Group Admins
Description
It has become cliché to point out that our world and even our culture is transforming due to constant connectivity and information access. Yet many universities are only now organizing a response. Some have responded by either simply increasing the amount and availability of online tools, hoping faculty will choose to adopt on their own; others have enlisting a small proportion of the university to offer fully online modules and even courses. Broad-based, loosely-organized approaches as well as small-scale, top-down initiatives are both attractive to innovative, tech-savvy faculty, and each approach can provide direct benefit to students and the institution, but the transformative potential of teaching with technology is only realized when the majority of faculty wilfully and purposefully opt-in. Blended learning can be not just a vehicle to bridge the gap between these approaches, but a path toward maximum faculty inclusion and the concerted, learning-centred innovation.
Blended learning isn’t just mixing in online technology or tools; effective blended learning requires rethinking of teaching practices and a fundamental redesign of course structure, as well as recasting the expectations of the student. When deliberately designed, blended learning can be even more effective than purely online or face-to-face (Yates et.al 2009). The greatest potential may reside in recognizing the different affordances of face-to-face and online modes, and designing learning experiences that take advantage of each in order to add flexibility, better engage students, and improve outcomes.
To put this into context the presenters will highlight pioneering examples from UK and US universities, including University of Birmingham. These examples demonstrate that design and technology must come together to facilitate learning experiences that take advantage of the key affordances of face-to-face and online learning environments, and in some cases merge the two.
These examples will also highlight the very real obstacles universities face as they attempt to get faculty on board beyond the early adopters. These obstacles include the time it takes for faculty to learn and incorporate new technology, and the perceived constraints and limitations that online technology can have on teaching experiences. The obstacles also include historical constraints imposed by traditional VLEs that tie students to tools that do not reflect the real-world services and technologies that they are used to using – and should expect to use in their lives and careers after graduation.
If these obstacles are not overcome, universities will not be able to scale their initiatives, grow a critical mass of innovators, and reach beyond traditional models of education. So, the presenters will discuss how technology choice can impact the success of blended learning initiatives, especially those that interpret blending as an opportunity to go beyond mixing face-to-face with online, and toward blending temporary, classroom to continuous, real-world learning.
Authors
| Name | Jared Stein |
| URL | http://www.canvasvle.co.uk |
| Affiliation | Instructure |
| Country | United Kingdom |
-
-
-
-
John Couperthwaite posted an update in the session Growing Communities of Instructional Innovation through Blended Learning (638) 8 years, 6 months ago
Sorry I won’t be able to make your session today, Jared. I hope to catch you later to find out more about this interesting subject.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
