WCET Annual Meeting Presentation

1. Guidance for Designing
Blended Courses
Andrew Black, University of Utah
Glenn LeBlanc, University of Maine System

2. The Distance that
Really Matters

3. Blended learning
 Combination of:
 On-site and online
 Synchronous and asynchronous
 “Best of both worlds” (Dziuban, Hartman and Moskal 2004)
 “Thoughtful integration” (Garrison and Kanuka 2004)

4. Good learning environments
 Motivation  Cooperation
 Real-world problems  Multiple perspectives
 Application / integration  Critical debate
of new knowledge
 Open dialogue
 Avoid information overload
 Others?
 Reflection

5. Blended Gone Bad
 No student engagement
 Surface-level engagement
 In-class activities replicate online activities
 Focus on credentials rather than learning
 Other effects?

6. Promoting Understanding
Online / Online / On site /
Asynchronous Asynchronous Synchronous
Build Strengthen Use
Understanding

7. 1. Building Understanding
 Basic facts, concepts, principles, axioms, theories…
 Reflection, practice, feedback, remediation, assessment
 Chunking and cognitive load
 “Learning objects”:
audio, video, text, manipulables/simulations, self assessments
 Arthur C. Clarke: “Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine
should be.”

8. U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis
“Overall … promoting self-reflection, self-regulation and self-monitoring
leads to more positive online learning outcomes. Features such
as prompts for reflection, self-explanation and self-monitoring
strategies have shown promise for improving online learning
outcomes.”

9. Metacognition
“…positive effects for techniques such as prompts that
encourage students to assess their level of understanding or set
goals for what they will learn whereas mechanisms such as guiding
questions or advance organizers had mostly null results. … In a related
vein, there is some evidence that online learning environments
with the capacity to individualize instruction to a learner’s
specific needs improves effectiveness.”
-- U.S. Department of Education. Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online
Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies. September 2010.

10. 2. Strengthening Understanding
 Elaboration / making connections
 Finding and sharing
 alternative explanations
 examples and non-examples
 Move toward complexity / transfer
 Benefit of multiple sources

11. Problems Everywhere…
“The ability to solve very complex and ill-structured problems requires that
students learn to think differently than they normally do in classrooms and
training sessions, where they focus on memorization and comprehension.
Students are unable to solve ill-structured problems because they cannot think
flexibly enough. Throughout their education, they are taught only one point of
view: that of their teachers. If students comprehend that point of view well
enough to pass the quiz or exam, they are rewarded with a good grade.”
- Jonassen, D.H. (2004) Learning to Solve Problems. An Instructional Design Guide. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

12. 3. Putting Understanding to Use
 Discussion and perspective sharing
 Creation of new works
 Ill-structured problem solving
 Cognitive flexibility
 Authentic experience and assessment
 Teachers vs. machines (Arthur C. Clark revisited)

13. Managing the Mixed
Environment
Andrew Black, Ph.D.

14. Mixed/Hybrid/Blended
Learning
 Mixed/Hybrid/Blended learning can mean many
things. For example:
 An online class which meets at least once in a
traditional classroom setting
 An on-ground course which submits all work
electronically and engages in classroom discussions
through an LMS
 A traditional on-ground class mixed with distance
students attending live through
videoconferencing, webconferencing or video
streaming
 A combination of on-ground, online, web and
videoconferencing in the same live class setting
 What other examples do you have?

15. The Mixed Classroom

16. Web and Videoconferencing
Together

17. Challenges
 Challenges exist in managing both the classroom AND
the technology at the same time
 Live in-class as well as live distance students by video
 Live web-conferencing, sharing PPT, desktop and
applications
 Live chat monitoring and responding
 Holding in-class activities that engage both the on-ground
and distance students equally
 Engaging with the distance students equally with the
traditional students
 Group work

18. What do you do…
 If the students are required to give presentations, both
local and distance?
 If one or more of the technologies fails?
 Audio
 Video
 Webconferencing
 Desktop/application sharing
 Multimedia such as YouTube or other videos

19. Attention to Students
 Mixed classroom with synchronous videoconferencing
 Raised hands can be seen, students engaged, but teachers
must discipline themselves to watch the screens too
 Webconferencing with limited video feeds makes this more
difficult
 Webconferencing systems enable:
 Desktop, application and multimedia sharing
 Live chat features
 Live whiteboard capabilities

20. Other Methods
 Additional options:
 Have more than one instructor assigned to the class so that
one can lecture and the other can run the
technology/monitor the webconferencing classroom
 Employ a TA or assign a student for each class session to
manage the technology allowing the teacher to focus on
teaching
 Employ a technician to ensure the classroom is set up and
running before each session, and is available for immediate
response in the case of a system failure

21. Group Work
 How do you do group work in a mixed classroom?
 Generally, distance students work in a group while local
students are broken in to groups as well
 Technology limitations for mixing distance and local
students in workgroups during a live class.
 Using webconferencing systems, breakout rooms can be set
up for distance and local students to chat and engage in
group activities.
 Distance and local students benefit from mixed
engagement

22. What is the Goal?
 Ultimately, the need/demand for mixed classroom
environments varies:
 Institutional and student needs
 Availability of funds and technology support (or lack thereof…)
 Making the distance classroom simulate the traditional
classroom:
 “…there is some evidence that online learning environments with the
capacity to individualize instruction to a learner’s specific needs improves
effectiveness.”
 -- U.S. Department of Education. Evaluation of Evidence-Based
Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online
Learning Studies. September 2010.
 How do student learning needs factor in?
 What about the students’ comfort levels with technology?