that is contagious.

Patience/Consistency. Humans are not good at repeating the same instruction and/or feedback over and over consistently. They get bored, lose interest, and/or begin to make mistakes.

Complex Diagnostics. Humans with content expertise are good at quickly diagnosing where problems are in a student’s learning.

Access/Availability. It is difficult for a person to multitask in a way that serves many diverse student needs at the same time. People also don’t want to be available twenty-four hours a day.

Patience/Consistency. Content is available on-demand, and can be repeatedly reviewed or called up for instruction and feedback.

Emotions. Content can be cold or dry, and it may be difficult to connect with learners on an emotional level unless specifically designed to do so.

Access/Availability. Content interactions can be available to the learner twenty-four hours a day, whenever the learner needs or wants it. Computers can multitask to serve multiple students simultaneously.

Complex Diagnostics. Computers are getting better at complex diagnostics— especially where large populations are concerned. However, they still have a difficult time diagnosing and providing feedback on complex learning tasks.

Blending to Maximize Engagement

Notice that the strengths and weaknesses of human and content interaction often complement each other. This means that blended courses can take advantage of the strengths of both types of interaction to help engage learners. Caution: it is also possible to design instruction that emphasizes the weaknesses of both human and content interaction. For example, consider a course that uses one-to-many lectures and information transmission during onsite sessions, and “blends” by simply digitizing additional online material coupled with online quizzes that don’t provide formative feedback. This would produce a blend that creates maximum transactional distance between people. It is not the “best of both worlds”, but rather the “worst of both worlds”.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes.

3.3

Design Content Interaction to Engage Learners In the past, teachers have primarily been responsible for being the domain expert, and conveying content to students in the form of lectures or readings. Lectures and readings provide for a level of student–content interaction, but with today’s technology we can provide our learners with more interactive and effective content.

Tip Dynamic content isn’t something you have to create yourself (though technology is making it easier than ever to do so). You can find and reuse dynamic content through digital content providers such as the Khan Academy.

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The most obvious advantage to providing online content to students is increased access and flexibility: computers and the internet are available to students all hours of the day and night, and have as much time as a student may need. Computers never tire of giving feedback or instructions over and over. Computers are now capable of individualizing learning or instruction to many students simultaneously—something that even the most capable teacher will struggle to do at scale. Student–content interaction can therefore be thought of as static or dynamic:

•

Static content doesn’t change or adapt to input from a student. Examples include e-books, web pages, online videos, and visual images.

Understanding Blended Learning

•

Dynamic content changes by reacting to interaction or input from students. Examples include animations, simulations, and online tutorial systems that provide instructional feedback.

Chapter 7 focuses on blending with online activities that go beyond static content and focus on active learning. Most of the dynamic content activities that we recommend do not require expertise in specialized software to create.

Khan Academy: Interactive Content with Artificial Intelligence In the modern world, digital content is becoming more interactive and engaging thanks to computer automation and even artificial intelligence. For example, Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) has thousands of video tutorials teaching specific skills, combined with automated feedback, guided pathways that help students understand their progress, and an artificial intelligence that remediates students’ learning by providing targeted content or activities to ensure they’ve mastered each concept (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1  Khan Academy computer programming course automatically provides feedback, hints, and direction as students practice coding in real-time.

As students progress through Khan Academy lessons, data related to student performance are collected and transformed into analytics that show how students are doing. These analytics are available to both the student and the teacher for follow-up.

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Blending to Maximize Engagement

Artificial Intelligence in Education Dynamic digital content that changes or adapts to the learner is becoming more common as technology advances. This is in part because creating dynamic content is easier than ever, and also because of advances in artificial intelligence (AI). In education, artificial intelligence can assess students’ understanding of a topic, compare a single student’s experience to thousands of other students, and then automatically tailor additional content and future assessments to address any misunderstandings. This can save teachers time, allowing them to focus on the parts of teaching that require human capabilities, such as subjective judgments, personal connection, or empathetic support. As with all powerful technology, we must determine the appropriate and ethical use of AI in education in order to protect data privacy, support student agency, and advantage humans in the teaching and learning process. We must be wary of any use of data that could reinforce prejudices or unfairly bias educators against students. We must be vigilant against predictions or profiling that may prevent students from reaching their true potential and exercising their agency. What we can’t do is ignore AI in education or pretend that it will go away; instead, we must find ways to use AI to further our shared vision of delivering better educational experiences and improving learning outcomes for every student. AI in teaching can be considered in the context of our general advice on blending: each of us must thoughtfully determine how technology can help achieve our goals while optimizing the time we have for hands-on, high-touch, human onsite learning experiences.

3.4

Maximize the Human Element in Interactions Human Interaction Onsite Student–instructor and student–student interactions can be powerful because they involve human emotions that help us feel close and connected. Because most traditional classes are onsite, where students and teachers are in the same physical space at the same time, we may assume that onsite learning is more naturally human and therefore engaging. Unfortunately, in many traditional classes the majority of onsite time is spent in lectures with the instructor delivering content. Research is clear that traditional lectures are not only less engaging, but they are also less effective when they are a primarily one-way transmission of information.

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Understanding Blended Learning

Michael Moore, an early distance education researcher, recognized the importance of human interaction in his theory of transactional distance. This theory explains that physical distance is not as important as psychological distance when it comes to engaging learners. For example, a student might feel emotionally closer to an online instructor on the other side of the world who he interacts with personally than to an onsite classroom instructor with 100 students who develops no personal relationship with the students. There are many challenges in the traditional classroom that limit what an instructor can do to engage all students in the learning. Table 3.2 presents several of these challenges to engagement and the limitations that are encountered in a traditional face-to-face classroom setting. Yet interpersonal relationships can develop more quickly in a faceto-face setting than online. This is because we can easily start Table 3.2  Some limitations to learner engagement in a traditional face-to-face classroom setting Onsite Limitations Participation

Time constraints in a physical classroom may make it difficult for everyone to participate or contribute to a discussion. This is particularly the case in sections with large numbers of students. Good instructors address the participation challenge by dividing the class into smaller discussion groups or partner-sharing arrangements.

Pacing

Especially in larger traditional classes, it is often difficult to match your instructional pace with your individual students’ ability to learn the material. Instructors usually compromise by pacing the course to the majority of students in the middle, which still leaves the lower students behind and the advanced students bored.

Personalization

Students have a variety of learning preferences that can be difficult for teachers to address when everyone is taught together at the same time.

Place (Authenticity)

When instruction is confined to a traditional classroom spaces and arbitrary times, authentic learning can be more difficult (but not impossible) to design. For example, consider how you might provide authentic practice in disciplines such as business negotiation, eldercare nursing, or managing a classroom of children.

Personal Interaction

Even in smaller traditional classes, it can be difficult for the instructor to set aside time for personal one-on-one interaction with each student. Instructor office hours that set aside time for personal interaction with students are often too limited, rigid, or inefficient for busy students.

Preparation

Assessing students’ understanding onsite, before instruction begins, is too timeconsuming in most cases. This makes it difficult to prepare targeted instruction.

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Blending to Maximize Engagement

Tip Invoking emotional responses such as fear, joy, or surprise can actually help students retain information. At the very least, emotion can capture students’ attention and keep them engaged.

conversations, ask questions, and change topics in real-time. Further, we can see faces, hear voices, and convey emotions, which can strengthen connections. A blended course should focus on building personal connections early, onsite. Teachers can them design additional social activities to build and grow those relationships online (such as discussions or peer reviews).

Human Interaction Online Online, human interaction can happen in two different ways with respect to time:

• •

Synchronous interaction occurs in real-time (e.g. a phone conversation is synchronous). Asynchronous interaction does not occur in real-time (e.g. an email exchange is asynchronous).

Asynchronous online interaction is powerful for blended learning. This means that interactions are not constrained by time and place, and are thus free from many of the limitations of onsite interactions. Table 3.3 describes Table 3.3  Ways that online instruction can strengthen engagement in a blended course Online Capabilities Participation

Because online discussions can be done asynchronously, 100% of students in a class can be expected to participate in an online discussion.

Pacing

The pacing for online instruction can vary for each student. So a student who does not understand a particular concept can review the material multiple times before moving on.

Personalization

In the online environment, students can be provided with different learning options that best match their learning preferences.

Place (Authenticity)

Blended learning courses can turn authentic contexts into learning spaces. For example, live video might be used to virtually transport the classroom to a place of interest. Additionally, students might physically go to authentic locations and use mobile devices to communicate from those locations with instructors and other class members.

Personal Interaction

One-to-one online interactions via email, texting, or video chat are students’ preferred ways to communicate personally with instructors. These ways of communicating are flexible and meet their needs.

Preparation

Online assessments can be used to control real-time access to content or progress in a course. Additionally, access to data from online assessments can provide data that help guide instructors’ planning for in-class sessions.

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Understanding Blended Learning

how online instruction can be used to complement onsite instruction by addressing its limitations. Perhaps the greatest bias that teachers (and students, for that matter) have against online learning is that online feels impersonal. This is often because, in the past, online interactions were primarily written and transmitted via email or discussion boards. This text-only mode prevented much of the power and emotion of conversations from being felt online. More recent technological advances have allowed those at a distance to interact with each other using text, audio, or video either synchronously or asynchronously (e.g. Figure 3.2). Chapters 7 and 8 provide additional examples and direction for creating online and onsite learning activities that engage students with their peers, and that can foster a learning community.

Figure 3.2  Students record video of themselves in an asynchronous, online discussion forum to add the human element to their interactions

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Blending to Maximize Engagement

Keep in mind that online can amplify a person’s characteristics, whether those be good or bad. For example, an instructor who is interested in building relationships with students and providing help to them on a personal level will find many new ways to connect online. Alternatively, an instructor who delivers a boring, dispassionate lecture in class is likely to create online content that students skip. Or an instructor who is not interested in personal interactions with students may create a greater sense of absence or distance by not communicating online.

Human interaction is used to increase emotional engagement when appropriate. Students have opportunities to interact with teachers or peers for support. Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite.

3.5

Summary and Standards Learning is more than just cognitive. Engaging a student’s heart and mind is essential to a quality learning experience. High levels of engagement result from opportunities for interaction between the student and peers, the instructor, and well-designed content. Blended learning can provide a range of learning activities that build on the strengths of both onsite and online interaction. Keep these principles of engagement in mind as you begin designing your blended course. Don’t forget that in addition to the cognitive outcomes of the mind, we are obliged to also consider how the affective factors (i.e. the heart) play a significant role in teaching and learning.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes. Human interaction is used to increase emotional engagement when appropriate.

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Understanding Blended Learning

Students have opportunities to interact with teachers or peers for support. Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite.

References and Further Reading Barkley, E. F. (2010). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Borup, J., West, R. E., & Graham, C. R. (2013). The influence of asynchronous video communication on learner social presence: A narrative analysis of four cases. Distance Education, 34(1), 48–63. Brown, P. C., Roediger III, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chickering, A., & Gamson, Z. (1987). Seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, March, 7. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan. Graham, C. R. (2006). Blended learning systems: Definition, current trends, and future directions. In C. J. Bonk & C. R. Graham (Eds.), Handbook of blended learning: Global perspectives, local designs (pp. 3–21). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer Publishing. Kurzweil, M., & Stevens, M. (2018). Setting the table: Responsible use of student data in higher education. Educause Review, 53(3), 16–24. McDowell, J. (2011). Using asynchronous video technologies to enhance learner engagement with formative feedback. ALT-C 2011: Thriving in a colder and more challenging climate. Retrieved from http://eprints.hud. ac.uk/10888/. Merrill, M. D. (2008). Reflections on a four decade search for effective, efficient and engaging instruction. In M. W. Allen (Ed.), Michael Allen’s 2008 e-learning annual (Vol. 1, pp. 141–167). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pfieffer. Merrill, M. D. (2009). Finding e3 (effective, efficient and engaging) instruction. Educational Technology, 49(3), 15–26. Moore, M. G. (1993). Three types of interaction. In Harry, K., John, M., & Keegan, D. (Eds.), Distance education: New perspectives (p. 19). New York: Routledge. Moore, M. G. (2007). A theory of transactional distance. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (2nd ed., pp. 89–105). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(3), 223–231.

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Chapter  4

A Process for Blended Course Design

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle (1996)

Blending your course by directly recreating existing onsite activities in an online environment may seem the most natural approach. But because onsite and online are different, this can produce awkward or ineffective experiences for both you and your learners. For example, giving a paper quiz in a face-to-face classroom means you can monitor the students as they work through the questions—at least somewhat. Moving that quiz online without any further consideration for monitoring means that students will use whatever resources they want to complete the questions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing— indeed, many online and blended courses turn quizzing into a learning activity as opposed to an assessment activity. Others keep quizzing for assessment, but either reduce its weight in grading or implement technology controls or monitoring. Regardless, simply moving the onsite quiz to an online environment changes the nature and experience of the learning activity. Another example: the lively, emotive face-to-face discussions that you create spontaneously in a physical classroom may fall flat in an online discussion forum. To engage students, encourage them to participate through the use of voice, facial expression, and quiet pauses by including audio, video, and/or images. Online discussions can be extremely engaging and more participatory then onsite, but you must design them to be so. Instead of simply converting some onsite activities to online, we use a simple but deliberate redesign process. This process not only leads to a good blended experience for everyone, but can enable a true transformation of your course.

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4.1

Avoid These Common Blending Pitfalls The real test of blended learning is the effective integration of the [onsite and online] such that we are not just adding on to the existing dominant approach or method. D. Randy Garrison and Heather Kanuka (2004)

Simply moving an onsite activity to an online environment without considering the impact on learning outcomes or the student experience is just one of the common pitfalls of blended course design. Others include:

•

•

•

Creating “a class and a half”. It is quite possible to create too much work for students by simply adding online or onsite activities to an existing course design. A blended redesign should replace, not expand. Unfocused or ill-fitting technology. Using technology simply for technology’s sake may actually interfere with students’ progress toward learning outcomes. Instead, focus on learning outcomes every step of the way. Misfit modes. Some onsite activities may be misfits in online environments, and forcing a fit will ignore opportunities for transformative redesign. Instead, a blended course design is based on a rethinking of the entire instructional approach.

The best way to avoid these pitfalls is to rethink the course design by focusing on the learning outcomes, then creating activities that lead to those outcomes according to the strengths and weaknesses of each mode. By starting with goals and outcomes you will be oriented to matching the right activities to the best fitting modes.

Personal Perspective: Blended Isn’t Just Online plus Face-to-Face Jared Stein: Essentials of Web Design My first truly blended course was a redesign of a fully online course that I’d taught for years. At first I thought I could simply repurpose the existing online course, using the once-a-week onsite sessions as open discussions to clarify or explore topics that interested students. But leaving the onsite sessions open-ended didn’t produce the results I wanted; many students came to class expecting to hear lectures and

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explanations that they could have just done online. A few complained that the class sessions were a waste of time since they’d already completed related online activities. They were right. I recognized that I needed to not just fundamentally rethink what I was doing in those onsite sessions, but I also needed every activity and every interaction to have a clear purpose aligned with our learning outcomes. I kept the online review quizzes, but moved due dates to just before the start of each onsite meeting. This ensured that students had some experience with the material before we met. I re-evaluated every learning activity to determine if it could be done more effectively onsite—or eliminated in favor of a different activity. I ended up dropping certain online activities entirely to create hands-on or small group activities. For example, one online activity had a video followed by a discussion forum about website usability testing. Onsite, I transformed that activity into a mock usability test: we all collaborated on the selection of usability evaluation items, and then students partnered with each other to observe their interaction with randomly selected websites. I reserved time for live troubleshooting at the end of each onsite session. My initial instincts about face-to-face time were actually right: the synchronous, interactive nature of this mode—coupled with the constructive pressure that a live event has for participation—worked. I just needed to focus it. In this case, I asked students to email their weekly projects ahead of the onsite session with a question. Near the end of the onsite session, I would choose one question to troubleshoot live and aloud. I regularly enlisted the class’s help. This provided a kind of cognitive apprenticeship that helped students understand how we arrived at the solution, and engage in troubleshooting strategies themselves.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes.

4.2

Focus on Outcomes by Going “Backward” Any course that cares about learners’ achievements must, first and foremost, be learning-centered. This means that teachers and students have shared goals to achieve a specific set of learning outcomes, and work together to achieve those outcomes.

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Teachers provide structure, interactions, activities, and feedback that focus students on their learning and support their progress toward goals. These are the fundamental elements of course design. To best provide these, a teacher is guided by a clear vision of a successful student and the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities that she shows at the end of the course. In short, we must begin with the end in mind. This means we must first identify learning goals and outcomes. Attainment of outcomes is measured, and feedback is provided through carefully designed assessments. Students will only be prepared to perform well on those assessments through meaningful learning activities: focused experiences that build knowledge, develop skills, and shape behaviors or attitudes. Figure 4.1 illustrates the direction of this process.

Figure 4.1  The three stages of backward design of a learning experience

This “backward” design approach may seem counterintuitive at first, but think about anything that you’ve successfully learned to do. Don’t you always have to begin with the end in mind? When you start a project or task, don’t you always have some idea of what the result or outcome will be? Isn’t there always some way that you or others determine whether you’ve been successful? And doesn’t it always require work, practice, or experimentation to get you there? Experienced teachers will implicitly know what the desired learning outcomes are for their students, but they may not be able to articulate them. By articulating measurable learning outcomes from the beginning of the design process, you ensure that all assessments and activities are aligned with the educational goals. Assessments that are aligned will most accurately determine the degree to which learners have achieved outcomes.

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Alignment helps in three ways:

• • •

Alignment keeps course design efforts more manageable by focusing the teacher on only critical outcomes. Alignment makes learning time more efficient by limiting the scope of learning activities. Alignment results in better learning outcomes by ensuring that what we measure is what was taught (Cohen, 1987).

Tip Keep your mind open to changing how you teach as you blend. Though starting with an existing syllabus for an onsite course is in many ways an advantage (you already have a variety of learning and assessment activities designed), remember that an onsite course syllabus is not a blueprint for a blended course.

Content and activities directly support learning outcomes. Assessments determine how well learners have achieved the learning outcomes. Another aspect of this process that may seem backward is that we discourage teachers from focusing on the syllabus at step on. Instead, we recommend building the syllabus as you build the course, or after your course design is complete. This allows you to identify course goals and outcomes (Chapter 5) and to design one or more lessons (Chapters 6–9) without worrying about fitting those into a traditional syllabus. This design approach provides useful stages for the design and development of learning outcomes, assessments, and activities (see Figure 4.2). This guide focuses on applying these stages as steps in constructing one lesson at a time.

Figure 4.2  Simple steps for a backward design of a single lesson

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To help you work through your blended course design process, we provide a course design map template that will help you plan your blended course. Figure 4.3 shows an example of the course design template filled out for a lesson that orients students to the course during the first semester. Use the template in conjunction with Chapters 5–8 to guide your design of individual lessons.

Lesson Title: Course Orientation

Goal: Students are ready to engage and succeed in the course

Outcomes

Assessments

●

Understand course parameters and expectations

●

Recognize classmates and join a team

●

Become familiar with course website and tools

Activities

●

100 % on syllabus quiz (online)

●

Meet and greet and overview (face-to-face)

●

Team sign-up (online)

●

Read syllabus (online)

●

Introductions in forum (online)

●

Explore course site (online)

Figure 4.3  The course design map template helps you plan critical elements of each blended lesson, even for the first week of class

Download a blank copy of the course design map template on the website. It’s free to reuse, so don’t be shy about sharing it. Ultimately, blended course lessons will be constructed online, even though some activities will take place onsite. The online lesson may consist of:

• • •

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a module or folder to organize and sequence the activities (Figure 4.4); introductory page(s) explaining the lesson, indicating outcomes, and providing resources; online discussion forums, quizzes, assignments, or other online activities.

A Process for Blended Course Design

Figure 4.4  Organization of a blended lesson within an LMS Focusing on one lesson at a time will help you quickly develop working versions of each lesson that can reflect what worked in the previous lesson. A working version of each lesson can also be immediately evaluated and adjusted to inform the design of future lessons. We refer to this as the strategy of iterative development.

4.3

Simplify Course Design with Iterative Development [The] great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, it is a succession of little things that are brought together. Vincent Van Gogh

Iterative development emphasizes ongoing improvement of individual lessons, learning activities, and assessments through three phases (Figure 4.5): 1. Designing: The teacher creates learning activities and assessments using backward design.

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2. Engaging: The students engage in learning through the blended lesson that the teacher provides and facilitates. 3. Evaluating: The teacher examines student performance, feedback, or analytics and plans changes.

Figure 4.5  The iterative cycle will help teachers implement design faster, and improve the blend over time

For new blended courses, we recommend that you design one complete lesson at a time. Don’t over-engineer it. Use this first lesson to help you design the next lesson, and so on. For existing blended courses, we recommend evaluating the experience of your current students, as well as their learning outcomes, then changing one or two aspects of the course to see the effect (Chapter 10 is focused on this process). This process is particularly effective with blended course design because:

• 66

We start small and allow for imperfection. This helps teachers with little experience of blending to ease into the process.

A Process for Blended Course Design

• •

We learn to blend as we go. Blended learning creates many possibilities, and the best method may not be obvious at first. We continuously improve teaching and learning. Progressive iterations encourage teachers to design for better student experiences and outcomes.

Committing to this process during design helps teachers build fast, apply what they learn, and keep an open mind about onsite and online choices. During teaching, the process helps teachers adjust as they go. For example, during the second week of teaching, a teacher discovers that students seem unprepared for onsite activities. This may be surprising because the teacher provided online materials and learning activities that were meant to prepare students. Planning to evaluate learning after students engage in either online or onsite activities will help teachers adapt as they go. In this example of iterative development, the teacher decided to require an online quiz that checks students’ mastery of the content before students come onsite. This holds students accountable for learning the online materials before the onsite session begins. The results of the quiz can also give the teacher a sense of how well the students understand the topic so they can modify their plans. The teacher will continue the process by determining if the pre-quiz made a difference. If students seem more prepared during the onsite session, that may mean the pre-quiz worked. The teacher may choose to add pre-quizzes to subsequent lessons. If the pre-quiz doesn’t work as expected, the teacher won’t replicate it, but can try something else. Revising is more than simply fixing the prototype and moving on. The goal of revising is to both improve the existing version and adapt the results to future lessons. Thus, the current lesson’s latest iteration can serve as a model for the next lesson, which, in turn, is treated as a prototype to be implemented, evaluated, and iterated. Iterative development can increase the benefits of a single revision throughout the course design, activity by activity, lesson by lesson, and semester by semester. This process not only improves the course, lesson by lesson, but it also helps you improve your own design and development skills with each

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iteration. You’ll learn more about effective blended design as you go, and immediately apply that learning to your course. Experimenting with changes early on means significantly fewer changes after the course design is deemed “complete”. Teachers who consistently evaluate and revise in this way can make the iterative development process a habit of teaching—almost automatic.

Plan for ongoing, small course improvements. Evaluations of the course design lead to improvements in future iterations.

Reflection: What’s Your Plan? You’ve decided to design a blended course, but how much time will it take? Spend a few minutes to realistically assess the time and energy that you can commit to your blended course project. Here are some questions to guide you: When does the course begin? Figure out how many weeks you have before students will start. That gives you a sense of timeline for development. Subtract a week or two for unexpected challenges in your redesign. What are your major milestones each week? How many lessons, modules, or chapters will you be able to complete? This will not only give you a goal to focus on, but also help you plan your time so your course design is complete before its start date. When will you work on the course? Set aside regular blocks of time every week to devote to the blended course design. We recommend blocks of two to three hours— long enough to get deep into the work, short enough that you won’t get burn out. Mark them on your calendar so nothing else will interrupt your plan and you can stay on schedule. When will you have others preview the course? This is an important step before the course goes live, since it can alert you to any major design gaps. When will you revise the course once it begins? It is unlikely that your first semester teaching a blended course will be problem-free. Plan to continue to improve the course as you go or between terms or semesters. Planning to revise can start a habit of continuous improvement, as we’ll discuss further in Chapter 10.

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4.4

Summary and Standards When we rethink our course through blending, we create the opportunity to transform the learning experience for our students. Blending opens up many possibilities between the onsite and online environments. Without a consistent design process, choosing modes and designing activities can be overwhelming. The “backward” design process is simple but thorough. It is learningcentered. Start with learning outcomes before designing assessments that measure those outcomes. Finally, create activities that foster learning. Teachers should focus on a small chunk of the blended course at a time (e.g. a single lesson or unit), and iterate. A strategy of iterative development helps teachers ease into blended, while improving their course design—and their understanding of blended learning.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes. Content and activities directly support learning outcomes. Assessments determine how well learners have achieved the learning outcomes. Plan for ongoing, small course improvements. Evaluations of the course design lead to improvements in future iterations.

References and Further Reading Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 45–74). Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press. Briskman, L. (1980). Creative product and creative process in science and art. Inquiry, 23(1), 83–106. Cohen, A. (1987). Instructional alignment: Searching for a magic bullet. Educational Researcher, 16(8), 16–20. Garrison, D. R., & Kanuka, H. (2004). Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 7, 95–105.

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Understanding Blended Learning Graham, C. R., & Robison, R. (2007). Realizing the transformational potential of blended learning: Comparing cases of transforming blends and enhancing blends in higher education. In A. G. Picciano & C. D. Dziuban (Eds.), Blended learning: Research perspectives (pp. 83–110). Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium. McGee, P., & Reis, A. (2012). Blended course design: A synthesis of best practices. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(4), 7–22. Rathbun, G. A., Saito, R. S., & Goodrum, D. A. (1997). Reconceiving ISD: Three perspectives on rapid prototyping as a paradigm shift. Proceedings the 1997 National Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 291–296). Albuquerque, NM. Sims, R., Dobbs, G., & Hand, T. (2002). Enhancing quality in online learning: Scaffolding planning and design through proactive evaluation. Learning, 23, 2. doi:10.1080/0158791 Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Part  2

Designing Your Blended Course

Chapter   5

Begin Your Blend from Outcomes

Great teachers continually focus on students first. Todd Whitaker (2013)

As you prepare to blend your course, start by asking yourself, Why am I teaching this course? Then, ask yourself, Why are students taking this course? Hopefully the answer to either of these isn’t just, “Because we have to”. Most teachers are driven to teach because they believe the subject matter can change people’s lives for the better. Tapping into your beliefs about the value of the course motivates your work in blending. Similarly, most students are driven to learn because they want to change themselves—and thereby change the world. This belief may not be a conscious priority to students, but you can help them explore and develop their motivation. As you design your blended course, we hope you will continuously return to this desire for change. In order to achieve that change, you will want to define goals and outcomes, and have a design map that helps you lead students there. We introduced a template for your course design map in Chapter 4. Visit the website to download a copy. This chapter helps you start your design map for your blended course that will:

• • • 73

provide a blueprint to guide the development of each lesson or unit; help align assessments and activities regardless of the technology used to facilitate them; encourage more creative and effective blends of onsite and online activities.

Designing Your Blended Course

The course design map will also serve as a framework for a new version of your course syllabus.

To Do After completing this chapter, you will be ready to do the following: 1. Start your blended course design map: a. Write a brief description of the course along with the course’s broad goals. b. Identify the lesson or unit topics associated with each goal. 2. Choose one lesson to be your blended prototype for the rest of this book. 3. Write specific learning outcomes that relate to the lesson goal(s).

5.1

Succinctly Describe Your Course As a series of learning experiences your course ultimately aims to transform the learners in some way. We recommend that you write a concise description of the course and the impact it will have on target learners. You may already have a course description in your school’s course catalog or course syllabus. Now is a good time to review any pre-existing description of the course, and either use it wholesale or edit it to suit the aims of the course. A course description can be organized around the following:

• • •

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Describe the audience. Who are the intended learners? What skills do or should they already possess? Summarize the course goals. What knowledge, skills, or attitudes will the learners have upon successful completion of the course? What topics will be covered? Suggest any strategies you will use. Generally speaking, how will you teach? How should students learn? This depends on your teaching philosophy and institutional practice, and may develop and change as you design the course.

Begin Your Blend from Outcomes

For example, the course description for “Introduction to Oceanography” states:

Learners with a basic knowledge of biology and chemistry will develop an understanding of the physical processes influencing the oceans and coastal regions, and apply fundamental scientific procedures to questions about the world’s oceans. Learners will be able to relate and analyze current understandings of oceanic environmental issues to their own lives. Learning will happen through direct instruction, hands-on labs, practice activities, field trips, and discussion both within and beyond the classroom walls.

Write the course description with your audience—the students—in mind. Think about what they might already know about the subject, and how you can start inspiring their curiosity.



5.2

A concise course description identifies the learner audience, course goals, and instructional strategy.

Articulate the Course Goals The course description suggests what the course is about, generally speaking. This description can be expanded into course goals, which describe the learner at the end of the course at a high level.

Goals Versus Outcomes When referring to what learners strive to achieve, there are several sometimes confusing terms that are used by educators (e.g. “standard”, “goal”, “outcome”, “objective”, “competency”, etc.). “Outcome” is perhaps the most commonly used term, and is sometimes used to mean learning outcome, and is often defined at different levels: “program-level”, “course-level”, and “unit-level”. While these terms have distinct differences, we will keep things simple in this guide by referencing only “goals” and “outcomes”. We use these two terms to emphasize the difference between the broad and the specific.

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Most courses set high-level goals that they want students to achieve. A course goal is too general to be easily measured, so each goal must be elaborated into a set of specific learning outcomes. These goals relate to, but aren’t the same as, learning outcomes. Outcomes are more measurable than goals. They detail the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and skills that you want learners to develop. For example, an introductory course on oceanography may break the following goals: …

Goal 1. Understand theories of the origin of the Earth, its atmosphere, and oceans. Goal 2. Describe the historical development of ocean knowledge as a science. Goal 3. Understand plate tectonics and its relationship to the formation of major features of the seafloor.

… into more specific learning outcomes, as follows: Goal 1. Understand theories of the origin of the Earth, its atmosphere, and oceans. 1. Describe the development of our Earth, atmosphere, and oceans in the context of the solar system and universe. 2. State the basic outline of the geologic column or time scale from 4.6 billion years ago to today. 3. Explain radiometric dating and geo time scale. 4. Contrast absolute and relative dating. Goal 2. Describe the historical development of ocean knowledge as a science. 1. Describe the diversity of sciences collected to form “oceanography”. 2. Summarize the development of oceanography as a science. 3. Explain the significance of navigation in describing oceans and making maps. 4. Recognize different types of maps and charts. 5. Use latitude, longitude, and time to provide navigation with maps and charts.

… and so on. Figure 5.1 shows how these might relate. Some teachers and designers will go much more granular than this, however, breaking outcomes into more specific competencies, skills, or objectives.

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Begin Your Blend from Outcomes

Figure 5.1  Mapping course goals and outcomes shows their relationship and helps focus other course design activities on desired learning

Where Do Course Goals or Outcomes Come From? Most teachers will have access to curricula from their school or department that provide course goals. Some schools may have goals stored and available digitally—perhaps through your LMS. You can save yourself a lot of time, and ensure that you are addressing institutional aims, by finding out if the course goals are available in this way. The first goal in the example above, “Understand theories of the origin of the Earth, its atmosphere, and oceans”, describes a general ability or attribute (understanding) that we hope learners will develop during the course. Student understanding of these broad theories, however, may be difficult to measure. What specific theories should learners know about at this stage? How detailed should that knowledge be? How can this be measured? This doesn’t mean the goal is inappropriate. It just means we need to break the goal down into specific learning outcomes in order to:

• 77

describe exactly what is needed to attain the goal (for both teachers and students);

Designing Your Blended Course

• •

focus assessment on evidence of student mastery of the outcome; help teachers pace learning evenly and progressively throughout the course.

Outcomes are an important guide for teachers, but can also be helpful to students in summarizing what they are about to learn and how that learning might be assessed. Of course, defining goals and outcomes isn’t just for blended course design—this is a critical practice for any course design. Further, while the design of your blended course will be different from a face-to-face course, or a fully online course, the goals and outcomes can (and should) be identical.



Course goals are clearly written and broadly describe the successful learner at the end of the course.



Learning outcomes relate to course goals and are learner-focused.



Learning outcomes for a blended course are identical to those of onsite or online versions.

Reflection: What Does Student Success Look Like? The goals listed above are typical for a science course, but they don’t necessarily address the impact that the course has on students’ lives. Connecting your course goals to students’ personal goals in a way they understand can help them stay motivated. This chapter started by asking you why you teach and why students take this particular course. Let’s go a little deeper: What does a successful student look like when the course is over? What does she know? What does she care about? How does she behave? What can she do? To what level? In what situations? Write down a description of your students before and after they finish the course. Also imagine how their experience in your course affects them five years from now. This kind of visualization can guide you during the blended design process toward engaging students’ hearts and minds, and in providing activities and feedback that address their needs.

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For example, Before beginning the Web Essentials course, students don’t know how to create websites and only know about web pages from those they’ve visited. Their experiences are a mix of frustration (with bad websites) and joy (with good websites). Students may want to pursue a career in web development, or they may just need to fulfil an elective requirement that’s at least relevant to the modern world. After completing the Web Essentials course, students will have a deeper appreciation for effective websites they use and understand how they work so they can be savvier users. This understanding should help them in any career that has a website or uses data from websites. More importantly, students will be able to create and publish basic websites using web standards. They can use this skill to grow their web design or development skills. Finally, students will know how to access online tutorials and guides to learn about web development. Completing this exercise will give you a strong start on writing your course goals.

5.3

Write Specific Learning Outcomes for Each Goal Just as the brief course description expands into course goals, course goals each expand into specific learning outcomes—as many as necessary to prove attainment of the goal (Figure 5.1). You could go through the entire course and write out the learning outcomes that each course goal branches into, but to get started you really just need to choose one lesson. Let’s return to an example from the Introduction to Oceanography course to see how learning outcomes are far more specific than the goal:

Goal 1. Understand theories of the origin of the Earth, its atmosphere, and oceans. Learners will be able to: 1. Describe the development of our Earth, atmosphere, and oceans in the context of the solar system and universe. 2. State the basic outline of the geologic column or time scale from 4.6 billion years ago to today. 3. Explain radiometric dating and geo time scale. 4. Contrast absolute and relative dating.

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A learning outcome is typically written as verb + object. The verb identifies the kind of demonstrable behavior or skill expected of someone who is proficient (e.g. “Explain …”). The object is the specific task or knowledge (e.g. “… radiometric dating and geo time scale”). The subject of the outcome is implied—it’s the learner! But it may be helpful to precede your list of learning outcomes with the phrase, “Learners will be able to …” Focusing on the learner ensures that we are attending to learning by way of teaching, and not teaching as an end itself.

Tip Using Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain will help you to articulate the knowledge and skills of different learning outcomes at different levels. See Appendix 2 for guidance.



Learning outcomes should be written explicitly enough that simply reading the outcome lets us easily understand the kind of evidence learners could produce to prove their success. A well-written outcome should be clearly measurable, yet flexible enough that it doesn’t dictate a certain kind of assessment. Learning outcomes should be as succinct as possible. As you write them, watch for related outcomes that might be combined without losing specificity. Combining outcomes can be done by understanding how lower-level cognitive skills (such as knowing and understanding) are, in fact, foundational for the higher-level cognitive skills (such as applying and evaluating). Breaking goals into specific learning outcomes will help you plan for blended assessments (see Chapter 6), as well as the best learning activities to lead students to those outcomes (Chapters 7 and 8).

Learning outcomes are measurable and specific.

Include Outcomes for the Heart and the Mind Teaching involves guiding students through activities that will achieve the desired learning outcomes. These outcomes can be cognitive (related to the mind) and affective (related to emotions, or the heart).

Cognitive Outcomes (Mind) Related to the mind, these are outcomes that have to do with knowledge and skills that the learner acquires. These outcomes are typically measured by having students demonstrate what they know and can do. Example: create spreadsheets that track and auto-calculate financials for small companies.

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Affective Outcomes (Heart) As educators we often think primarily, if not exclusively, about cognitive outcomes. But because optimal learning requires that students are motivated to learn, we should address affective outcomes in our teaching. Related to the heart, affective outcomes have to do with attitudes or dispositions that tap into who the learner is and who they might become. Typically, these outcomes are much more difficult to measure because they have to do with internal desires, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth articulating. Examples of affective outcomes from various courses: Connects business goals to personal values or social impact.

Navigates ethically challenging situations carefully, demonstrating honesty and integrity.

Appreciates the health and stability of oceans through first-hand experiences engaging with the natural world.

Figure 5.2  Outcomes can be mapped to goals using simple tools like a word processor

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Designing Your Blended Course

5.4

Fit Goals and Outcomes into a Timeline Once you have listed course goals, the next step is to determine how these will fit into the timeline of the course. For example, if you have five goals, will those each take three weeks of a fifteen-week semester? Some goals may take more time and practice to achieve than others, just as some goals will be composed of more outcomes than others.

Tip There is no magic formula for how many goals you should have in a course, but experience suggests that typical college or high school course can often be summed up in about five broad goals.

Goals and outcomes can be organized by lessons to help you map the framework of your blended course. We use the term “lesson” in this book to refer to a discrete unit consisting of content, learning activities, and assessments that are all related to a set of outcomes. A lesson may include elements of one or two of the course goals, but rarely more than that. Lessons are often tied to a period of time, as well. One lesson may span a single class session, or an entire week in a traditional course. You’ll need to consider how the onsite sessions of your blended course work with the number of lessons you need. For instance, if your blended course consists of one onsite meeting a week, you might organize lessons around that onsite meeting. Perhaps the onsite session begins or wraps up a lesson. By focusing on one lesson at a time, the goals can be expanded one at a time to list more specific learning outcomes (Table 5.1).

To maximize efficiency, try to design activities and assessments that help students meet multiple outcomes. This is especially important when you need to assess an outcome more than once.

We recommend that you choose one lesson and write the learning outcomes covered in that lesson at first—unless you already have all the outcomes written for the entire course. If you’re not used to writing learning outcomes, the process of blending the lesson (choosing assessments, activities, and content) will either validate your initial outcomes or show problems with the wording that you need to fix. Working one lesson at a time, you’ll get better at writing outcomes as you work them into assessments and learning activities.

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Table 5.1  An example lesson in a course design map Lesson: Intro to Plate Tectonics (Week 3) Goal: Understand plate tectonics and its relationship to the formation of major features of the seafloor Outcomes

Assessments

Activities

1. Name the plates and boundaries that make up the surface of the Earth’s crust.

1. Practice quiz covering all lesson outcomes (students must achieve 90% across multiple attempts).

1. Watch video lectures and BBC clip (online).

2. Sketch and describe the interior layers of the Earth. 3. Describe the theory of “continental drift”. 4. Analyze evidence of seafloor spreading, including hot spots.

2. Participation in onsite peer instruction (using data from clickers; various outcomes).

3. Concept map walkthrough (face-to-face and online).

3. Concept map assignment (outcomes 1, 2, 3).

4. Participate in peer instruction activity (face-to-face).

5. Apply the theory of seafloor spreading to explain different seafloor sediment thicknesses and ages.

5.5

2. Take practice quiz as many times as necessary (online).

5. Construct concept map. 6. Participate in field trip 1 with team (face-to-face).

Plant Goals and Outcomes in Your Course Website Whether you plan to use an LMS or create your own website as the online hub of your blended course, you can begin seeding the new environment with your outcomes as you write them. Once planted in the course website, the outcomes can easily be linked to assessments and activities down the road, “growing” the outcomes into a full blended learning experience. An online list of goals and outcomes can also serve as a curriculum map that describes the scope of the course to learners, teachers, and administrators.

If You’re Using an LMS … Take advantage of LMS tools that allow you to compose and organize outcomes. If your school or department has already established the outcomes for your course, find out if they are available in the LMS already so that they can be imported to your course website.

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Figure 5.3  Some LMSs provide tools for teachers and departments to create, organize, and share goals and learning outcomes

Consult your campus faculty technology center or LMS documentation to discover how LMS assessments, rubrics, question banks, and activities can be tied to these outcomes. Also, find out what kind of automated reporting or analytics are available for outcome-based assessments through the LMS.

If You’re Building Your Own Website … Compose a single page that serves as an index for all the goals and outcomes of the course. As you build the course website, you can use simple hyperlinks to point to this index page and even to individually “anchored” learning outcomes.

5.6

Summary and Standards Setting up a course design map will make the development of your blended course easier and more consistent from start to finish. Start with a brief course description that points to broad course goals that reflect what successful students look like at the end of the course.

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Once you’ve begun your course design map with a general description and broad course goals, you’ll want to choose one lesson to write specific learning outcomes for. You’ll develop a prototype lesson as you begin designing assessments and activities that represent attainment of those outcomes. Focusing on goals and outcomes from the beginning will also help ensure that you are learning-focused, not technology-focused, when you choose or create learning activities. This is why learning outcomes for a blended course can be identical to outcomes for onsite or online versions of the course.

A concise course description identifies the learner audience, course goals, and instructional strategy. Course goals are clearly written and broadly describe the successful learner at the end of the course. Plan to improve or iterate your course design in small ways, whenever you touch the course. Learning outcomes for a blended course are identical to those of onsite or online versions. Learning outcomes are measurable and specific. Learning outcomes relate to course goals and are learner-focused.

References and Further Reading

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Berliner, D. (1990). What’s all the fuss about instructional time? In BenPeretz, M. E., & Bromme, R. E. (Eds.), The nature of time in schools: Theoretical concepts, practitioner perceptions (pp. 3–35). New York and London: Teachers College Press. Fink, D. L. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Heer, R. A model of learning objectives–Based on A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Iowa State University Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Retrieved from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/wp-content/ uploads/2015/09/RevisedBloomsHandout-1.pdf Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 212–218. Skibba, K. A. (2006). A cross-case analysis of how faculty connect learning in a hybrid course. In Proceedings of 47th Annual Adult Education Research Conference (pp. 346–352). Whitaker, T. (2013). What great teachers do differently: 17 things that matter most. New York: Routledge.

Chapter  6

Blending Assessments to Improve Learning

The only way we can properly judge where we are is relative to where we want to be. Grant Wiggins (1998)

6.1

Assessments in Blended Environments Assessments aim to evaluate student attainment of learning outcomes by examining student performance either directly (e.g. by observation) or indirectly (e.g. by an exam). Assessments—and the outcomes they are based on—should reflect the kind of real-world activities or skills that you envision students performing in the future, after they’ve left your course and are applying what they’ve learned. Blended courses can expand the means and methods by which teachers measure student learning outcomes by opening up the possibility of both onsite and online assessments. Onsite, teachers can carefully monitor exams and directly observe presentations, demonstrations, or communication. Online, student work can be submitted and reviewed digitally. Performances can be recorded or livestreamed; knowledge can be objectively assessed through computerbased testing; and progress can be tracked over time through logs, blogs, and analytics. Onsite assessments and face-to-face feedback have advantages as well—especially when feedback needs to be delivered with empathy and encouragement. Assessments don’t just measure; they should also provide students with useful feedback that they apply to correct their understanding or improve their skills. As educators, it is our job to ensure students get useful, constructive feedback promptly. Onsite assessments and face-to-face feedback have advantages, especially when feedback needs to be delivered with empathy and encouragement. Online tools can also facilitate feedback with a

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human touch (e.g. through video or audio feedback), but the greatest advantage of online assessments for feedback is that the feedback can be automated and personalized for the individual student.

To Do After completing this chapter you will be ready to do the following: 1. List specific assessment(s) for a single lesson (aligned to outcomes) in your course design map. 2. Note where and how each assessment takes place (online or onsite). 3. Create the assessment(s). See Table 5.1 in Chapter 5 for an example.

In a blended course, online and onsite assessments should be interwoven. Blending assessments creates the opportunity to provide:

•

•

•

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More variety. Students can get maxed out if the same form of assessment is used repetitively. Blended courses increase the range of things that can be done online or onsite: demonstrations, personal communication, research papers, presentations, digital storytelling, automated quizzes, etc. Variety in assessment can ensure that learning outcomes are thoroughly assessed from different angles. Increased frequency. More checks on student learning help students and teachers understand progress. Frequency can also lower pressure and anxiety by spreading assessments more evenly through the semester. More frequent, lower-stakes assessments are feasible when online tools facilitate management and automated feedback. Greater authenticity. Authentic assessments aim to be as “real world” as possible, using real-world content or simulative activities. Sometimes these are best done onsite. However, online technology makes a lot of things possible that may have been too difficult before, such as sharing digital content from the open web, and enabling the kind of authentic assessments that might otherwise be too constrained by time and place.

Designing Your Blended Course

•

Feedback. Feedback is key to helping students understand where they stand. The best feedback will clearly identify which learning outcomes students have not mastered, and how they can improve their performance. But it is a challenge to provide sufficient feedback to all students as quickly as they need it. Online tools can facilitate faster feedback (as some of it can be automated) with greater detail.

Tip Teachers can help students mentally prepare to apply feedback by clearly stating when and how they will receive it—and then making sure feedback is available in a timely fashion.



Student learning is regularly assessed throughout the course.



Assessments determine how well learners have achieved the learning outcomes.



Assessments provide students with sufficient feedback for improvement.



Teacher feedback is provided in a timely fashion.

Reflection: What Kinds of Assessments Stick With Us? Before you begin exploring blended assessments, think back on your own academic career. Remember some of the tests or papers or projects that you completed in order to pass classes. Do any of those assessments stand out? If so, why? Some assessments may stand out because they were extremely hard and you felt unprepared. What could your teacher have done to help you be more prepared? Some assessments may stand out because they were too easy and you felt overprepared. What could the teacher have done differently with the assessment to better represent your learning? Some assessments may have resulted in work that you were proud of and used as evidence of your learning for others to see, such as when applying for graduate school or a job. If you didn’t have such an assessment, do you wish you had?

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Some assessments not only do a good job of measuring what you understand or can do, but also provide useful feedback and encourage you to change your understanding or improve your performance. Compare that kind of assessment to those that gave you little or no useful feedback. Which assessments needed to be done onsite, with face-to-face interaction? Which could have been done online, with faster feedback?

6.2

Assess Onsite for Live Performances, Interactions, and Observations Designing assessments for a blended course means examining the learning outcomes, coming up with some assessment ideas, and then deciding between onsite or online. Because onsite time is typically more limited than online time in a blended course, let’s begin by looking at specific advantages of the onsite environment for assessment.

Assessing Physical Demonstrations Onsite Assessments of physical activities, whether related to sports, crafts, patient or customer interactions, or lab procedures, may be easier onsite. Being physically present with a student during such a demonstration means the teacher can engage multiple senses and observe the student at different angles. They can also intervene when needed since the demonstration occurs in real time. While physical demonstrations can be done online using video recording or conferencing tools, this usually adds an additional layer of complexity and the possibility for technical hiccups that can interfere with the accuracy of the assessment. Online technology can still make onsite physical demonstrations easier and add flexibility, however. For instance, using video recordings to capture the demonstration creates evidence of learning that can be reviewed and assessed by teachers and students (Figure 6.1, for example).

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Figure 6.1  Students at Cox College record each other onsite as evidence of skills mastery through an app that connects to their LMS. These videos are immediately available online for feedback and assessment. Image courtesy of Canvas by Instructure

Assessing Live Presentations Onsite The immediacy and physical presence of the onsite experience also supports assessment of student presentations, speeches, etc. Live presentations are replete with (often unpredictable) distractions and environmental variables that may represent the kind of experiences students may experience in the real world. This provides a degree of authenticity that is especially useful in communication and public speaking courses, for example. Live, onsite presentations can present two additional authentic learning opportunities:

• •

Student presenters are subject to the constructive pressure of ­performing before a real audience. A student audience can engage all their senses to observe, critique, and learn from the presenters.

Assessing Interpersonal Interactions Onsite Language courses often aim to prepare students to communicate with native speakers in varied and sometimes unpredictable scenarios.

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Language is not just about grammar and vocabulary; language speakers must often include expressions and nonverbal communication to be most effective. Live, in-class assessments of interpersonal interactions challenge students to perform in contextualized, authentic scenarios. Keep in mind that technology is making this easier than ever online. It’s now relatively simple to connect via video on nearly any device, either synchronously or asynchronously. Some LMSs have this feature built in. This gives you greater flexibility in assessing interpersonal interactions, or allows you to humanize an otherwise “distant” online experience.

Tip Students preparing for professions that require high-stakes human interactions and presentations—such as sales, marketing, or medicine—will benefit from both live (onsite) and recorded (online) assessments.

Assessing Onsite to Preserve Integrity Perhaps the most obvious benefit of conducting assessments onsite is the ease with which teachers can support the integrity of the assessment by directly monitoring students. Even a large room of students can be observed rather efficiently to inhibit, if not fully prevent, cheating. this is an important factor in high-stakes assessments. This doesn’t mean that online assessments are unreliable. Special precautions and design considerations can ensure academic integrity. We share ideas on this topic later in this chapter.



6.3

Onsite assessments capitalize on physical presence, immediacy, and human interaction.

Assess Online for Time-Savings, Flexibility, and Feedback Because onsite assessments are only necessary in select circumstances, you can think creatively about moving many other kinds of assessments online. The main advantages of online assessment tools are:

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reusability; automation;

Designing Your Blended Course

• •

multimedia; flexibility of time and space.

Reusability and automation in online tools are especially important as they help teachers increase the variety and frequency offeedback that supports learning.

Online Quizzes to Optimize Assessments Online quizzing tools can be used to organize and deliver both objective questions (e.g. multiple-choice, matching, fill-in-the-blank) and subjective questions (e.g. essay). They can be used for low-stakes assessments (lesson or chapter quizzes) or higher-stakes tests and exams. There are five key benefits of using online quizzing tools:

• • • • •

Tip Online quizzing tools let you restrict when and even where students take the quiz by letting you limit quiz-taking to certain days, times, or locations.

automatic scoring of objective questions; automatic delivery of specific feedback based on students’ responses; randomized or individualized questions for each student; increased onsite time for face-to-face or hands-on learning; time saved from repetitious manual scoring of paper-based assessments.

Online quiz tools also open the door for the use of quizzing as part of active learning, which we’ll explore in-depth in Chapter 7. Next to automatic scoring, the most impactful feature of online quizzing for students is that it can give them pre-written feedback on any single question or answer choice (Figure 6.2). Writing feedback for assessments is more work upfront, but this can save you time in the long run and certainly supports student mastery:

• •

Feedback on incorrect answers can either directly clarify the information or point students back to learning material that explains missed concepts. Feedback on correct answers is less important, but may elaborate on the concept or preview future topics.

Writing effective assessment questions is difficult and time-consuming, so you may want to re-use question banks from your colleagues or a textbook publisher. If you do, make sure that each question is directly aligned to one or more learning outcomes.

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Figure 6.2  This multiple-choice question has elaborative feedback for a correct response, and corrective feedback for a wrong response

In any case, you can maximize your online question banks by re-using quiz questions in tests or exams. Online quizzing tools make it easy to build a question bank independent of a given quiz or exam, and then randomly pull questions from the bank for each student when they attempt the assessment. For multiple-choice type questions, the answer options within a given question may be randomized as well. Further, telling students that exam questions may come from the same pools of questions that constitute quizzes may encourage students to prepare for the formative assessments and take them seriously.



Automated feedback provides clarification, correction, or guidance.

American Sign Language with Multimedia Quizzes Online quizzes need not be limited to text. For example, Curt Radford of Utah State University asks students to respond with video in “essay” questions in his blended American Sign Language (ASL) course (Figure 6.3). Some questions are not questions at all, but rather a video recording of Curt signing a sentence that students must translate from ASL before inputting a text translation or response. Others are written sentences that students must translate into ASL through a video recording within

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the quiz interface. Finally, some questions combine both, where Curt signs part of a conversation that students respond to with signs.

Figure 6.3  Using video in online quizzes allows students to practice and role play responses to situations

Gatekeeper Quizzes What Happens? An online quiz is taken by students ahead of an onsite session.

Why? In a blended course onsite sessions are focused on getting students hands-on and applying what they’ve learned online. Teachers need students to show up prepared and ready to work. Requiring students to complete an online quiz before the onsite session

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creates accountability. It also provides teachers with just-in-time insights into what concepts students struggled with.

Where? Online. Gatekeeper quizzes happen ahead of each onsite meeting.

Who? Individual students.

How? Gatekeeper quizzes are created just like other online quizzes—however, the due date and time is set just ahead of the onsite session. Set the cut-off time just far enough ahead so that you can review quiz results before the session begins. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts so students have more than one chance to prove readiness. Onsite activities begin with the class confident that everyone has a minimum level of readiness. Teachers can also adjust activities or discussion on confusing or problematic questions. Gatekeeper quizzes can be graded to emphasize their importance. Some college teachers may choose to require that students pass the gatekeeper quiz before they are allowed in to the onsite session, for example, by automatically releasing necessary materials once students achieve a certain score (Figure 6.4). Other teachers may set those students apart during the onsite session to catch up, for example, by working through the online module.

Figure 6.4  Completing this quiz unlocks materials students will need during the onsite session

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Students are accountable for online learning in order to be prepared for onsite sessions.

Assessing Papers and Projects Online Many teachers use papers and projects to assess student learning on multiple outcomes at once, to demonstrate qualitative skills such as creativity or critical thinking, or to test how students bring knowledge and skills together holistically. In a blended course, accepting papers and projects digitally saves resources, simplifies the assessment process, and can lead to better student work.

Accept student submissions online rather than gathering papers in class to save valuable onsite time. Online marking tools can further save time on assessment and delivering feedback.

Sharing papers and projects as digital documents can allow multiple contributors to comment on, edit, and track changes to a single document. While these can be shared via email attachment, other online tools will simplify the process of reviewing and providing feedback. Most LMSs have an online assignment tool that teachers use to describe the project, explain evaluation criteria, and accept submissions. Even better, the LMS may support feedback, rubrics, and allow resubmission to encourage students to improve. Be sure that your assessment descriptions include complete instructions, using text, diagrams, or even video explanations (Figure 6.5), as well as rubrics or other scoring criteria that express your expectations for performance (Figure 6.6).

Tip Online services Google Docs (docs.google.com) and Office365 (office.com) let users share, collaboratively comment on, and mark up documents online. They also make it easy for teachers to see the development of the document through a revision history.

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Figure 6.5  This online assignment provides students with instructions, an example, and a space to submit their work all in one page

Figure 6.6  The online assignment shown in Figure 6.5 also shows students the rubric that will be used to assess their work

Collaborative Projects and Renewable Assignments One of the goals of education is to prepare students to apply their knowledge and skills to solve challenges in the world outside of school. Teachers can help students begin to do so by creating authentic assessments that are designed to solve a specific problem in a community. These projects can be “renewable”, meaning that future students will contribute to the project, growing or improving the impact.

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For example, when Professor David Wiley found that there was no good textbook on project management written specifically for the role of instructional designers, he tasked his graduate students with researching and writing one. That book was published on the open web with a Creative Commons license so that others would know they were free to reuse and even improve the book.

Figure 6.7  Students in David Wiley’s project management course collaborated on a book as the course project. The book is openly licensed and published online so future students can contribute

In later semesters, students would not only use the book written by their peers, but would contribute to it themselves, expanding or improving the content, and keeping it current. In general, encouraging students to share what they learn and produce in your blended course can lead to valuable educational outcomes:

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• • •

increased visibility for the student and access to her work; positive, proactive development of students’ digital identities; improved learning based on active practice, diverse feedback, and the positive pressure of publishing;

•

greater motivation to engage in learning and sharing through the rewards and attention of a social community.

Blending Assessments to Improve Learning

Tip Encouraging students to apply feedback and to continue to improve their work can teach them that learning is a process, not a destination.

If students believe that the assessment connects to real-world skills or prepares them for future experiences, they may be more motivated to put in the effort needed to succeed. Teachers can help make these connections visible by pointing to the goal or learning outcome addressed by the assessment. This is just one way that clear communication primes students for assessment in a blended course.

Peer Assessment to Deepen Students’ Understanding Peer assessment can provide students with faster, more comprehensive feedback on their work without overburdening the teacher. Peer review doesn’t have to be the only assessment of student work; it can be in addition to the teacher assessment.

Tip Orient students to online peer review during an onsite session. Walk through your own thought process as you assess an example from a previous semester. Give students a chance to ask questions and clarify the process before they begin reviewing peers’ work online.

Peer assessment can improve both the author and the reviewer’s work. By assessing their peers’ work, students can gain critical insight into the grading process, leading to a better understanding of learning outcomes that informs the improvement of their own performance. Identifying strengths and weaknesses in peers’ work can help them recognize similar attributes in their own work. Online peer review can be facilitated a number of ways:

• • • •

Tip Give students a chance to practice peer review with sample assignments from past semesters.

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•

LMS assignment tools can automatically and randomly redistribute student submissions for peer review, including any associated rubrics. Cloud document sharing services, such as Google Docs, make it easy for students to directly invite classmates to review and even edit their document. Video conferencing tools can facilitate peer review of live performances or demonstrations. Discussion forums can provide an open, loosely organized space where peer review can happen by prompting students to share their work and respond to others’ work. Email can be used by the teacher to announce peer review pairing or grouping and to share a rubric. Students can use email to exchange files.

In order to ensure that students understand the desired learning outcomes for the assessment, teachers should provide rubrics or standards to peer reviewers. These can be the same instruments that you yourself use to assess work.

Designing Your Blended Course

Essay #1 Peer Review After submitting your essay (and once the due date has passed), return to the online assignment to find one of your classmates’ essays for you to review. Use the rubric that I’ve provided and give constructive and encouraging feedback—the kind of feedback you yourself would like to receive!

Figure 6.8  This assignment is a discussion forum where students are asked to submit their project in order to showcase more examples and encourage peer feedback



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Peer review procedures and criteria for evaluation are clear.

Blending Assessments to Improve Learning

Tip Assessments don’t just provide feedback for students. Teachers can use student performance on assessments to inform the assessment itself as well as their teaching.

Use Online Rubrics for Fast, Consistent Feedback Rubrics provide a consistent framework for assessment of student work based on a set of specific criteria. A performance rubric is typically a grid that includes criteria in rows and rating levels in columns. Descriptors of rating levels are often included to make feedback more complete. For example, this discussion rubric organizes ratings and descriptions by outcome or category:

Exceeds requirements

Quality

Contributions to class discussions are relevant, well-written, and constructive. 4

Accuracy

3

Mostly satisfies requirements

2

1

Contributions are supported with evidence as appropriate, and apply new information in meaningful ways. 4

Engagement

Satisfies requirements

Doesn’t satisfy requirements

Evaluation Criteria

3

2

1

Contributions are made within the timeline for discussion, and include thoughtful responses to classmates’ work. 4

3

2

1

Clear, direct communication is critical in a blended course, and rubrics provide that clarity for students both before and after an assessment. Organizing online assessments to include description, rubric, and submission all in one space makes it easy for students to understand expectations. More importantly, it provides feedback on how students have met those expectations. One criticism of rubrics is that they are too rigid and don’t allow for or celebrate student creativity when students’ work is (literally) outside the

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box. Some teachers will allow for variability in student work by having at least one rubric criterion that is open-ended, such as:

Wildcard

Use online rubrics through your LMS to save time marking and scoring student submissions with point-and-click interfaces coupled with online document annotation.

Student work represents a quality not otherwise addressed by this rubric.

Some teachers may want to use the point values of a “wildcard” rubric criterion as extra credit for the assignment, allowing students to achieve full marks through means other than just the required criteria. Different online platforms will provide different tools for assessing student work. Because so much instructional time may be spent on evaluating and scoring assessments, we recommend thoroughly investigating your options, and finding the fastest, most efficient path to providing feedback to your students. Ask your colleagues and campus technologists for methods and tips.

Rubrics or criteria inform learners how they will be assessed and provide useful feedback.

6.4

Set Expectations with Clear Instructions

Tip

Because a blended course can deliver assessments online or onsite, students will depend on clear instructions on when and how they will be assessed. Teachers should provide succinct but thorough instructions for the completion of assessments, including the manner of submission. Remember, every extra moment that a student spends deciphering instructions is one moment fewer spent on the actual learning. Thus, instructions must be stated simply, clearly, and logically.

Make sure students have access to tutorials or help documentation on using the course website, if it’s not already obvious (e.g. in the LMS).

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When possible, assessments should be preceded by examples that explain the mechanics of the assessment. Student examples from previous courses—both high- and low-achieving—can help students form mental models of expectations. Teachers can also provide worked examples that explain their own expert thought process as they themselves work through the assessment activity. See Chapter 7 for more details on worked examples.

Blending Assessments to Improve Learning

Tip Sometimes due dates and times need to be set just ahead of onsite class sessions. Otherwise, set online due time to 11:59 pm rather than 12:00 am (midnight) in order to avoid confusion.

Avoid frustrating students in online assessments. Simplify their path through technology for your students when assessments are online by removing anything extraneous. Try to separate assessment of the desired learning outcomes from students’ skill using the technology. For instance, a student may be a great presenter, but if they have a hard time using online technology to record a presentation that could negatively impact your assessment of their skill. Blended courses can help alleviate this by helping students prepare to be assessed online:

• •

List necessary technology skills in the course syllabus so students understand what is expected. Exercise students’ technology skills early by providing simple, ungraded practice assignments that are similar to future assignments.

Finally, because students in a blended course expect activity to happen in at least two different spaces—online and onsite—the manner of submission for any graded assignment or assessment must be perfectly clear to eliminate confusion.

Activity instructions and requirements are stated simply, clearly, and logically. Assignment completion methods and submission requirements are clearly stated. Examples are provided when needed.

6.5

Encourage Academic Honesty Online One common complaint about online courses is that, if assessments can be conducted anywhere, how do we know students aren’t cheating? We recommend first looking at ways your pedagogical approach and the course’s design can encourage academic honesty. For example:

•

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Build motivation by explaining the value of the work at hand. Learning is hard work, and our brains resist it. But students who understand that learning and assessments help them achieve shortor long-term goals will be more motivated to do the work—and less likely to cheat.

Designing Your Blended Course

•

• •

•

Eliminate busy work. Courses are designed to fill an average amount of learning time. When learning activities are inefficient or ineffective at helping students prepare, this discourages time on task. When students have more work than their schedules allow for, they may turn to cheating to achieve the grade. Increase the frequency and variety of assessments. Multiple assessments throughout the semester can make the mental and physical cost of cheating less rewarding. Assess progressively, in stages. Have students submit each phase of a project for assessment, and ensure following phases build on previous work. Early drafts and versions can be submitted for review periodically throughout the semester. Reduce the stakes or point values of online quizzing by making the assessments more formative. Allow students to retake the quiz one or more times.

Technology can also be used to discourage or inhibit cheating online:

•

• •

Use an automated “originality” check for online paper submissions, when appropriate. There are several online services that provide students (and teachers) with a report identifying text that comes from other sources. Rather than being simply a punitive mechanism, this technology can be used to help students understand the sometimes slippery slope that is plagiarism. Randomize the order of items in online quizzes to make cheating more difficult (and retaking more challenging). Use the revision history on group documents to see who has contributed to the document, when, and in what form. Teachers can also require that students submit their own contributions page from the revision history (Figure 6.9).

Being proactive and conscientiously designing the course to discourage plagiarism is important in a blended course. It is also important that teachers clearly state the consequences of plagiarism, cheating, and failure to properly cite copyrighted materials. See the website for a list of tools or sites that help students understand plagiarism.

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Figure 6.9  Online collaborative document tools such as Google Docs provide a revision history that highlights contributors’ work

Assessments are designed to encourage academic integrity and discourage cheating or plagiarism.

6.6

Design Students’ Projects to Be Showcased Traditionally, teachers assess student work in order to grade their performance and evaluate their learning. It’s up to students to decide if the work they’ve done deserves to be shared beyond the classroom. Too often, however, students don’t feel like assessments are worth sharing. Test scores and grades may still give a feeling of accomplishment, but how often is the work itself worth showing to others? Papers or essays are rarely used by students to represent what they are capable of outside of an academic context. This can be a blindspot if we want education to help students attain future opportunities in workplaces outside of education. With a little forethought, projects can represent the kind of credible, real-world projects that will be valuable in a students’ portfolio.

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Authentic assessments involve projects and learning tasks that match up with the kind of work students will do in their lives beyond school. Authentic assessments that represent real-world skills and competencies provide more direct evidence and insight into what a student can do. Digital assessment of student learning in a blended course can be an opportunity to consider how students might share the outcomes of that assessment beyond the classroom. For example:

•

•

•

Capstone projects can be uploaded and shared as work examples in students’ online website, blog, or ePortfolio, or social networks such as Portolium (portfolium.com) or LinkedIn (linkedin. com). ePortfolios can showcase multiple examples of student work, tied to specific competencies or learning outcomes. They center on collecting, organizing, and sharing student work with anyone the student chooses: teachers, administrators, family members, employers, prospective grad schools, etc. ePortfolios are one way for students to make learning visible. Digital badges are certified micro-credentials that students earn as a result of assessment. Badges are smaller than degrees or certificates, and usually represent a tangible skill or competency that students want to prove to future employers. If your course or program awards digital badges, students will be able to show those in their ePortfolio.

Learn about free digital badging providers like Badgr.com on our website. Employers are increasingly interested in seeing what job candidates can do, not just where they went to school or how well they did. Authentic assessments designed to be shared can help. Further, the modern workplace increasingly relies upon online and asynchronous tools for communication, collaboration, and project sharing. In a sense, these are blended workplaces. Blended learning is an opportunity for teachers to set goals, design assessments, and create environments that better prepare students to apply what they’ve accomplished in your course to what they want to achieve in their lives.

Activities, materials, and assessments aligned to reallife learning outcomes are as authentic as possible.

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Figure 6.10  A student’s ePortfolio should be something they create and own to showcase the work that best represents their skills and abilities

6.7

Summary and Standards Assessment is critical in determining the effectiveness of our instruction and learning activities. Formative assessments provide rich feedback critical in informing students of their own progress and improving learning. Blended courses offer the broadest array of tools yet to assess learning. There is no need to sacrifice the values of face-toface assessment, and yet one is compelled to take advantage of the many online tools that can provide frequent and diverse assessments throughout the course term (Table 6.1). Students who create digital works as evidence of learning can collect and showcase these through an ePortfolio, or simply share them on the open web in their own digital space, such as a blog or

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Table 6.1  Advantages of onsite or online assessment types Type of Assessment

Onsite Advantages

Online Advantages

Quizzes and exams

Easier to control against cheating

Individualized question selection Automated scoring Automatic feedback Multiple attempts

Live presentations and physical demonstrations

Sensory richness

Papers and projects

Peer review may benefit from the empathy of face-to-face interactions

Flexibility of space

Fewer technology barriers Digital submission collection Online rubrics Peer review management Gradebook integration

ePortfolios

Allows for physical objects

Portability

Sensory richness

Share-ability Publishing in online space

personal website. Sharing in the open is one way to link classroom assessments to the real world.

Student learning is regularly assessed throughout the course. Assessments determine how well learners have achieved the learning outcomes. Assessments provide students with sufficient feedback for improvement. Teacher feedback is provided in a timely fashion. Onsite assessments capitalize on physical presence, immediacy, and human interaction. Automated feedback provides clarification, correction, or guidance. Students are accountable for online learning in order to be prepared for onsite sessions.

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Peer review procedures and criteria for evaluation are clear. Rubrics or criteria inform learners how they will be assessed and provide useful feedback. Activity instructions and requirements are stated simply, clearly, and logically. Assignment completion methods and submission requirements are clearly stated. Examples are provided when needed. Assessments are designed to encourage academic integrity and discourage cheating or plagiarism. Activities, materials, and assessments aligned to reallife learning outcomes are as authentic as possible.

References and Further Reading Amado, M., Ashton, K., Ashton, S., Bostwick, J., Clements, G., Darnall, R., … Nisse, A. (2011). Project management for instructional designers. Retrieved from http://idpm.us. Hall, H., & Davison, B. (2007). Social software as support in hybrid learning environments: The value of the blog as a tool for reflective learning and peer support. Library and Information Science Research, 29, 163–187. Herrington, T., & Herrington, J. (2006). Authentic learning environments in higher education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23–48. Hounsell, D. (2003). Student feedback, learning and development. In M. Slowey & D. Watson (Eds.), Higher education and the lifecourse. (pp. 67–78). Berkshire, UK: Open University Press. Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. Lemley, D., Sudweeks, R., Howell, S., & Laws, R. D. (2007). The effects of immediate and delayed feedback on distance learners. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 8(801), 251–260. Radford, C., & Legler, N. (2012). Exploring the efficacy of online ASL. Conference presentation. InstructureCon 2012, Park City, Utah. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/45325373.

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Chapter  7

Blending Learning Activities Online

Now that you have identified outcomes for your first blended lesson and have begun to plan how you will assess students online or onsite, it’s time to plan learning activities that lead to those outcomes. Your blended course may use content-based or social learning activities that can happen either online or onsite. Because online teaching is foreign to many teachers, this chapter focuses on developing online learning activities for your blended course.

To Do After completing this chapter you will be ready to do the following: 1. List the content and activities that will happen online for the prototype lesson in your course design map. 2. Find or create online content, self-checks, etc., for each of these learning activities. 3. Note if and how each activity will connect to an onsite session. See Table 5.1 in Chapter 5 for an example.

7.1

Blending as a Way of Questioning the Status Quo Most teachers come to blended learning from the traditional classroom, where face-to-face interaction is the norm. In many blended courses more learning time is online than onsite, so you need to adapt your teaching by using a variety of activities and techniques. Focusing on determining what learning activities should happen online first will make it easier to determine the best learning activities for onsite. (Chapter 8 then looks at how you can re-think and adapt your onsite teaching for a blending.)

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If you’ve taught both onsite and online in the past, you have an advantage. But don’t assume blending is merely a combination of these two modes. An effective blended course chooses and designs learning activities specifically to maximize each mode, to emphasize active learning, and to interconnect online and onsite learning. For learners, a well-designed blended course is a more flexible experience thanks to the power of technology.

Reflection: Are Some Learning Activities Better Online or Onsite? To warm up, think about the different learning activities that happen during a course. Ask yourself if each activity is better suited for onsite or online. Here are some examples: Learning Activity

Onsite?

Online?

Attending a lecture Hands-on practice Flashcard study Discussing topics as a group Editing a paper Reading and note-taking

You probably noticed that each of the above learning activities can be done onsite or online, but some are easier, more convenient, or just seem to fit better in one mode more than the other. As you continue through this guide, be aware that our own sense of what learning activities are appropriate online or onsite is based on our own experiences or biases. Our students may have a different sense of where and how learning best happens based on what fits their schedules and preferences. Research on learning may provide a different perspective altogether.

For example, traditionally teacher-led presentations such as lectures are done onsite. But these may be a better fit for online delivery, as presentations and lectures are primarily a one-way transmission of information. Providing teacher-presented content online may fit students’ expectations for on-demand learning, such as they find on sites like YouTube. Putting teacher-led presentations online can save a teacher time in the long run, as he no longer has to redo the

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presentation each semester. It also gives students flexibility to consume the information on their own time, when they’re most ready—and to review it as needed. But, as with most learning activities, there’s risk in simply trying to replicate onsite activities like a lecture in an online environment. When was the last time you paid attention to an hour-long video on the web, for example? We must therefore adapt onsite activities to the affordances of online. Research can guide us to adapt in a way that actually enhances learning. Others might counter-argue that lectures or presentations should be onsite. There’s something innately satisfying about being present with other people. Many teachers understand how face-to-face lectures allow for and even encourage teacher–student interaction. Such interaction can lead the teacher to alter a lecture on the fly, or engage in rich, intellectual detours. The possibility of genuine, human interaction onsite will be a focal point of Chapter 8, but don’t assume online is devoid of such interaction. It just happens to be different. Blended learning offers teachers and students greater choice in how, when, and where learning happens, due in large part to the asynchronous nature of online interaction. In order to optimize your blended course for both effectiveness and flexibility, teachers (and students) may need to become more flexible themselves—in their assumptions about these modes of interaction, and also in their willingness to try new things and test the results. Trying new things is important because there is no perfect formula for a blended course. Even as you experiment with blended learning, make certain that your design choices are aimed at helping your students achieve the desired goals and outcomes.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes.

7.2

Blending to Improve How Students Learn

Memory is the residue of thought.

Teaching does not equal learning, but how we teach can be instrumental to how efficiently and effectively our students learn. Learning involves acquiring new knowledge, changing our understanding of the world, and developing skills based on knowledge

Daniel Willingham (2009)

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and abilities. Content—organized information or materials on a given topic—is an important vehicle for learning because it conveys information. But this doesn’t mean that learning happens just through consuming content. Nor does it mean that effective teaching simply requires transmitting information. Research suggests that the most durable learning depends both on how content is presented and what students do with that content. Ensuring that students themselves do something with new information is the core concept of active learning. Active learning requires that students do more than consume information. Active learning requires that learners retrieve information from memory, apply it in different contexts, and repeatedly test and evolve their understanding. Researcher James Stigler refers to this as “desirable difficulty”. Some research suggests that the more effort students exert, the more they are likely to retain the information. Blended learning provides more tools and means for teachers to facilitate active learning, if they are willing to adapt what they’ve done in the past. Even though most teachers want to start designing their blended course with the content and activities they already have, the backward design model (Chapter 4) purposely sets aside what we’ve done in the past in order to focus on what we want students to be and do at the end of the course. In this way, backward design can help us blend by opening our minds to new approaches and methods based on the strengths of online or onsite environments. This does not mean abandoning content or learning activities that you already have. Much of that can be reused in your blended course, if it’s properly adapted to the online or onsite environment. At the same time, you may find better methods for students to achieve course outcomes, whether that’s through new activities or revising your existing activities.

Content and activities directly support learning outcomes.

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7.3

Present Content Online for Flexibility and Efficiency If you present information to students onsite (for example, through presentations or demonstrations), start by identifying which presentation topics can easily be digitized and made available on-demand, online. Doing so can benefit students and teachers in the following ways:

• • • •

Flexibility. Students can work through web pages, watch video presentations, or listen to lectures when they want, adjusting the pace or speed as desired. Portability. Students can consume digital content on the go through mobile devices. Efficiency. A carefully scripted online presentation can be more concise than one given in the classroom, as you can eliminate redundancies, pauses, and sidetracks. Reusability. Digitizing a series of lectures that you might normally give each semester will save you time over the long run. You can add variety to your content by reusing digital content shared by other teachers, too.

Online content can be web pages with text and images, or video or audio files for streaming or download. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Blending doesn’t mean you have to create all the online content yourself. See the website for a list of digital content repositories that may have ready-to-use and openly licensed content that you can use today.

Online Content as Web Pages Web pages are easy to create, and are very easy to edit and update. They can be quickly skimmed and easily scanned to find and review information. Most LMSs have web page creation built right in. Text content is more accessible to students with auditory disabilities, though images or diagrams must be described. One disadvantage of web pages is that students may become overwhelmed with text—especially if your instructional web pages are in addition to textbooks. It’s also more difficult (but not impossible) to

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Research Note Learning content is more engaging and effective when written in a conversational tone, according to distance education researcher Börje Holmberg, as if you were talking with a student one-on-one.

make a web page engaging on a human level. Using relevant diagrams, images, and videos in web pages can help break up text and maintain learners’ attention.

Online Content as Video or Audio Video or audio files can be more engaging than static content. We tend to pay attention to human faces and voices. Video is very effective at showing processes and exploring physical objects or spaces. Video or audio files are also convenient to listen to during commutes or mundane tasks. Creating video is easier than ever, whether done via our phones or through an LMS. But editing or updating a video can be more difficult than editing a web page, especially if you want a seamless result. Video allows students to control the speed, but it can be difficult to search for specific information or sections. Creating videos also means you should provide text transcripts for students who may have trouble seeing or hearing.

Figure 7.1  Digital videos can be conveniently accessed from mobile phones and other connected devices, whether from sites like YouTube. com or from your LMS

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Tips for Creating Digital Video Presentations Creating and sharing digital video has never been easier, but recording your presentations can still be intimidating. Here are some tips on creating digital lectures for online delivery:

• • • • • •

Keep it simple. Content is more important than production value, so don’t be afraid to use whatever video equipment you have, be it a webcam or your smartphone. Keep each video brief—around ten minutes. This time frame makes videos more portable and reusable. It also matches our natural attention span. Be yourself. This is a chance to foster a human connection with your students. Don’t worry about being perfect; people understand that we make mistakes during recordings. Use screencasting software when you want to record walkthroughs of software or websites that students need to learn. This works for recording slide-based presentations, too. Consider using a high quality microphone if you plan to record many videos or audio files. Your school may have one to borrow. Make sure your videos are readily available. If your LMS supports multimedia it will likely convert your video or audio file into whatever formats students need. Some institutions have video content management systems available to use, such as Kaltura. You may also consider social media services like YouTube or Vimeo. Always test the video file yourself to ensure it plays back appropriately.

We share some different screencasting software that makes it easy to record what’s happening on your computer or mobile device.

Tip Research shows that humans can listen to you speak or read words on screen, but not both at the same time. Avoid presenting text visually while speaking or narrating.

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Presentation Slides Alone Aren’t Enough Don’t assume that the presentation slides, such as PowerPoint files, that you use with your onsite lectures are enough for students to learn from. Because slides are designed to support a live, spoken lecture or presentation, they are usually inadequate for online learning by themselves. Teachers who want to reuse presentation slides from their onsite courses should turn the slides into actual learning content. This can be done by breaking the slides into short, logical chunks and then recording yourself presenting these. You can also write down the full text of your presentation as a web page, embedding critical images or diagrams from the slides.

Designing Your Blended Course

Worked Examples and Walkthroughs What Happens? A worked example or walkthrough presents a challenge and explains a method of working through a process or procedure to address the challenge, step-by-step. For example, solving a math problem, deriving a statistic, diagnosing a patient’s ailment, using software, etc. The steps of a worked example build one upon another (Figures 7.2 and 7.3). Worked examples precede students’ own attempt to apply the process or procedure on their own, and the receipt of corrective feedback on their work.

Why? Effective instruction of skills often comes in the form of explanation, and worked examples are a proven method of explaining processes. The step-by-step explanation provides insight into the expert’s process of solving the challenge, eliminating much of the mystery that may impede their progress. Worked examples that frame the process as an expert’s approach to solving a problem can motivate students and help them visualize themselves as practitioners in the field.

Where? Online is usually the best choice. Online, worked examples can be either videos or web pages. Digital content has a clear advantage for worked examples in that students can move at their own pace and backtrack as needed. Onsite has an advantage when physical objects are involved or when interpersonal interaction is required, or when you connect the demonstration to hands-on practice. Keep in mind that hands-on practice can be done onsite after students have viewed a demonstration online.

Who? The teacher provides a worked example. The class as a whole or individually observes and applies the worked example. Learners can themselves create worked examples to explain the process.

How? Begin by identifying the challenge or concept, then outline the process that an expert would work through, paying attention to thought processes. This outline can be used to construct the worked example as a variety of media. For example:

• •

a web page with text, images, or diagrams; a video, with chapter markers for steps.

The outline is just as important onsite, as it can help the teacher stay focused and ensures each step is covered.

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Figure 7.2  This worked example is a video that explains the cognitive processes used to determine the mean, median, and mode of a set of numbers (video from Khan Academy, CC By-NC-SA)

Figure 7.3  This worked example from a course on web design uses text and images to walk students through a web page design activity, step by step

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Design Digital Content to Be Simple and Accessible

Tip Focus students on the content that most directly leads to achievement. Simplify by eliminating content that doesn’t directly align with lesson outcomes so students can spend more time on active learning.

We each have a creative side, but, when it comes to digital content for learning, simple is often better. Here are some tips from the field of content design that are easily applied to your digital content:

• • • • • •

Use headings and subheadings. This helps readers navigate and summarizes ideas. It also helps students with visual disabilities navigate the page. Leave plenty of white space in the margins. This helps readers focus on the text. Use high-contrast text and background colors (black and white is fine). This ensures visibility. Use a single, simple font in a standard size. This supports basic readability. Space lines between 1.25x and 1.5. This helps reading speed. Eliminate purely decorative images or media. These can distract students or create extraneous cognitive load.

Books are a generally good examples of well-designed content for learning. Books provide wide margins, space lines appropriately, use only easy-to-read, high-contrast fonts, and apply headings to help readers track their progress. In order to support all students in their learning, regardless of any disabilities they may have, teachers are responsible for ensuring that content and activities are accessible. As you create digital content for your blended course, keep in mind these two key concerns for students with visual or auditory disabilities:

Idea Teach students to use an online annotation and note-taking tool as they read. For example, hypothes. is is a free online annotation service that’s available as a simple browser add-on.

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• •

Images need alternate text descriptions. Your web page editor should let you add that description to your images (using the HTML “alt” attribute). If an image is decorative, just leave the alt attribute blank. Videos need captions and audio files need text transcripts for students who are blind or deaf. Technology is getting better at automatically transcribing video and audio files, but it’s rarely perfect. See if your institution offers transcription services, if needed.

As you design online content for your blended course, first make sure that content is simple and accessible so that students can access and consume it. This is a prerequisite to content that is engaging and effective.

Blending Learning Activities Online

Tip Flip through this book and see how we have tried to model simple content presented in an accessible layout throughout this book (bullets, figures, language, etc).

Tip Share your digital content with others on the open web as an Open Educational Resource (OER). Applying a Creative Commons (CC) license makes it easier for other teachers to know that they can reuse and even adapt your work. See creativecommons.org for more information.

Content design is simple and clear, and avoids information overload (e.g. written text and spoken words, distracting images for decoration, too much information at once, etc.). Content is designed to be accessible to all students, and is available in commonly used formats.

7.4

Make Online Content Engaging and Effective There’s a joke that a teacher can tell how engaging their lecture is by how many students have opened their laptops to “take notes”. While most blended courses avoid this situation by enabling students to learn when and where they want, we can take steps in the design of our content to make it more engaging.

Keep Students Hooked Across Short Segments Have you ever noticed how students’ attention is higher at the beginning of a class session than at the end? That’s just how our brains work, according to Professor John Medina. We pay out most of our attention at the beginning of the session, but about ten minutes in our will power wanes and it’s hard for our brains to keep going. So, on the one hand, we want to chunk video presentations (or our onsite lectures, for that matter) into ten minute segments. Then, we want to make sure each segment is designed for maximum learning and engagement:

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1. Give a one-minute overview to introduce each segment. 2. Remind learners what came before each segment and how what comes next relates to the rest of the class session. 3. “Bait the hook” at the end of each segment with a question, a problem, or a startling fact that grabs students’ attention. It’s not easy to “bait the hook”. Maintaining students’ attention between segments requires planning and some creativity. If you read popular fiction you know that modern authors are experts at baiting the hook— they end each chapter with a surprising or shocking event, or the main character discovers something peculiar that is left unexplained until the next chapter. Even just presenting unanswered problems or questions is a great way to keep learners’ attention by creating anticipation. Another way to capture learners’ attention is through stories that focus on real people with real problems. These might be personal stories, or anecdotes from the field, or formal case studies. Stories work because they use conflict and emotion to appeal to our shared human nature. Not only can stories spark students’ imagination, but triggering learners’ emotion can support retention. Though Medina’s ten-minute lecture format was designed to make his onsite lectures more effective, it’s a natural fit for recorded videos in a blended course. Applying Medina’s ten-minute rule to online videos also creates an opportunity to direct students engage in active learning between content segments.

Content is segmented in incremental chunks to support attention and memory. Stories, anecdotes, case studies, or challenges are used to engage learners’ attention and show relevance to the real-world.

Ask Questions Before Providing New Information Most learning content is intended to teach students something they don’t already know. But what if students already think they know something yet are wrong? Research suggests that, when students already have a mental model for a concept, just presenting correct information isn’t always enough to change their minds. For example, Derek Muller saw students with an incorrect understanding of physics topics ignore his

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Figure 7.4  This instructional video by Derek Muller comes in two parts: first a problem or question and prompts students to predict what will happen; second an explanation that leads to another question. See this example at youtube.com/user/1veritasium

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teaching of correct information. He came up with a three-part solution that makes online content that is both engaging and effective: 1. Introduce a topic by way of a question, not an explanation. For example, why do days seem to shorten in fall and winter? 2. Show other people struggling to answer the question correctly. 3. Ask students to explain the concept or predict what will happen. Do this before revealing the correct answer or solution. Presenting a question without immediately providing an answer is one way to “bait the hook” between segments to maintain students’ attention, as John Medina has suggested. This approach is easily incorporated into a blended course in different ways:

• • •

Break video or web pages into two parts. Directly ask students to pause and answer a question or predict what will happen next. Use an online discussion forum to post the first part of a video, then ask students to respond with their prediction. Make sure students can’t see other replies until after they post. Use a video tool that embeds self-check questions within the video’s timeline. Use this to ask students to commit to an answer or prediction before the video continues (Figure 7.5).

Figure 7.5  Some video technology allows you to embed questions into a video as a prompt for students to reflect on and reinforce what they just learned

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Research Note When students actively retrieve information they both reinforce their knowledge and identify gaps in their understanding (deWinstanley & Bjork, 2002). Online feedback should coach students to target those gaps specifically in subsequent study.

Reinforce Learning with Self-Assessments Embedding questions into your content can make it more engaging and effective. Blended courses can also use short self-assessments after content is presented to support active learning. Self-assessments direct students to recall and restate or apply what they’ve just learned. This reinforces learning and can even add some accountability. There are many ways you can incorporate self-assessments for active learning into your blended course. For example:

• • • • •

low- or no-stakes (self-check) quizzes; flashcards; incomplete outlines; self-recordings; learning journals.

Tip Avoid the stigma of the word “quizzes” for learning activities. Instead refer to these as “self-checks”, “practice exercises”, etc., in order to help students think of these as a normal part of the learning process.

Self-Checks What Happens? Students self-check their understanding of a topic just presented with a short set of questions with automated feedback. Questions may include true/false, multiple-choice, matching, or short-answer questions (Figure 7.6). Self-checks are usually not graded (though they may be required).

Who? Individual students.

Why? Self-check quizzes are quick, low-stakes, and thus low stress. But they are real mental work. Self-checks stimulate recall of important information and challenge students to ensure understanding.

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Figure 7.6  The student experience of a self-check quiz with multiple-choice questions. Note that one question uses an image as an example

The results are automatic and immediate, providing actionable feedback to the learner without requiring additional work by the teacher.

Where? Online. Most LMSs provide a quizzing tool that will work for self-checks. Self-checks can happen before, after, or within content:

• • •

before, to pre-assess understanding and help students self-identify problems; after, to provide a chance to immediately apply and reinforce the information; within, as a way to support section chunking and keep students engaged.

How Self-checks are easily created through an LMS, though other tools exist. Here are some basic steps:

•

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Create questions. Compose your own questions or download questions from publishers or open education resources. Try to find multiple questions for each learning outcome.

Blending Learning Activities Online

• • • •

Craft feedback for incorrect answers. Feedback on incorrect answers should explain why the answer was wrong, or refer learners back to materials for review. Set parameters. Make sure feedback or results are set to display as expected. Allow for multiple attempts. Set a cut-off date or time limit, if desired. Publish the self-check. When using an online quiz, put a direct hyperlink to the self-check right before or after the content appears. Review results and revise as necessary. Most LMS quiz tools provide statistics or item analyses that can reveal effective or ineffective questions or answer choices.

As soon as you publish the self-check, students can complete it and will immediately see results if the answers can be automatically assessed. Some online quizzes can require mastery (e.g. 80%) before other online materials can be accessed.

Figure 7.7  A lesson featuring a self-check immediately after students learn from the content (and before the next onsite meeting)

Incomplete Outlines What Happens? Students apply what they’ve learned to fill in the blanks on an incomplete outline covering a chapter, presentation, or lesson.

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Who? Individual students or small student groups.

Why? Some teachers may already provide full outlines of lessons or units to students to guide their study, but the reality is that, even if students use them, they won’t learn much from them. This is because teacher-provided outlines don’t require students to actively recall the information or understand their knowledge gaps. Yet asking students to create their own outlines may be a heavy task that they are reluctant or unprepared to do. Incomplete outlines help students actively recall key information while providing scaffolding to help them accomplish the task.

Where? Online. Printing and handing out incomplete outlines wastes time and paper. Using digital files or collaborative tools such as Google Docs or Office365 makes incomplete outlines easy to deliver and complete.

How? Online incomplete outlines don’t have to be complicated, but with a little extra care you can eliminate some of the hassle for students: 1. Start with a complete outline of a chapter, lesson, or presentation. You may have to create one yourself. 2. Use an online collaboration tool such as Google Docs or Office365 to store the outline. 3. Remove key words or phrases, being careful not to allow too many possibilities. 4. Share the online document with students via your blended course website. If you want to require students to complete the partial outline, you can share the document via your LMS’s assignment tool and accept submissions (Figure 7.8). Make sure you either restrict students from editing the original document (they can still make a copy of it), or see if your LMS can generate an editable copy for each student automatically. 5. Direct students to complete the outline as or after they work through the lesson.

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Figure 7.8  This incomplete outline is available to students via Google Docs as part of an assignment that students can complete and submit back for extra credit

Tip Consider asking your current students to help you create content (like lesson outlines or self-check questions) for use in future semesters. Creating content is itself a learning activity.

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Coupling online content with self-assessments allows students to work at their own pace and repeat activities until they have mastered the concepts. Self-assessments work best when students receive prompt feedback (especially for incorrect responses). Even more important, however, is that teachers guide and direct students back into the materials and activities until they have achieved the learning outcomes. A formal example of this can be found in Benjamin Bloom’s “mastery learning” method, which is designed to ensure all students achieve learning outcomes before moving on. Mastery learning delivers instruction followed immediately by a formative assessment. Students only progress if they can prove mastery of the content via the assessment. The key to mastery learning is that students who don’t prove mastery engage in additional, customized learning before repeating the assessment.

Designing Your Blended Course

In a blended course, you can use technology native to the LMS to limit students’ progress until mastery is achieved, and automatically direct students to remedial material to help them improve. In Chapter 8 we’ll look at how onsite sessions can be used for additional help and remediation when online content isn’t enough.

Content is paired with self-check or application activities to test and reinforce learning. Self-correcting activities or assessments are used to support practice and increase flexibility of pacing. Automated feedback provides clarification, correction, or guidance.

7.5

Foster Community with Online Social Activities One of the reasons teachers may choose to teach a blended course but not a fully online course is because they relish the human, social interaction that can happen onsite. Class discussions, for example, provide opportunities for teachers to engage students in deeper exploration of a topic than content can provide. Discussions are also a way for students to test their understanding, ask questions, and debate points. Class discussions foster the development of community, which is fundamental to student learning in the higher levels of the cognitive domain (e.g. Garrison & Archer, 2000).

Tip Create (or encourage students to create) an open online forum where students can organize study sessions, meet outside of formal class activities, or simply engage socially.

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Teachers who have mastered the online environment know that social learning activities such as class discussions can happen online just as well as onsite. Online interactions are simply different from onsite interactions. A blended course doesn’t have to choose between the two modes, however. You can use both onsite and online for some activities and give students choice in how they want to interact. One important capability of online is the ability to interact asynchronously, that is, not in real-time. While online tools like web conferencing and chat support synchronous communication, asynchronous tools like discussion forums provide more strengths over onsite environments. In the early days of the web, asynchronous tools were primarily text-based, but today asynchronous tools support multimedia—users can post using images, files, or even video.

Blending Learning Activities Online

Table 7.1  Some strengths and weaknesses of onsite and (primarily asynchronous) online environments with respect to social learning and interaction

Strengths

Onsite

Online (Asynchronous)

Human connection: It is easier to bond and develop a social presence in a face-to-face environment. It makes it easier to develop trust.

Flexibility: Students can contribute to the discussion at the time and place that is most convenient for them.

Spontaneity: Allows the generation of rapid chains of associated ideas and serendipitous discoveries.

Participation: All students can participate because time and place constraints are removed. Further, some students may feel more free to interact outside the social pressures of face-to-face. Reflection: Learners have more time to reflect on the topic, provide evidence for their claims, and edit their responses.

Weaknesses

Time constraints: Onsite time is limited, which means that you may not be able to reach the discussion depth that you would like, not allowing everyone to participate. This is especially true if the class is large and/or there are dominating personalities.

Procrastination: Students may tend to put off participating online when they have increased flexibility and autonomy. Psychological distance: Online interaction requires additional effort to engage via devices. Text-based communication is sometimes impersonal or lacks empathy. This may cause a lower satisfaction level with the communication.

Personal Perspective: Flexibility Helps Every Student Succeed Stephen Morris: Introduction to Business A big draw for colleges and universities to use a blended learning model is to free up classroom space or to accommodate certain groups of learners such as professionals that cannot come to a campus on a regular basis. There are also pedagogically meaningful reasons to blend; here’s one of mine. The university where I teach has many foreign-born students who do not speak English very well and/or come from cultures where speaking in class is discouraged or nonexistent. In a business school, active discussions are expected. But trying to discuss cases or course concepts in a classroom where a very large number of students do not participate affects the experience for everyone.

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So instead of relying just on face-to-face discussion I extend the discussion assignment online, and I get almost 100% participation. The flexibility of online discussions gives my non-native speaker students more time to formulate their ideas and work on their grammar. As a result, I get responses I never would get in a classroom, and have a richer community because of it.

Online Discussions What Happens? Students engage in an online discussion of a topic asynchronously, but within a time frame—typically the space between one class meeting and another. These discussions are usually initiated by one class member, such as the teacher or a designated student.

Why? There’s rarely enough time in an onsite discussion for all students to participate equally, with reflective thought and outside resources. Online discussions, therefore, are more flexible and often more inclusive of student voices. Today, online discussion forums support multimedia such as images, videos, files, and hyperlinks, making the experience much richer than text-based forums of the past. In addition to the strengths listed in Table 7.1, online discussions can provide some additional benefits:

• •

•

Positive social pressure. The online discussion forum creates a space where students’ contributions are on record. This encourages students to carefully craft their posts and engage in critical thinking about others. Personal exploration. An online discussion forum allows students to start from a single topic and still diverge to focus on angles or facets of the topic that are most interesting to them. As a moderator, your job to help them tie these divergences back to the main idea. Participation tracking. If your students can earn points toward their grade by participating in discussions, the online environment makes it easier to track, evaluate, and link discussion performance to an online grade book.

Where? Online discussions usually happen in a discussion forum, often within an LMS. This space usually consists of one or more main topics with indented or nested “threads” to show the direction of student responses.

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Who? The entire class, or students divided into groups.

How? The teacher sets up the topic in the online discussion forum. This may be:

• • •

a question related to a recently studied theme or work; a scenario with an unresolved problem; a list of concepts that students must choose to lead a discussion on.

In the online discussion, students may respond to both the original discussion prompt as well as to each other’s responses. Responses can be text, audio, or video, depending on your discussion tool. Clear directions to the students for engaging in the discussion will help set expectations (e.g. Figure 7.9).

Figure 7.9  An online discussion on a specific topic. Note that the teacher refers to an upcoming onsite meeting

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At least initially, teachers should expect to be heavily involved in the online discussion, guiding students to stay focused on the topic and modeling good responses or follow-up questions. Online discussions may happen independently of onsite sessions, or they may be used to create a bridge between the two environments (we’ll describe this further in Chapter 8). Teachers can summarize or extend an online discussion during a subsequent onsite session as a means of evolving the conversation.

Online Discussion: Variation Pre-Class Q&A Discussions An online Q&A forum can be set up for each week or lesson as an open space for students to express what they are struggling with or to mention topics that have confused them (e.g. Figure 7.10). This can provide the teacher with important feedback that can guide instruction or help plan activities for onsite sessions.

Figure 7.10  A general Q&A forum lets you leverage the community, and share answers with the class

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A pre-class Q&A forum can be optional or required: students may be asked to post when they encounter difficult topics or confounding questions, or students may be required to post at the end of a lesson, sharing what they want to learn more about.

Tip Encourage students to post video introductions in online discussions during the first week of class to increase social presence and start building a sense of community.

An online social space (e.g. discussion board or blog) is in place for students to meet outside the class. Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite. Online activities reference and connect with onsite activities, and vice versa.

7.6

Summary and Standards Because online environments allow students to work through learning activities when and where they want, online learning activities are a substantial part of any blended course. A blended course challenges teachers to rethink and adapt their teaching for each of the modes, and designing online learning activities is a chance to make learning content more engaging and effective. Online content should be simple, accessible, and scripted to arouse students’ attention and emotions. Segmenting content into brief, consumable chunks can be used to pique students’ curiosity. This also creates opportunities to weave in questions, interactions, and small selfassessments for more active learning. Social learning is just as well-suited for online as it is for onsite environments, though there remain important differences between the two.

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A blended course lets you choose one or the other, or offers both options to students to maximize participation. Adding self-assessments and social learning interactions to content is a good way to engage students, reinforce learning, and create a sense of accountability in students. This is especially important when the onsite sessions of a blended course are themselves more interactive, and rely upon students being well-prepared, such as in the flipped learning model. The next chapter focuses on designing and adapting onsite learning activities for blended learning to take advantage of the strengths of faceto-face interaction.

Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes. Content and activities directly support learning outcomes. Content design is simple and clear, and avoids information overload (e.g. written text and spoken words, distracting images for decoration, too much information at once, etc.). Content is designed to be accessible to all students, and is available in commonly used formats. Content is segmented in incremental chunks to support attention and memory. Stories, anecdotes, case studies, or challenges are used to engage learners’ attention and show relevance to the real-world. Content is paired with self-check or application activities to test and reinforce learning. Self-correcting activities or assessments are used to support practice and increase flexibility of pacing. Self-assessment activities provide corrective feedback or guidance for incorrect answers.

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An online social space (e.g. discussion board or blog) is in place for students to meet outside the class. Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite. Online activities reference and connect with onsite activities, and vice versa.

References and Further Reading Adattil, H. (2018). Effects of typographical factors in online reading. KLA Journal of Information Science & Technology, 1(1), 1–13. Anderson, T. (Ed.). (2008). The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.). Edmonton, Canada: Athabasca University Press. Borup, J., West, R. E., & Graham, C. R. (2012). Improving online social presence through asynchronous video. Internet and Higher Education, 15(3), 195–203. Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Clark, R. C., Nguyen, F., & Sweller, J. (2006). Efficiency in learning: Evidencebased guidelines to manage cognitive load. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer. deWinstanley, P. A., & Bjork, R. A. (2002). Successful lecturing: Presenting information in ways that engage effective processing. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 89, 19–31. doi:10.1002/tl.44 Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2000). A transactional perspective on teachinglearning transaction: A framework for adult and higher education. Oxford: Pergamon. Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133–148. Guo, P. J., Kim, J., & Rubin, R. (2014, March). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 41–50). ACM. Hojjati, N., & Muniandy, B. (2014). The effects of font type and spacing of text for online readability and performance. Contemporary Educational Technology, 5(2), 161–174. Holmberg, B. (1999). The conversational approach to distance education. Open Learning, 14(3), 58–60. Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of

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Chapter  8

Blending Learning Activities Onsite

Blending isn’t just about leveraging online technology to enhance teaching and learning. Blending is also about transforming the onsite experience to be more engaging and effective. When courses are blended to reduce the amount of onsite time teachers and learners spend together, this shifts more learning time to online activities. In doing so, onsite time becomes more precious. This encourages teachers and students to maximize the limited onsite time by taking advantage of the strengths of the environment. Some blended courses take advantage of online in order to deliberately transform what happens onsite, even without reducing onsite time. The flipped classroom model, for example, focuses on putting lectures or presentations online in order to save onsite time for hands-on or supported activities. Flipping the classroom becomes less about creating online content to replace live lectures and more about engaging students in meaningful activities onsite when the teacher is no longer the center of attention.

Tip Even if you have a lot of experience teaching onsite, keep an open mind to new ways of teaching that maximize the limited face-to-face time in a blended course.

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Some teachers of blended courses may not want to change, let alone transform what happens during onsite sessions, even if they have reduced the amount of onsite time they spend with students. This may include continuing to lecture or present information onsite. In this case, teachers should apply the concepts and ideas found in Chapter 7 in order to improve their lectures, presentations, or demonstrations and incorporate active learning. Other teachers will be more eager to experiment with new ways of teaching onsite through blending. This chapter uses the strengths (and even some limitations) of onsite environments as a means of rethinking teaching and transforming learning activities to emphasize what can be done in real-time, together.

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To Do After completing this chapter you will be ready to do the following: 1. Identify learning activities to be done onsite for the lesson you are working on in your course design map. 2. List the learning activities that you want to happen onsite and draft a lesson plan. 3. Note if and how the onsite session is connected to one or more online activities. See Table 5.1 in Chapter 5 for an example.

8.1

Make Onsite Learning Active

Tip

Onsite sessions are particularly useful when you want students to apply what they’ve learned under your (or their peers’) observation. This allows you to quickly gauge how students are doing and direct them in real-time. Learners’ early attempts will need guidance until they develop enough capability to practice on their own.

Ensure students are prepared for onsite sessions by creating accountability in online learning, for example with gatekeeper quizzes as described in Chapter 6.

Take advantage of onsite environments when hands-on practice needs to match real-world scenarios and engage multiple senses (e.g. faceto-face interaction with people or hands-on interaction with physical objects). The value of onsite, hands-on practice can be critical in early stages so that the teacher can observe and quickly intervene to correct and scaffold students’ efforts.

Onsite learning is organized to maximize the in-person, real-time environment (through face-to-face interactions, hands-on practice, role playing, etc.).

8.2

Encourage Students to Support Their Peers Onsite It is through others that we develop into ourselves. Lev Vygotsky (1966)

A blended class maximizes the onsite time that’s available to improve students’ learning and engagement. Putting students together to work

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on a common problem or task can foster a sense of community and connectedness, which can increase satisfaction and motivation. Learning activities that have students interact with and support each other onsite is a good way to scale one-on-one coaching or problem-solving. By working together, students will also understand that they are both responsible for their own learning and accountable to each other for active participation.

Figure 8.1  Teachers can structure opportunities for students to learn together onsite—with or without computers

Tip Use your phone’s stopwatch or alarm feature to help you keep time during peer learning activities.

Peer learning works best when students are assigned to a pair or small group and are given a specific topic or problem to tackle together. Teachers are responsible for monitoring students and ensuring each pair or group is actively working on the activity. The teacher is also responsible for time-keeping. When conducting a peer learning activity onsite, make sure all students know how much time they have for the task. Direct students to wrap up a few minutes before the activity is scheduled to end. Peer learning activities can work online, too, but they are often easier to start and more impactful when done face-to-face. Students in an onsite classroom can simply turn to a neighbor or move into a group in a matter of seconds, such as in the peer instruction method.

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Peer Instruction What? After students have learned a topic online, they gather together onsite with the teacher. The teacher presents a multiple-choice question to the class on a relevant topic (Figure 8.2). Students individually “vote” for an answer choice using mobile devices, student response systems (aka “clickers”), or even just hand signals. The teacher does not reveal the correct answer but, if fewer than 85% of students’ answers are correct, peer instruction begins. Students partner with a classmate sitting next to them and debate the possible choices. Once they have agreed upon an answer the teacher has students vote again, and the cycle continues. The teacher may wrap up a question with direct instruction or a worked example, or may simply move on to the next question.

Why? Peer instruction is quick and effective. It shows the teacher how many students understand difficult concepts, and creates an active learning opportunity when students don’t. By requiring students to debate the answer choices with a peer, they must both “rehearse” the information as they understand it, and examine or correct each other’s understanding. Mastery is ensured by cycling through the question, response, and debate format until understanding surpasses the threshold. Peer instruction also fosters social interactions that can be rewarding and motivating.

Where? Onsite, in a classroom where students are sitting near each other.

Who? A teacher leads the class through the activity question-by-question and step-by-step. Students engage individually at first, then working with a neighbor.

How? 1. Ahead of the onsite session, students are directed to learn a topic outside of class (see Chapter 7 for examples). Students complete a pre-class quiz, discussion topic, or poll that helps the teacher know what concepts or areas of the topic are most troublesome to the class. 2. Based on the student responses, the teacher creates a multiple-choice question or problem for each difficult concept. Questions may be prepared as presentation slides with clicker software, as poll-type questions in an LMS, or simply written on a whiteboard.

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3. Onsite, the teacher shows the first question or problem—but doesn’t reveal the answer. 4. After a minute to think the question through, students must each signal their response. 5. The teacher tallies the correct responses versus the incorrect responses.   If 85% or more students have chosen the correct answer, the teacher moves on to the next question.   If not, students are told to turn to the person next to them and talk through the question until they agree on an answer.   If fewer than 30% of students have chosen the correct answer, the teacher skips the peer discussion phase and explains the topic in detail. 6. After a few minutes of discussion students are directed to signal their agreed-upon response, and the process repeats until the mastery threshold is met.

° ° °

Figure 8.2  A multiple-choice question is shared with the class when used for peer instruction

Learners take responsibility for their learning and, at times, the learning of others.

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8.3

Leverage Onsite for Authentic, Face-to-Face Activities In their future careers, students will do much work online, but they will certainly continue to do a lot of work face-to-face with others. If your course outcomes aim to prepare students for their career, onsite time can be used to take advantage of face-to-face experiences with other students, for example, by role playing workplace situations or interactions. This is one way of making learning authentic, or as close to real-world experiences as possible. Authentic activities may do more than just prepare students to transfer what they’ve learned to their careers; they can also increase students’ motivation to learn.

Practice with Partners What Happens? Students work through steps of an assigned task in real-time, with intervening breaks for students to sync with a partner.

Who? Individual students with an assigned partner. A teacher coordinates and manages the activity, supporting partner groups as requested.

Why? Having students work on a skill onsite ensures they have a focused time period to apply what they’ve learned. Creating timed breaks for students to check in with a partner ensures no one is left behind, and encourages reflection. Further, using a timer helps students become cognizant of their own velocity working through tasks.

Where? Onsite, in a regular classroom with students working on their own devices, or in a computer lab.

How?

• • •

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The teacher assigns each student a partner. The teacher explains that students will work on a task individually, with timed breaks to check in with the partner. The teacher explains the task, typically based on content that students have already encountered online. The teacher sets one or more silent timers to signal a short (around 5 minute) break to synchronize with their partner. In order to allow students to engage in productive struggle, timers should be set to no less than 10 minutes, depending on the task.

Blending Learning Activities Onsite

• • • •

Students find out how their partner is doing during the break. They try to solve any problems together before the break is done. Students call the teacher in to help or agree to work together in the next segment when they cannot solve a problem during the break. Students resume working on the tasks until the next break. Just before the session ends, students stop to make notes about their progress and identify what they will work on next. This helps students create a habit of reflection that leads to stronger metacognition and autonomy.

Tip Reach out to your students who are not as fluent in the native language as their peers to make sure they are comfortable and confident working in the group. Providing instructions online—even for onsite sessions—can help.

It’s important that teachers end each onsite session with a clear call to action for students to engage in the online environment. This may be directing them to post their notes to an online journal, or to attempt progressively more difficult tasks or projects on their own using online materials.

Figure 8.3  Onsite lab experiences are an efficient way to make learning active while monitoring progress

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Jigsaw Groups What Happens? Students work in groups to deeply understand part of a larger topic. Students are then shuffled across groups so that each can teach and share their part of the topic to others. Students then come back together with their original groups to compile what they learned.

Who? Students, working within and across assigned groups. A teacher coordinates and manages the activity throughout.

Why? Jigsaw groups give students both group and individual responsibility for learning and teaching others. This is an effective form of active learning. To be effective, jigsaw groups use interpersonal interaction that can affect motivation and satisfaction. Peer groups are designed to support students who may struggle independently, yet each student remains accountable for learning.

Where? Onsite, in a classroom or in the field in order to simplify group management (especially reassignment) and to leverage face-to-face and locational interactions. Jigsaws can also be done online using group spaces, collaborative documents, and discussion forums.

How? There are many variations of jigsaws, but most include these steps: 1. The teacher identifies a main topic that can be broken into subtopics. 2. Students are assigned with mastering one sub-topic, usually as part of a small group. 3. After engaging with their assigned sub-topic, the teacher reshuffles students into new groups consisting of at least one representative of each sub-topic. 4. Students in the new groups take turns teaching each other about their sub-topic and learning about the other subtopics. 5. Students then reform their original groups to synthesize their new knowledge of the complete “jigsaw” as a whole—i.e. the main topic. Jigsaws can be done using any of the following:

• • 146

a book chapter or article cut apart by sections; objects or field samples that represent different types or characteristics of a thing;

Blending Learning Activities Onsite

• • •

a lesson topic cut apart by individual learning objectives or outcomes; a collaborative project cut apart by tasks, themes, or topics; an area of research cut apart by contrasting philosophies or theories.

Note: It’s possible that one student in a jigsaw might not adequately or accurately teach the information assigned. A quiz can be given at the end of the jigsaw activity to help identify any misconceptions that may have been perpetuated during the peer teaching. Individuals and groups can use the results to revisit topics as needed. Additionally, it is good practice to make all of the topic materials available online after the jigsaw activity.

Example: Coast Erosion Landforms Jigsaw In this example of an onsite jigsaw activity, students in an introductory oceanography course are all studying coastal erosion. Their learning outcome is to be able to identify various coastal erosion landforms and explain the causes and environmental consequences of each. Each student in the class is assigned to a group. Each group is assigned to one coastline landform. Online, each group has access to introductory materials on their assigned coastline landform: a web page with images and a brief self-check quiz. Groups are required to study the online materials independently ahead of a two-hour field trip on the coast (Figure 8.4). Onsite, the field trip gives students a chance to directly observe the landforms, but this can also be done in a classroom setting with photos and samples of rocks placed around the room. During the onsite field trip, students have two tasks. Task One: Working as a group, the students seek out the coastline landform that they have been assigned and apply their new knowledge to identify key features of the landform in real life. It is critical that each student rehearse an explanation of the landform with their group members. Students are brought back together with the teacher. The teacher explains why and how an oceanographer or geologist might visit this site to give students authentic insight into the questions or tasks that an expert might engage in. The teacher then shuffles students into new groups so that each new group has one student representing each landform. The new groups then take on the second task.

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Figure 8.4  Online materials and self-check quizzes help each group prepare for the onsite jigsaw activity

Task Two: Each student takes turns leading the other members of their new group to the landform that they were assigned to study. That student explains the various features of the landform, how they were formed, and what erosion may do to those landforms in the future. The student should write down any questions that he can’t answer. The new groups rotate through each of the landforms until each group member has shared their knowledge. An optional enhancement of this activity is to have each group member take photos or video of each of the landforms that they are learning about onsite, and post those online with commentary in a discussion forum (e.g. Figure 8.5) or document shared with their original group members. This can ensure that the original groups have a fuller picture of the landforms they weren’t directly assigned to study. After the onsite activity, each original group gains access to the online materials and self-check quiz that were provided to the other groups as a means for reinforcing and checking their knowledge. This is done after the field trip to ensure that each student has a level of curiosity and gives the other students their full attention when rotating through the landforms.

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Figure 8.5  A discussion forum set up ahead of time so each student can share the things they learned during the onsite jigsaw activity

Activities, materials, and assessments aligned to reallife learning outcomes are as authentic as possible. Students are encouraged to interact, share, and explore learning topics with peers.

8.4

Invigorate Community Interaction with Onsite Discussions The nature of a blended course often asks students to take on greater individual responsibility for learning. When we have students engage with and support their peers, we create additional support for learners as part of a larger community. Fostering a sense of belonging to a learning community can help students feel motivated to participate in

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activities that are socially rewarding, and to support peers who may depend on them. Group or whole-class discussions are one way to develop that sense of belonging to a learning community, especially when discussions are a consistent part of the blended course design. Chapter 7 discussed advantages of online discussions, and pointed to the possibility of using discussions to bridge the two environments.

Tip Because it can be easier to convey emotion and build excitement faceto-face, onsite sessions are a good chance to communicate your own passion and motivate students to learn.

Most teachers who use classroom discussions enjoy the unpredictability of the discussion due to the different experiences, perspectives, and knowledge that the students bring. This happens in part through the spontaneity, interpersonal cues, and social motivation that is natural in face-to-face interactions. For many teachers, spontaneity is a key advantage of onsite discussions. A discussion can be started in class with just a few spoken words. There is no need to log in to an LMS and create a new topic that students must then get online to visit. Onsite discussions also have the advantage of sensory richness of a physical environment. The face-to-face nature fosters the humanness and empathy that often accompanies seeing and hearing each other. While all of these human and sensory traits can be present in online discussions, they may be harder to create due to technology limitations or the sense of distance students may feel when working asynchronously.

Bridging Discussions What Happens? The class discusses a topic onsite, then continues discussing the topic online until the next onsite session, where discussion can continue or the topic can pivot.

Who? All class members.

Why? For courses that rely heavily on deep, fully engaged class discussions, a bridging format is ideal in a blended course. From the beginning of the semester, students learn to connect onsite discussions to online discussions, and vice versa.

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Where? Online, using discussion forums, as well as onsite.

How? Following the topics of the course schedule, each onsite meeting includes a guided discussion of a topic. This allows for all of the advantages of synchronous, face-to-face interactions. At the end of the allotted time, the teacher prompts students to continue or expand the discussion in the online forum (Figure 8.6).

Figure 8.6  Teachers should prompt students to bridge onsite discussions online.

The online discussion is much like the topic discussion described in Chapter 7, and is designed to deepen and expand on the onsite discussion. The teacher may begin the online discussion by summarizing key points or questions from the onsite discussion as a means of activating students online. Figure 8.7 shows one example. The online discussion continues in the time period between class sessions.

Figure 8.7  Instructions for an online “bridging” discussion that links in-class dialogue with online, and vice versa.

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When the class next meets onsite, the teacher may summarize the online discussion or highlight certain posts or threads in order to provide feedback and additional information. From there, a new discussion topic may be introduced, or the current topic may continue. The combination of onsite and online discussions maximizes the strengths of each mode. The asynchronous nature of the online discussion ensures all students can participate and explore ideas more deeply. The real-time nature of onsite discussions allows for spontaneity and speed. The face-to-face nature of onsite interactions supports a sense of empathy between students that is necessary for respectful dialogue in a learning community.

Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite.

8.5

Connect Onsite to Online to Onsite No matter what onsite learning activities you plan for your students, a blended course design needs to reference and connect onsite and online activities. Bridging discussions are designed specifically for this. The flipped classroom strategy uses online materials to prepare students for onsite, hands-on activities. Peer instruction is preceded by online learning, often using an online quiz or self-check to help the teacher prepare questions for the onsite session. The jigsaw example above connects and interweaves the two modes deliberately by using online materials and self-checks as preparation for onsite group activities. The onsite jigsaw activity even asks students to post to an online discussion forum during the session, and makes additional online material available after students have completed the jigsaw. Deliberately connecting and interweaving online and onsite activities creates a sense of cohesion and continuity for the students as they work across two very different environments. When activities in each mode depend on previous activities from the other mode, this can reinforce students’ sense of responsibility for active learning in both environments.

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Online activities reference and connect with onsite activities, and vice versa.

8.6

Summary and Standards Blending a course should cause teachers to re-think their assumptions about how onsite class time is spent. As with online learning activities, onsite learning should be designed to challenge students to engage in active learning. It should also take advantage of the strengths of a physical, real-time onsite learning environment. Building a sense of community happens more easily face-to-face, and a number of onsite learning activities can simultaneously leverage the social aspect of students working together and lead toward active learning: peer instruction, hands-on practice, and class discussions are just a few. No matter what onsite activities teachers choose, each should be designed to connect to online activities to create a seamless and engaged blended learning experience.

Onsite learning is organized to maximize the in-person, real-time environment (through face-to-face interactions, hands-on practice, role playing, etc.). Learners take responsibility for their learning and, at times, the learning of others. Activities, materials, and assessments aligned to reallife learning outcomes are as authentic as possible. Students are encouraged to interact, share, and explore learning topics with peers. Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite. Online activities reference and connect with onsite activities, and vice versa.

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References and Further Reading Aronson, E. (2010). Jigsaw basics. Retrieved from www.jigsaw.org Crouch, C. H., Watkins, J., Fagen, A. P., & Mazur, E. (2007). Peer instruction: Engaging students one-on-one, all at once. Research-based Reform of University Physics, 1(1), 40–95. Ebert-May, D., Brewer, C., & Allred, S. (1997). Innovation in large lectures: Teaching for active learning. BioScience, 47(9), 601–607. Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133–148. Johnson, E. J., & Card, K. (2008). The effects of instructor and student immediacy behaviors in writing improvement and course satisfaction in a web-based undergraduate course. MountainRise. The International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4(2), 1–21. Kyndt, E., Raes, E., Lismont, B., Timmers, F., Cascallar, E., & Dochy, F. (2013). A meta-analysis of the effects of face-to-face cooperative learning. Do recent studies falsify or verify earlier findings? Educational Research Review, 10, 133–149. McDermott, R. P. (1999). On becoming labelled: The story of Adam. In P. Murphy (Ed.), Learners, learning, and assessment (pp. 1–21). London: Paul Chapman Publishing, Ltd. Sands, P. (2002). Inside outside, upside downside: Strategies for connecting online and face-to-face instruction in hybrid courses. Teaching with Technology Today, 8, 6. Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69(1), 21–51. Vygotsky, L. S., & Rieber, R. W. (Ed.). (1997). Cognition and language. The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Vol. 4. The history of the development of higher mental functions (M. J. Hall, Trans.). Plenum Press. Wenger, E. (2007). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Communities of Practice. Retrieved from www.ewenger.com/theory.

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Chapter  9

Setting Up Your Online Environment

Having a simple and organized online environment for your blended course helps students understand expectations and stay on-track with both online and onsite activities. This chapter guides you through the main tasks you will need to do both in setting up your online course environment, and in putting your first blended lesson together. The online course environment should:

• • • • • •

direct students to what they need to work on next; organize all lessons of the blended course; enable communication between class members; provide a course overview and guide; link to or describe assessmentsl include links to technical help or student policies.

Online, each lesson should:

• • •

orient students with a concise introduction; list and explain online and onsite activities; include or link to necessary learning content.

Though this chapter focuses on the online components you’ll need in your blended course website, don’t lose sight of the goal of blending to engage students in active learning. Keeping the online environment as simple as possible will help. While we can’t provide a detailed tutorial on building your blended course site within an LMS (since all LMSs are different), we will guide you through the major principles and steps.

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To Do After completing this chapter you should be ready to do the following: 1. Create an online environment for the blended course. 2. Build out the prototype lesson that you designed in Chapters 5–8. 3. Draft an online home page for the blended course. 4. Draft a new syllabus for the blended course.

9.1

Set Up an Online Environment for Your Blended Course Many teachers will be using an LMS provided by their institution as the environment for their blended course; however, this is not the only option. While LMSs have their limitations, in general they have advanced significantly in usability and flexibility over the past decade. LMSs offer a central space for your blended course, and provide out-of-the-box tools that will allow you to create a variety of online activities. To begin setting up an online environment for your blended course within an LMS, check with your school’s information technology (IT) department or your own academic department. In general, creating a space for your course in an LMS may be done in any of the following ways:

• • •

course sites may be automatically created for you ahead of each semester; course sites may be created for you after filling out a request form; course sites may be manually created by you or IT.

See the website for a list of LMSs and websites that let you set up online spaces for your blended course for free. Alternatively, your blended course can be done on a blogging platform such as WordPress, or via a website that you yourself create and maintain. There are advantages and disadvantages of a do-ityourself (DIY) approach. On the one hand, creating your own space independently of an LMS is liberating and gives you greater control over the design and the environment. On the other hand, DIY websites

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Figure 9.1  Your online course environment will be empty at first, but you can often copy content or activities from previously taught courses

will have fewer built-in tools for learning activities such as quizzes and assignment submissions. They can also be daunting to set up and maintain for those without technical experience. Once you have created an online environment for your blended course we recommend beginning to build your first blended lesson using the plan you created in Chapters 5–8.

9.2

Build a Blended Lesson Online The backward design process we have described in this guide (i.e. starting with learning outcomes before designing assessments that lead to learning activities) can be followed to produce a prototype lesson within your LMS or course website. Chapters 5–8 lead you through this process, recommending different assessment or activity types for each environment. You should now have a lesson design map that looks something likethe example shown in Table 9.1. Using the lesson design map should make constructing your first lesson prototype much easier. The first lesson prototype that you build can then serve as a model for other lessons that you will design and build.

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Table 9.1  An example of a lesson design map, listing learning outcomes, assessments, and learning activities Lesson: Intro to Plate Tectonics (Week 3) Goal: Understand plate tectonics and its relationship to the formation of major features of the seafloor Outcomes

Assessments

Activities

1. Name the plates and boundaries that make up the surface of the Earth’s crust.

1. Practice quiz covering all lesson outcomes (students must achieve 90% across multiple attempts).

1. Watch video lectures and BBC clip (online).

2. Sketch and describe the interior layers of the Earth. 3. Describe the theory of “continental drift”. 4. Analyze evidence of seafloor spreading, including hot spots. 5. Apply the theory of seafloor spreading to explain different seafloor sediment thicknesses and ages.

2. Participation in onsite peer instruction (using data from clickers; various outcomes). 3. Concept map assignment (outcomes 1, 2, 3).

2. Take the practice quiz as many times as necessary (online). 3. Concept map walkthrough (face-to-face and online). 4. Participate in peer instruction activity (face-to-face). 5. Construct a concept map 6. Participate in field trip 1 with team (face-to-face).

Organize and Structure Lesson Content and Activities You can provide students with the organization and clarity that they need by sequencing content, activities, and assessments one after the other. In an LMS, the tool for sequencing a lesson might be called Modules, Lessons, or Topics. Regardless, choose a simple, linear structure, as it helps students understand where they are and what happens next (Figure 9.2).

Orient Students with a Concise Introduction Each lesson should begin with an introduction that explains the structure and flow. The introductory lesson page should:

• 158

get students’ attention with a story or case study that gives realworld meaning to desired learning outcomes;

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• • • • •

prime students’ thinking by proposing a question or challenge; outline required tasks for the lesson using numbers to indicate sequential order; indicate which lesson tasks will be done onsite versus online; link to the next activity in the lesson; link back to the course home page.

Figure 9.2  In this LMS “Modules” help you sequence content and activities to guide students through the course.

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Tip Marking activities with a simple convention such as “f2f” (for faceto-face) or “online” throughout your lessons can help students know where to expect the engagement to take place.

The lesson introduction is a chance to capture students’ attention by “baiting the hook”, as Professor John Medina describes it. Embedding a video is a great way to do this (see Chapter 7). This is also a chance to prime students’ existing knowledge of a subject, and help them understand how the lesson will connect to the real-world. Lesson introductions are most effective when they are concise and easily understood. Throughout your course website, especially when providing instructions, the writing style should be clear, concise, and to the point. Any time tasks or steps in a process are provided, numbers should be used to indicate sequence or priority (see Figure 9.3).

Figure 9.3  The introductory lesson page is designed to spark students’ interest and show them how to move forward (with hyperlinks)

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Activity instructions and requirements are stated simply, clearly, and logically. Stories, anecdotes, case studies, or challenges are used to engage learners’ attention and show relevance to the real-world. Labels indicate when learning activities and assessments take place onsite versus online.

List and Explain Online and Onsite Activities The lesson introduction page in a blended course clearly outlines the activities students must complete, whether online or onsite. The rest of the lesson can be easily constructed online based on this outline. You will need to upload or create the individual components of the lesson:

• • • •

Pages are built to orient students, deliver walkthroughs (see Chapter 7), or provide context for other materials. Files (such as required readings, videos, etc.) can be uploaded into the lesson or linked to on the open web. Learning activities can be added to clear instructions for students (such as discussion forums, self-assessments, practice exercises, etc.) Assessments are built using online tools that allow for student submissions such as assignments, quizzes, etc. (see Chapters 6 and 7).

Then, organize these lesson components logically, i.e. by sequence. Figure 9.2 is one example of this, as are the in-depth examples shown in Chapter 2.

Learning activities are presented in a logical sequence.

Hyperlink to Resources and Activities Hyperlinks are what make the web work. They add dimension to information by connecting web pages to other pages or websites that relate, connect, or even contrast.

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Instead of just telling students to find and read a file or go to the assignment area and click an assignment, use hyperlinks throughout your course design to make it easier for students to get where they need to go. In a blended course, hyperlinks make it easy for students to navigate from one part of the course to another, or simply to see how one activity relates to past or future activities. We recommend using relevant hyperlinks that support navigation throughout your blended course website (e.g. Figure 9.4).

Figure 9.4  Hyperlinks make student navigation easier, and can add context

Research Note Gerbic (2009) stresses that blended course components should be strongly integrated, with content, discussion, feedback, and progress pointing from online to onsite, and from onsite to online.

Most LMSs make it easy for you to link to other parts of the course website by providing an index of course topics and activities that you can click to select. Some web page text editors allow you to copy and paste or drag and drop links or web pages directly into the content. Few require that you know HTML. Experiment with the text editor that your LMS or website provides so you are confident in creating hyperlinks throughout your course. At the same time, keep in mind that too many hyperlinks can be distracting and may increase unnecessary cognitive overload. Hyperlinks that go to content that is non-essential to the lesson (e.g. purely supplementary readings that your students are unlikely to use) can lead students away from the task at hand.

Direct links are provided to course materials, activities, and assessments.

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9.3

The Course Home Page as a Hub Why does a student go to the course website? Invariably, it is to accomplish a task, such as to:

• • • • •

view feedback or scores on assessments; work through resources or learning activities; turn in an assignment; complete an assessment; ask a question.

A blended course home page should direct students to whatever tasks are most relevant to them at the time that they visit. For example, the home page may include:

• • • •

a full course schedule or complete listing of lessons, with hyperlinks to activities and assessments (Figure 9.5); a checklist of regular, weekly tasks—including onsite meetings (Figure 9.6); information on just the current lesson (Figure 9.7); a dynamic list of the latest activity in the course, such as new discussion replies, announcements, or feedback (Figure 9.8).

Figure 9.5  This course home page presents a schedule of weekly activities

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Figure 9.6  This LMS-based home page shows students a linear path through the course, with quick links to tasks and feedback

Figure 9.7  This course home page focuses student attention on the current week’s lesson, with links to the previous week and the following week

Remember, students typically have to navigate through the home page every time they visit, so avoid wasting the home page on one-time information (such as a welcome message) or basic course information (such as the course summary, goals, or prerequisites), which is better suited for the general class announcement or the syllabus.

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Figure 9.8  This dynamic feed shows a student recent activities such as announcements and discussion replies that they haven’t seen yet

The course website is simple to navigate and immediately guides students to relevant activities.

Guide Students to the Support They Need In addition to focusing students on the tasks and goals they need to be working on next, a blended course home page should also make it easy for students to get the support they need in order to succeed. While most LMSs automatically include links to contact the teacher, you will want to make sure that students are able to:

• • • •

9.4

ask questions of the teacher or their classmates, e.g. in a discussion forum; get technical help on using the blended course website; seek academic help from tutors or coaches; review and understand course or institutional policies.

Ensure Usability from Start to Finish Because we want students to spend their time learning, not navigating the course website or struggling with online tools, it is important that course website materials are designed with usability in mind. This is

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challenging for any course designer, because we inherently understand our own design, and thus it tends to be simple to us. But it’s not simple to everyone, especially not for new students. The key principle for usability is to make everything as brief and simple as possible. As usability expert Steve Krug (2006) puts it, “Don’t make me think”. This mantra is especially relevant for course websites, because we want students to spend their time thinking about the subject, not the interface. You don’t have to be a usability expert to design for usability. Two simple practices will help you design usable learning experiences: 1. Think like your students. Imagine your most challenged student working through the course website or lesson. Will she know where to go without thinking? Will it always be clear what she should do next? 2. Have people test the site out. Try to use students, friends, or family members—not colleagues who are already experts in the subject area or who are experienced teachers themselves. You can look over their shoulder, but don’t help them drive. Just ask them to find their way through a lesson or two and make a note of anything that holds them up or doesn’t make sense. Plan to make changes to your course site design and to the instructions for learning activities, based on the feedback you receive from others. You’ll also want to include a question about usability in the instructional survey that we advise for blended courses in Chapter 10.

The course website has been tested by non-experts to ensure it is easy to use and problem-free.

9.5

Construct the Blended Syllabus Most teachers have written syllabi in the past. A syllabus for a blended course is different in that it:

• • • 166

explains how blending works, especially the difference between onsite and online activities; sets appropriate expectations and accountability for blended participation; relies on the structure and detail of the online site for course schedule, assignment descriptions, etc.

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The backward design model used in this guide leaves the construction of the blended course syllabus document until the end. Even if you begin with an existing syllabus, you’ll find that the blended syllabus must be composed quite differently. But we’ve laid all the groundwork that we need for a great syllabus in Chapters 5–8, and much of the blended syllabus will now easily fall into place. Just as there are many interpretations of what a syllabus should be, there are many ways to construct a syllabus. We think a course syllabus should reflect the course, and since blending a course constitutes a dramatic redesign of assessments and activities, it makes sense to write the syllabus as the course itself is written. Some things will always be the foundation of a syllabus and can be added before a single blended lesson is designed:

• • • • • • •

a course description (Chapter 5); course goals (Chapter 5); prerequisites or foundational knowledge (if any); methods of contacting the teacher; grading scheme; course policies (e.g. consequences of plagiarism, cheating, etc.); contact information for advisors or technical help at the school.

Note Sometimes instructors will create a “Unit 0” containing an introductory scavenger hunt assignment or other activity that introduces the students to technical aspects of the course LMS. This can be a fun way to ensure that students are familiar with their learning environment prior to starting the coursework.

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Direct Students to Technical Support Blended courses rely on frequent use of technology, so be sure to describe how students can get technical help. You may be able to refer students to a campus technology support line or distance education help desk. In some cases, the LMS itself will already have links to support. If that is not available, you may need to prepare yourself to field some technical questions. If you do, make it easier on yourself:

• •

provide a set of links to online tutorials or guides on using the LMS or website; create a “Students Helping Students” or “Q&A” discussion forum (see Chapter 7) where students are encouraged to post and respond to technical or course-related questions.

As a teacher, it’s a good idea to have your own technology support plan, too. You don’t want to find yourself stuck within the LMS with no idea of who to turn to.

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Tip Encourage students to plan for technology failure so it doesn’t take them by surprise. Technology fails everyone at some point, but being prepared—turning work in early, knowing whom to contact, having a “plan B”—will keep a failure from turning into a disaster.

A syllabus is available that includes teacher contact information, course requirements, and guidelines. Contact information for advisors and technical help is provided.

Provide a Course Schedule Some LMSs will automatically generate a course schedule based on assignment due dates and events that you create in the course. In these cases, don’t reinvent the wheel and produce a second schedule within your syllabus. Otherwise, make sure your course home page represents all the major assignments, activities, and assessments chronologically with due dates.

Explain How a Typical Blended Lesson Will Happen Blended learning may be a new experience to many of your students. Paint a picture of how things will happen online and onsite. An overview or walkthrough of a typical lesson within the syllabus helps students anticipate the regular workflow and expectations. This lesson overview should:

• • •

explain how onsite and online activities are related; describe what students will do each week or lesson; explain how one lesson relates to other lessons.

Here is an example of a lesson overview from the syllabus of a blended web design course:

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How This Course Works: One Week = One Lesson In this blended course, each lesson runs a full week, starting each Tuesday and ending the following Monday at 11:59 pm. We meet face-to-face each Thursday. During those meetings, we will discuss difficult lesson topics and work through your individual project challenges. I will not lecture, but will guide each of you to be an active participant in each meeting. The rest of the course activities happen online, either collaboratively or on your own. The course website details these activities in lessons. Each lesson requires:

•

Online readings and videos that are interspersed with brief self-assessment activities. Study these materials before we meet each Thursday.

•

A quiz that reviews material from the lesson and allows multiple attempts. Complete each quiz online before we meet on Thursday.

•

A project that allows you to apply the knowledge you’ve gained in the lesson through authentic practice. Begin each project before we meet on Thursday. Submit each project to the online discussion forum before midnight on Monday.

•

A project discussion forum where you will: (1) share your project; and (2) encourage and provide feedback on your colleague’s projects. Participate in discussions throughout the week.

•

Completion of quizzes and participation in project discussions before we meet each week is imperative. I will base the face-to-face meetings on the sticking points and challenges I see in each.

Near the end of the course you will complete a summative final project.

An overview can simply be text, as in this example, but may also be done as a video screencast (see Chapter 7) that actually shows how students navigate through the course website, and explains how and when onsite activities are interwoven.

Students are oriented to the blended course workflow before learning begins. Assignment completion methods and submission requirements are clearly stated. Examples are provided when needed.

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Set Expectations for Participation and Interaction Clearly articulate your expectations for student participation—whether interacting with materials on the website, communicating with group members, or contributing to onsite class activities or discussions. This is critical because blended courses require students to be more autonomous and to take more control of the learning experience on their own time. Students need to be prepared to develop habits that contribute to their success week after week, in the looser rhythm of a blended course. Explain to students that a blended course should constitute the same amount of work as a face-to-face or an online course. Even so, students may find that active learning feels like more work, or that online activities create greater accountability for participation. It’s fair to advise students that blended learning is not easy. One way to set expectations is to describe how much time students should expect to spend on each type of activity in each blended lesson, whether online or onsite. You can describe the time expectations in your lesson overview in the syllabus, as well as on each lesson’s introduction page.

Time Expectations Students should plan to spend 9–12 hours a week in this course. This will vary from week to week, but a typical week may include:

• • • • • •

orientation to the lesson (online): < 1 hour; reading (online, text): 2–3 hours; watching online lectures and presentations (online): < 2 hours; study and take reading quiz (online): < 1 hour; onsite activities (face-to-face): 1 hour; complete lab work or assignment (online, onsite): 2–3 hours.

You should also include a brief description of what students can expect from the teacher in terms of communication methods, typical response time, amount of feedback, etc. This helps students understand that not only will you be responsive, but also that you have limitations on what you can do as a single teacher serving many students.

Expectations for student participation are clearly communicated.

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9.6

Prepare and Motivate Students for Greater Responsibility Working upfront to design your blended course and construct the online components will help you be well-prepared for blended teaching. As you begin teaching, take extra care to make sure your students are prepared for blended learning as well. When you emphasize active learning in your blended course, you shift the roles of both teacher and student. This shift isn’t always easy for either. Teachers who are used to lecturing or presenting may find it challenging to change the focus of onsite sessions to students actively learning. They may find that coaching students one-on-one or in groups is a different, foreign experience. Students may initially find online learning more challenging—in part because more regular online self-checks, discussions, or assignments may hold them more accountable for the work of active learning. Keep in mind that most students have been trained by our education systems to expect onsite learning to be largely passive learning. For instance, some students who have experienced the peer instruction method didn’t like it because it didn’t meet their expectations of a traditional (passive) classroom lecture. Active learning is more effective because it requires more work by students. But as humans we naturally resist more work unless we’re properly motivated. Teachers of blended courses need to explain to students early and often that blended learning will be different. It may be more challenging, but it can also be more effective and more authentic. Students may work harder in a blended course, but they will learn more and have a more meaningful experience that sticks with them. Teachers should assure students that they are in this together. These messages of explanation and encouragement are often best delivered onsite in order to engage students on a human and emotional level with voice and face. Plan to orient your students to blended learning on the first day, then keep an open dialogue about blended learning throughout the semester.

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Our final chapter will look at how such student feedback, along with other data, can support the continuous improvement of blended teaching and learning.

Reflection: How Do the Standards Fit Your Blended Course? We provided standards throughout this book to serve as a simple checklist to support your blended course design. These are based on research on effective teaching and learning, as well as on principles of design. And while we think these will work for a variety of courses, disciplines, and teaching philosophies, these standards are not set in stone. As you complete your blended course design: 1. mark the standards that you’ve hit in your course design; 2. highlight any standards that you want to focus on in future iterations; 3. add, change, or eliminate standards to fit your institutional practices or culture of teaching.

9.7

Tip Don’t just explore the examples of home page designs that we showcase throughout this book. Ask your colleagues and look online for great examples of blended course designs.

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Summary and Standards A blended course relies on an online environment that is both thorough and easy to use. The course home page should serve as a hub, helping students immediately dive into relevant lesson activities. Lessons should clearly direct students down the path of learning—both online and onsite. Hyperlinks should be used wisely, making navigation to and from important activities easier without distracting students with non-critical content. Website usability can keep students focused on learning tasks by eliminating distractions and streamlining navigation. Teachers should think like a student when sequencing activities in the course site. The best way to improve usability is by asking others to test your blended course site and applying their feedback. The final piece of this backward design model for blended courses is the construction of the syllabus. A blended course syllabus goes beyond basic course information to explain what students should expect in what

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may be a very different learning experience. Clear information on how things will happen in the course, including expectations for participation, can help students prepare and succeed in blended learning.

Learning activities are presented in a logical sequence. Activity instructions and requirements are stated simply, clearly, and logically. Stories, anecdotes, case studies, or challenges are used to engage learners’ attention and show relevance to the real-world. Labels indicate when learning activities and assessments take place onsite versus online. Direct links are provided to course materials, activities, and assessments The course website is simple to navigate and immediately guides students to relevant activities. The course website has been tested by non-experts to ensure it is easy to use and problem-free. A syllabus is available that includes teacher contact information, course requirements, and guidelines. Contact information for advisors and technical help is provided. Students are oriented to the blended course workflow before learning begins. Assignment completion methods and submission requirements are clearly stated. Examples are provided when needed. Expectations for student participation are clearly communicated.

References and Further Reading Amaral, K. E., & Shank, J. D. (2010). Enhancing student learning and retention with blended learning class guides. Educause Quarterly, 33(4), n4.

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Designing Your Blended Course Aycock, A., Garnham, C., & Kaleta, R. (2002). Lessons learned from the hybrid course project. Teaching with Technology Today, 8(6). Gerbic, P. (2009). Including online discussions within campus-based students’ learning environments. In E. Stacey & P. Gerbic (Eds.), Effective blended learning practices: Evidence-based perspectives in ICT-facilitated education (pp. 21–38). Hershey, NH: Information Science Reference. Grigorovici, D., Nam, S., & Russill, C. (2003). The effects of online syllabus interactivity on students’ perception of the course and instructor. Internet and Higher Education, 6(1), 41–52. Krug, S. (2006). Don’t make me think! A common sense approach to web usability (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: New Riders. McGee, P., & Reis, A. (2012). Blended course design: A synthesis of best practices. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(4), 7–22. Medina, J. (2009). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle, WA: Pear Press. Niederhauser, D., Reynolds, R., Salmen, D., & Skolmoski, P. (2000). The influence of cognitive load on learning from hypertext. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 23(3), 237–255. Ross, B., & Gage, K. (2006). Global perspectives on blended learning. In Bonk, C. J., & Graham, C. R. (Eds.), The handbook of blended learning: Global perspectives, local designs (pp. 155–168). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

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Chapter  10

Ongoing Improvement of Your Blended Course

The beginning is always today. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

10.1

Make Improvement Part of the Process Though this guide is full of ideas and directions for your blended course design, we advise that teachers should start small, keep things simple, and use familiar technologies. The backward design process focuses on desired outcomes, and a strategy of iterative development encourages you to start small with a prototype of a single activity or lesson. From there you can design and build another lesson and another, applying small improvements along the way. This will result in a working blend so you can begin teaching the course. Just as you should apply improvements to each new lesson based on your design of the previous lesson, you should also commit to regularly improving your blended course as you teach it. Committing to improving your course from the start is important in part because you are probably new to blending, and also because blended learning itself is often experimental. Your selection of either onsite or online modes can positively or negatively impact students’ ability to reach learning goals and outcomes, so monitoring for impact and ongoing improvement is key to a successful blend. Some ways you might improve your blended course include:

•

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revising learning activities and assessments to emphasize active learning with constructive feedback so that student outcomes improve;

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• •

streamlining the website for students so they spend less time on the mechanics of workflow and focus more on learning; simplifying teaching tasks such as class management routines and assessments so the teacher can spend more time on meaningful interactions with students.

Once the first iteration of your blended course design is ready for your students, ongoing improvement is cyclical, based on three phases (Figure 10.1): 1. Engage students with the course design. 2. Evaluate the student experience to understand why the design was or wasn’t successful. 3. Design a revised version based on what you discover through evaluation. This model reduces the pressure to get everything “right” the first time, and provides opportunities to better implement blended course design standards, which should positively affect learning. Implementing careful,

Figure 10.1  You can improve your blended course design by engaging students with the learning design, evaluating its effectiveness, and redesigning as necessary

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small revisions—based on the best available information on instructional effectiveness—can help you know what design changes are positively affecting learning outcomes. This chapter describes how you can continuously improve your blended course in small, simple ways.

To Do You now have a prototype of at least one lesson and a draft version of the syllabus for your blended course. From here, you need to finish your course design ahead of teaching: 1. Use your lesson prototype as a model for other lessons as you build the rest of your course. 2. Determine how you will track student progress beyond just grades. 3. Create a way of gathering feedback from students about the blended course. 4. Plan to make revisions as you teach the course.

Plan for ongoing, small course improvements.

10.2

Prepare to Teach Your Blended Course The practice of teaching your course is a subject worthy of its own guide, but there are a number of tips we can share that will help you effectively engage students around your blended course design:

• •

•

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Learn to use the technology like a pro. The more fluent you are with the tools, the smoother the course will run, and the easier it will be for you to focus on teaching. Anticipate problems with technology and try to prepare for them. Have a “plan B” if something goes wrong. This should include both where students might get help, and how learning will happen if technology is suddenly unavailable. Avoid adding new activities or tools mid-stream. If you have a great idea, save it for a future lesson or future semester.

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• • •

10.3

Repeatedly encourage your students by communicating expectations and tying immediate work to long-term goals and situations beyond the classroom. Give constructive feedback by recognizing the positive things in a student’s work before identifying things that need to be fixed or changed. Make weekly journal entries on how the course is going. Use these notes to inform future revisions based on what is and isn’t working.

Ways to Uncover What Is Working (or Not) Great teachers have high expectations for students, but have even higher expectations for themselves. Todd Whitaker (2013)

Some teachers will engage in formal and rigorous evaluation methods of their course design in order to determine its effectiveness. However, there are a number of indicators that are readily available to you that can suggest the effectiveness of your blended course.

Track and Compare Student Attrition Attrition is the number of students who drop out of your class throughout the semester. If more students are dropping your blended course than your face-to-face or online courses, that may indicate a problem. Early in the semester especially you can help engage and retain students by making sure they are comfortable with planned online and onsite activities and creating early, low-stakes assessments and activities so they feel they are making progress. At the same time, students who are used to lecture-based courses may find a blended course more challenging, especially if you incorporate active learning. Active learning works because it’s challenging. You can mitigate students’ natural aversion to doing what feels like more work by communicating how effective learning happens, and promising the results of such learning will reward them beyond the semester.

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Tip Each time you finish teaching your blended course, the assessments that you’ve used should provide a clear picture of each student and how well she matches this vision. If that’s not the case, perhaps your assessments aren’t measuring the right things.

Track and Compare Student Performance Teachers can look to course assessments to understand whether or not the class is performing adequately in the blended course. Student performance in a blended course can be compared with results from face-to-face or fully online courses—presuming that the outcomes are the same, and assessments are equivalent. You can also track and compare student performance in your blended course over time.

Monitor Learning Analytics Learning analytics describe student usage of the course website and their performance on activities based on the data. Some LMSs provide user analytics that can help you understand how students behave in the course, and lead you to constructive questions about course design.

Tip In order to easily compare student performance between courses, download your students’ final grades from the LMS as a plain text (CSV) file. You can then import this into Excel, Google Sheets, or data analysis software.

Different analytics tools provide different views into data. Some common views include:

• • • • •

class performance (ranges, averages) on activities and assessments (Figure 10.2); student attainment of course outcomes; student activity in the course website over time (Figure 10.4), including page visits and time spent on pages; difficulty of quiz or exam questions; timeliness of assignment submissions.

While most learning analytics aim to predict student performance in order to help teachers intervene, analytics may also reflect gaps in instruction where students are shown to not be interacting or succeeding at desired levels. Analytics can be particularly useful in blended courses. Because blended courses tend to produce more online data than t raditional onsite courses, teachers can leverage that data to track student performance and support learners who might be at risk.

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Figure 10.2  Many learning analytics tools will show basic data such as the average number of page views or interactions with assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc., over time.

Tip Don’t confuse measuring student activity with measuring learning outcomes. Outcomes should be measured by looking at what students can do.

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Just as important for blended teachers is using data and analytics to ensure that the blended course design is working well. For example Figure 10.3 is an analytics chart shows the average grades of students for all scored course assignments and activities. The data points are assigned to each of two different sections of the course. Suppose that, in this chart, Section 01A is a traditional onsite class and Section 01B is your blended class. Section 01B seemed to perform better than Section 01A in general, which is encouraging and should prompt additional investigation. However, the fifth activity shows Section 01B performing quite a bit below Section 01A, which may cause you to look at whether your blended course design may be troublesome for students in that particular assignment.

Teach Students How to Monitor Their Learning Learning analytics seem especially valuable to teachers and administrators seeking to understand what their students are actually doing and how that might relate to different instructional strategies. But let’s not forget the students themselves. Students who have access to

Ongoing Improvement of Your Blended Course

their own analytics (e.g. through an online dashboard; see Figure 10.4) can learn to self-monitor their progress and use the reports to adjust their time-on-task and performance.

Figure 10.3  Analytics can help you track and compare student performance against course averages, or even sections

Figure 10.4  When learning analytics are available to the student, teachers should guide them in using their own data to improve their learning habits and performance

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And why shouldn’t we share learning analytics with the students? Isn’t it, after all, their data and their learning?

Request Student Feedback Student feedback can be collected throughout a course without adding significantly to the workload of either teachers or students. For example, teachers can set up weekly learning journals or informal surveys that prompt students to share what is working in their learning and what might make the course more effective.

Student Learning Journals What Happens? Students spend about ten minutes a week reflecting on their learning and their experience in the blended course. This is recorded as text, audio, or video for the teacher to see.

Who? Students, individually.

Why? Learning journals have two main purposes: 1. To develop students’ metacognitive skills so they reflect on and improve both how they learn and gaps in their understanding. 2. To provide insight to teachers on how each student is doing, and where teaching or course design might change.

Where? Online. Use a recurring assignment where students can make a text submission, or let students post publicly or privately on blogs.

How? Set up a recurring online assignment in your course website that allows students to submit or share learning journal entries. Ask students to update a learning journal every week or two. Prompt them to reflect upon their learning, identify difficult parts of a lesson, and develop plans for success in future lessons.

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Student Survey What? Short surveys created by the teacher tailored to the blended learning experience are taken by students twice or more throughout the semester

Who? Students anonymously take a survey that is designed and administered by the teacher.

Why? Teachers need a simple way to assess the effectiveness of their blended design and teaching mid-way through the course. A survey can immediately inform the teacher about how things are going for students, and lead to changes if something is not working.

How? Creating and deploying student surveys is relatively easy to do. 1. Design survey questions. Survey questions can be quite simple and yet very useful, for example:

• •

What is working well for you in this course? What could be done to increase or improve your learning in this course?

For more in-depth insights, consider asking specific questions using a Likert scale. These questions ask for agreement and disagreement (e.g. five-point scale with strongly agree on one side, strongly disagree on the other), with statements such as those shown below: Rate your agreement with the following statements (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree):

• • • • • • • • •

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I was glad to find out this course was blended. Onsite (face-to-face) time helps me learn. Online activities are more engaging than onsite activities. I don’t really need to come to the face-to-face class. Instructions for online activities are confusing. Most people will easily figure out how to use the course website. I’m learning a lot in this course. I don’t worry about the technology getting in the way when I’m working online. This feels like more work than a regular face-to-face course.

Designing Your Blended Course

2. Create and publish the survey online. The LMS may have surveys built-in, for example via the quizzing function. Otherwise, teachers can take advantage of free, online survey tools, such as Google Forms (google.com/forms; see Figure 10.5) or SurveyMonkey (surveymonkey.com).

Figure 10.5  Student surveys can be easily created online using tools like Google Forms If possible, teachers should let students respond to the survey anonymously so that any feedback does not affect their grade. 3. Have students complete the survey before midterm and near the end of the course. The teacher provides a link to the survey. Survey instructions should tell students that this feedback will be used to improve the course. Students should also be assured that their feedback will not affect their grades. 4. Review and apply feedback as soon as possible. Reviewing feedback from students may take some courage, since not every student will have a positive opinion of blended learning or the teacher’s manner of teaching. But reviewing that feedback can not only create empathy toward students, but it can also motivate positive improvements in the blended course design.

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Student feedback may not show the true effectiveness of your teaching but it can identify significant problems or strengths that can lead you to simple improvements. Blended courses should pay special attention to questions that distinguish between the relative value of conducting activities online or onsite. You’ll likely find that students are keenly aware of what works online versus face-to-face. Students who feel that their input matters may be more engaged and motivated to persist—an important factor in engaging their hearts and leading you to affective outcomes.

A variety of information (student performance data, feedback, etc.) is used to evaluate the effectiveness of course design. Evaluations of the course design lead to improvements in future iterations.

10.4

Revising Your Blended Course Design We’ve identified phases whereby you can continually improve a blended course through iterations; by teaching with, evaluating, and revising the design. Even if you’re redesigning a single lesson or the entire course, you can rely on the backward design model to focus on the effectiveness of each element.Improving teaching and learning in a blended course can be challenging because there are so many variables to consider, from the tools and technology used, to the design of activities, to individual students’ background knowledge and attitudes. To ensure the success of a blended course, you should always question whether or not the activities and assessments are better suited for online or onsite, and if outcomes would be affected by switching modes. Be careful of doing too much change all at once. If every learning experience is essentially a radical experiment that could fail, students can be frustrated or overwhelmed. Instead, make small changes over time. Monitor the impact of those changes using the methods and tools described above. It’s easier to do revisions right after teaching a lesson than after the semester is over. Apply feedback and the results of assessments to your

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lesson designs while they are still fresh in your mind. This also creates an opportunity to apply revisions to subsequent lessons as needed. In 2019 the What Works Clearinghouse summarized research-based evidence on how technology can be used to support learning in college and university teaching. The authors make five recommendations for the use of technology (emphasis added):

1. Use communication and collaboration tools to increase interaction among students and between students and instructors. 2. Use varied, personalized, and readily available digital resources to design and deliver instructional content. 3. Incorporate technology that models and fosters self-regulated learning strategies. 4. Use technology to provide timely and targeted feedback on student performance. 5. Use simulation technologies that help students engage in complex problem-solving.

Though these recommendations aren’t specific to blended or hybrid learning, they do provide guidance on how teachers who blend should focus their attention when using online technology. Throughout this guide we continually point out how the choice of (and connections between) online and onsite can affect student engagement and learning outcomes. You can learn a lot about teaching with technology by connecting with colleagues in your institution who are also teaching blended courses. Find out if your institution offers professional development workshops that focus on teaching with technology. If not, consider organizing local meet-ups with other teachers who are interested in sharing and learning from each other. Teachers who are more experienced with blended teaching and course design can peer-mentor other teachers. Learning from others is a great way to gain perspective, discover new approaches, and stay engaged in the practice of blended teaching and learning. We’ve shared a list of websites and journals that include more ideas and research for blended teaching and learning.

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10.5

Teaching as Sharing Teaching is sharing; without sharing there is no education. David Wiley (2010)

You can share your own experiences of teaching a blended course beyond your local community by publishing on the open web. This provides an opportunity for others to benefit from your ideas and insights, as well as for you to gain feedback from a global community of teachers. Here are some ideas:

• • •

Blogging. Your blended teaching journal can be published as a blog (just be sure to omit student information). Publishing. More formal evaluation or research on blended teaching can be submitted to academic journals. Sharing. Your own blended course materials and activities can be shared as open educational resources so that other teachers can reuse and build upon your work.

The website lists academic journals and publications relevant to blended learning that you may want to read or even submit your own work to. See the website for a list of open educational resource projects where you can find and share teaching and learning materials. If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. Margaret Fuller

When teachers share what they know openly and freely with their students, the intent is to help students change their lives for the better. Internet technology enables us to share differently and more efficiently within the classroom and beyond. Blended learning requires that we begin moving the metaphorical walls of the classroom to encompass online spaces. This creates a powerful potential for teachers to connect formal, classroom learning to informal learning in the real-world using online tools and resources—the kind of learning that students will have to do—indeed, already do—in their own lives, on a daily basis. We can let learning permeate the bounds of the classroom in small ways (e.g. by simply sharing our own teaching practices, or even just encouraging students to share what they’ve learned on the open web). See the website for a list of blogging platforms that you can start using today in order to share your blended teaching practices.

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10.6

Summary and Standards Teachers who plan to improve their blended course design from the beginning will be more likely to help students succeed in reaching learning goals by using the best blend of online and onsite modes. The aims of your revisions should include improving outcomes by revising assessments and activities, and simplifying both the website and activities to reduce non-essential work for both teacher and students. Teachers can also increase success by committing to engage with students during the course in meaningful ways. Technology can make it easier for teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of their course through analytics, surveys, etc. This information—along with community interactions—can be used to revise the blended course, one lesson at a time. Technology not only enables new blended teaching and learning practices, but it also enables sharing of those practices and experiences on the open web. Engaging students in the spaces where they live, using the tools that they are familiar with, will help students transfer learning—both formal and informal—to their daily lives. Students will continue to change. Technology will continue to change. Research on learning will continue to provide new insights. Therefore, blended learning requires continuous experimentation. You may find that your view of how learning activities should be delivered changes as you begin designing and teaching in a blended mode.

Plan for ongoing, small course improvements. A variety of information (student performance data, feedback, etc.) is used to evaluate the effectiveness of course design. Evaluations of the course design lead to improvements in future iterations.

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References and Further Reading Evans, J. R., & Mathur, A. (2005). The value of online surveys. Internet Research, 15(2), 195–219. Hensley, G. (2005). Creating a hybrid college course: Instructional design notes and recommendations for beginners. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 1(2), 1–7. Siemens, G., & Long, P. (2011). Penetrating the fog: Analytics in learning and education. Educause Review, 46(5), 30–32. Whitaker, T. (2013). What great teachers do differently: 17 things that matter most. New York: Routledge. Wiley, D. (2010, March). Openness and the future of education. Presentation at TEDxNYED, New York. Retrieved from http://youtube.com/ watch?v=Rb0syrgsH6M.

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  Appendix  1

Blended Course Standards Checklist

Course Design Is Based on Goals and Learning Outcomes A concise course description identifies the learner audience, course goals, and instructional strategy. (Chapter 5) Course goals are clearly written and broadly describe the successful learner at the end of the course. (Chapter 5) Learning outcomes for a blended course are identical to those of onsite or online versions. (Chapters 1, 5) Learning outcomes relate to course goals and are learner-focused. (Chapter 5) Learning outcomes are measurable and specific. (Chapter 5) Content and activities directly support learning outcomes. (Chapters 4, 7)

Course Information and Support Is Readily Available A syllabus is available that includes teacher contact information, course requirements, and guidelines. (Chapter 9) Contact information for advisors and technical help is provided. (Chapter 9)

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Expectations for student participation are clearly communicated. (Chapter 9) Peer review procedures and criteria for evaluation are clear. (Chapter 6) Labels indicate when learning activities and assessments take place onsite versus online. (Chapter 9) Assignment completion methods and submission requirements are clearly stated. Examples are provided when needed. (Chapters 6, 9) The relationship between graded activities and the final grade is clear. (Chapter 6)

Course Design Is Organized to Help Students Progress Learning activities are presented in a logical sequence. (Chapter 9) Online or onsite modes are chosen by how their qualities best support learning activities and outcomes. (Chapters 3, 4, 7) Activity instructions and requirements are stated simply, clearly, and logically. (Chapters 6, 9) Content is segmented in incremental chunks to support attention and memory. (Chapter 7) Content design is simple and clear, and avoids information overload (e.g. written text and spoken words, distracting images for decoration, too much information at once, etc.). (Chapter 7) Online activities reference and connect with onsite activities, and vice versa. (Chapters 7, 8) Students are accountable for online learning in order to be prepared for onsite sessions. (Chapter 6)

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Students Feel Engaged in Learning Human interaction is used to increase emotional engagement when appropriate. (Chapter 3) Stories, anecdotes, case studies, or challenges are used to engage learners’ attention and show relevance to the real-world. (Chapters 7, 9) Activities, materials, and assessments aligned to reallife learning outcomes are as authentic as possible (Chapters 6, 8) Students have opportunities to interact with teachers or peers for support. (Chapter 3) An online social space (e.g. discussion board or blog) is in place for students to meet outside the class. (Chapter 7) Discussions are designed to capitalize on the asynchronous nature of online and the synchronous nature of onsite. (Chapters 7, 8) Students are encouraged to interact, share, and explore learning topics with peers. (Chapters 3, 8) Learners take responsibility for their learning and, at times, the learning of others. (Chapter 8)

Content and Activities Emphasize Active Learning Content is paired with self-check or application activities to test and reinforce learning. (Chapter 7) Self-correcting activities or assessments are used to support practice and increase flexibility of pacing. (Chapter 7)

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Automated feedback provides clarification, correction, or guidance. (Chapters 6, 7) Onsite learning is organized to maximize the in-person, real-time environment (through face-to-face interactions, hands-on practice, role playing, etc.). (Chapter 8)

Assessment Measures Learning and Provides Feedback Student learning is regularly assessed throughout the course. (Chapter 6) Assessments provide students with sufficient feedback for improvement. (Chapter 6) Assessments determine how well learners have achieved the learning outcomes. (Chapters 4, 6) Onsite assessments capitalize on physical presence, immediacy, and human interaction. (Chapter 6) Rubrics or criteria inform learners how they will be assessed and provide useful feedback. (Chapter 6) Feedback from a variety of sources corrects, clarifies, amplifies, and extends learning. (Chapter 6) Teacher feedback is provided in a timely fashion. (Chapter 6) Students know when and how they will receive feedback from teachers. (Chapters 9) Assessments are designed to encourage academic integrity and discourage cheating or plagiarism. (Chapter 6) Students can easily track their progress. (Chapter 6)

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Online Experiences Are Simple, Efficient, and Accessible Students are oriented to the blended course workflow before learning begins. (Chapter 9) The course website is simple to navigate and immediately guides students to relevant activities. (Chapter 9) Direct links are provided to course materials, activities, and assessments. (Chapter 9) Content is designed to be accessible to all students, and is available in commonly used formats. (Chapter 7) The course website has been tested by non-experts to ensure it is easy to use and problem-free. (Chapter 9)

Ongoing Improvement Is Part of Teaching Plan for ongoing, small course improvements. (Chapters 4, 10) A variety of information (student performance data, feedback, etc.) is used to evaluate the effectiveness of course design. (Chapter 10) Evaluations of the course design lead to improvements in future iterations. (Chapters 4, 10)

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  Appendix  2

Matching Learning Outcomes to Cognitive Processes

You’ve probably been exposed to Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain in the past, and it’s easy to take it for granted. We reintroduce it here because the taxonomy is a useful tool for planning learning outcomes and, subsequently, assessments and activities. As you write your specific learning outcomes, identify which level of the cognitive domain each falls into. Be sure that learners have the prerequisite cognitive skills to achieve the learning outcome. If they don’t, you may need to plan activities into the unit that remediate or otherwise address these foundational skills.

Figure A2.1  This layered pyramid represents a progression of cognitive skills for each level of Bloom’s (revised) Taxonomy

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Bloom’s Taxonomy applies to the cognitive domain (i.e. the broad area of mental knowledge and skills). Psychologists have identified other domains, such as psychomotor (i.e. physical skill) and affective (e.g. emotions, attitudes, etc.). These other domains play a critical role in learner success and should not be neglected. While this book focuses on designing assessments and activities, primarily for the cognitive domain, it also encourages attention toward the affective domain by means of encouraging student self-regulation for success. As you write learning outcomes, make a note of which levels of the cognitive domain will be assessed. For example:

• • • • •

Name the plates and boundaries that make up the surface of the Earth’s crust [know]. Sketch and describe the interior layers of the Earth [understand]. Describe the theory of “continental drift” [understand]. Analyze evidence of seafloor spreading, including hot spots [analyze, apply]. Apply the theory of seafloor spreading to explain different seafloor sediment thicknesses and ages [apply, understand].

If you find it difficult to determine which levels of the cognitive domain your outcomes fall into, see Table A2.1, which associates each level with helpful verbs. Not every course will touch on every level of the cognitive domain. Foundational courses, such as a first-year biology course for example, may focus on the first two levels – remembering and understanding – with some applying of understanding (such as in labs). Some advanced courses may only focus on higher levels of the cognitive domain, such as analyzing, evaluating or creating. Some teachers may find that the can engage students in learning activities at higher levels of the cognitive domain and still include lower levels such as understanding. Any level of Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain can be broken downed into more specific number of processes that students may do as part of their learning. Table A2.1 is a handy reference to process verbs for each level of the cognitive domain. These verbs will be useful as you write specific learning outcomes.

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Table A2.1  Cognitive domains and associated verbs Cognitive Domain

Key Processes

Remember

Recognize Recall

Understand

Interpret Classify/group Exemplify Infer Compare Explain Summarize

Apply

Execute Implement

Analyse

Differentiate/distinguish Organize/structure Attribute/represent

Evaluate

Check/verify Critique

Create

Plan/design Generate or hypothesize Produce or construct

Iowa State University’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching provides an interactive 3D model of Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain with a four-level knowledge dimension on its website (www.celt. iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html).

References Heer, R. (2011). A model of learning objectives–Based on A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Ohio State University, Retrieved January 2012, http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 212–218.

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Index

Locators in italics refer to figures access 13–14 accessibility, captions 120; transcripts, text 120 accountability 67, 166; disabilities 120 active learning 114 activities, face-to-face 144–9 activities 43–4, 161, 168, 177 activities, teachers’ 22–3 activities, weekly 23 affective outcomes 81 alignment, assessments 62–3 American literature since 1865 (course): activities and assessments 31–3; blended rhythm 29; course overview 28; focus of blend 29; organization 29–30 American Sign Language 93–4 analytics, learning 179–80 artificial intelligence 53 assessments 19, 43–4, 62, 161; academic honesty 103–105; blended environments 86–9; expectations 102–103; live performances, iterations and observations 89–91; peers 99–101; showcasing 105–7; summary and standards 107–9; time-savings, flexibility, and feedback 91–102 assignments 166, 179; renewable 97–9 asynchronous interactions 19–20 attrition, student 178 audio content, online 116–17 authenticity 87 badges 106 blended learning: activities and assessments 43–4; American literature since 1865 28–33;

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introduction to oceanography 34–40; summary 45; technology for elementary education teachers 40–3; things to look for 26–8 blended teaching 9; key concepts 18–21; summary and standards 23–4; tools and technologies 21–2; types 10–12; why? 13–17 blogging 187 bridging discussions 150–2 capstone projects 106 captions 120 cheating 103–4 see also assessments, academic honesty classrooms, flipped 12–13 cognitive outcomes 80 communication 170 community 130–135; interaction 149–52 content 120–1 convenience 13–14 costs 16 course, descriptions 74–5 course design, process 59; iterative development 65–8; online 156–7; outcomes 61–5; pitfalls 60–1; revision of 185–6; setting up a course 156–7; summary and standards 69 course examples: American Literature Since 1865 28–33; Introduction to Oceanography 34–40; Technology for Elementary Teachers 40–3 Creative Commons (CC) licenses 121 data 22, 180 demonstrations, physical 89 descriptions, text 120

Index design map 73–4 discussions 32–3; bridging discussions 150–2; online 12, 124, 132–5; onsite 149–52; video 43–4 effectiveness 185; content 121–30 efficiency 115 encouragement 178 engagement 46, 66, 171, 176, 185; content 121–30; content interactions 51–3; human element 53–7; interactions 49–51; learners’ hearts and minds 47–9; summary and standards 57–8 eportfolios 44, 106, 107 evaluation 61, 66, 176 exams 40 expectations 15, 102–3, 166, 168, 170 explanations 124, 161; typical blended lesson 168–9 feedback 129, 170; assessments 86, 88, 91, 101; ongoing improvement 177–8, 182, 184, 186 field trips 39–40 files 161 flexibility 20, 28, 91–2, 115, 131–2 flipped classrooms 12–13 fonts, typographic 120 forums 124; see also discussions, online frequency 87 gatekeepers quizzes 94–5 goals 19, 62, 74; versus outcomes 75–9; see also outcomes grading 99; see also assessments guidance 15, 165 headings, typographic 120 home pages, course 163–5 hyflex 13 hyperlinks 161–2 images 120 improvement, ongoing: making part of the process 175–7; preparing

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to teach 177–8; revising course design 185–6; summary and standards 188; teaching as sharing 187; uncovering what works 178–85 incomplete outlines 127–30 instructional design 15 instructions, clear 102–3, 160 integrity, preservation of 91 interactions 19–20, 89–91, 170, 186; content design 51–3; online 55–7; onsite 53–5; learner engagement 49–51; see also social activities introductions 158–161 iterations (iterative development) 19–20, 65–68, 175, 185–6 jigsaw groups 146–9 journals 178, 182, 187 learning 11, 187; improved 14–15 learning, reinforcement of 125–30 learning activities, online; community 130–5; content engagement and effectiveness 121–30; presentation for flexibility and efficiency 115–21; questioning 111–13; student learning improvements 113–14; summary and standards 135–7; learning activities, onsite 139–40; community interactions with discussions 149–52; leverage for face-to-face activities 144–9; making active 140; onsite to online to onsite 152–3; summary and standards 153; supporting peers 140–3 learning activities 161; bridging discussions 150–2; gatekeeper quizzes 94–5; incomplete outlines 127–30; jigsaw groups 146–9; online discussions 132–5; peer instruction 142–3; practice with partners 144–6; self-checks 125–7; student learning journals 182; student survey 183–4; worked

Index examples and walkthroughs 118–19 learning management system (LMS) 21–2, 83–4, 156, 162, 184 learning theories 26 learning times 26 lectures, video 36, 37 lessons 82, 155, 157–62, 168 licensing 121 line spacing, typographic 120 listings 163 materials, learning 26, 67 meetings 11, 27 motivation 103, 185; students 49, 171–2 multimedia 31 observations 89–91 Open Educational Resources (OER) 121 opportunities 15 outcomes 19, 60–5, 73, 186; course goals 75–9; describe course 74–5; summary and standards 84–5; timeline construction 82–3; websites 83–4; writing for each goal 79–81 papers 96–7 participation 170 peer instruction 38–9, 142–3; learning 140–1, 144–6; reviews 12, 33 peer learning 140–1, 144–6 performances, live 89–91 plagiarism 104 planning 18–19 portfolios 33; see also eportfolios predictions 124 presentations 117–20 presentations, live 90 privacy 22 problem set assignments 39 problem-solving 186 professional development 186

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project-based learning 44; collaborative 97–9; online 96–7 publishing 187 questioning 111–13, 122–4 quizzes 12, 61, 67, 92–6, 179; selfcheck 36, 38 readability, typographic 120 readings, independent 31, 36 remediation 19 resource projects, educational 187 resources 161–2; digital 186 response times 170 responsibility 28; students 152, 171–2 reuseability 115 reviews, peers 12, 33 revision 175–6 rhythms, course 27 rubrics 101–2 schedules, course 163, 166, 168 self-assessments 125–30 self-checks 125–7 self-monitoring, students 180–1 self-regulated learning 186 sessions, onsite 11 sharing 187 skills, technology 103 social activities 130–5 social interactions 15 standards: assessments 107–9; blended teaching 23–4; course design 69; engagement 57–8; ongoing improvement 188; online activities 135–7; onsite activities 153; outcomes 84–5; setting up an online environment 171–2 strategies 74 streamlining 176 strengths, online and onsite environments 20–1 student learning improvements 113–14 students 19, 28, 168, 178–9, 180–5, 187; engagement 121–2; nontraditional 14; orienting 158–61

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subheadings, typographic 120 success, student 78, 131–2 support, technical 167–8 surveys 44; online activities 184; student 183 syllabi 166–70 synchronous interactions 19–20

time-on-task 15, 104, 181 time-savings 91 tools 21–22, 124, 177 topics 124 tracking 177, 178–9 troubleshooting 61 typography 120

teachers 67, 186 teaching philosophy 26 technical support 167–8 technologies 16–17, 21–2, 26, 60, 104; failure 168; ongoing improvement 177, 186 Technology for Elementary Education Teachers (course): blended rhythm 41–2; course overview 40; focus of blend 40–1; organization 42–3 templates, course design 64 testing 166 text 120, 162 time 15–16, 22–3, 170 timeline construction 82–3

understanding, students’ 99–101 usability 165–6 value 103 variety 87 video presentations 117 videos 124; online 12, 43–4, 116–17; screencasts 43, 169 walkthroughs 118–19 web pages 115–16, 124 websites 83–4, 156–7, 176, 179 weekly activities 23 white spaces, typographic 120 worked examples 118–19 writing 160