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Heather A Ochmane-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates
Blended Learning
With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, blended learning is becoming more important. The shift from students being in the physical environment to the virtual environment caused unexpected disruption (both good and bad) to the day-to-day operations of many classrooms. A benefit of the disruption to the classroom because of the COVID-19 outbreak is the ability to incorporate ubiquitous learning from from the more traditional education setting to blended learning where students are using multiple modalities to enhance their studies.
Blended learning (BL) is a “formal education program in which a student learns: at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace;
at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home;
and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience.
https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blended-learning-definitions-and-models/
A Rotational Model (RM) is an example of BL where students will access their course materials in multiple modalities. In RM, at least one of the modalities is online. The use of technology is not intended to replace face-to-face instruction, but enhance it. An example of this can be seen in the decision by Arizona State University Preparatory to use the RM to oversee learning progression both as a group and individually. This will also prepare upcoming students for transferrable skills later in their academic and professional careers. Students have more intimate and creative relationships with their educational experience as a supplement to more traditional approach that is more limited to only one learning style. Removing the pedagogical boundaries of education helps students master course objectives and apply them in a more tangible way that will prepare them to learn/work in a number of different environments and is more meaningful to them. Using BL also allows schools to be more flexible with how instruction is delivered and can be changed to multiple modalities depending on the need, such as, not being able to physically meet in large groups due to the limitation of large groups and reducing the spread of COVID-19.
https://asuprep.asu.edu/content/why-asu-prep-utilizes-blended-learning
An example of this can be seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSPgvwZMdS8
Blended learning has been considered by several authors as the solution that brings the best of both worlds, however it is necessary to consider an adequate instructional design process so that it does not end up as the worst of both worlds. Blended learning is often defined by noting that it has a face-to-face part and a distance part, describing blended learning in this way ignores a fundamental characteristic: mixing. Mixing involves building something new from different ingredients, not placing ingredients side by side. I've seen many blended designs that have actually simply sought to separate online activities from face-to-face activities without any meaning or relationship between them. The blended instructional design must consider active methodologies and flipped classroom in the design of synchronous and asynchronous activities, face-to-face or at a distance, individual or group, always placing the student at the center of the learning process. For this reason, I consider that it should not be pointed out that blended learning is partly online, partly face-to-face, nor should it be described as the best of both worlds, but rather something new that we must build from the ground up.
https://www.designingdigitally.com/blog/2018/04/blended-learning-best-both-worlds
https://peer.asee.org/the-blended-classroom-the-best-of-both-worlds.pdf
https://elearningindustry.com/6-benefits-blended-learning-looking-beyond-covid
An interesting insight into how education will have to change - and how that could enhance learning.