Blended Learning: Reconceptualizing approaches to teaching and learning

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Blended Learning Reconceptualizing approaches
to teaching and learning

• New Ways and New Technologies Conference
• University of Calgary

D. Randy Garrison, Professor Director, Learning
Commons garrison_at_ucalgary.ca
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Critical Assessment

• How well have we approached the ideal of a
  university learning experience?
• How well are we developing critical and creative
  thinkers individuals who have learned to learn?

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King Kitchener, 1994
Virtually no change in reflective thinking scores
from freshman to juniors. many college
students are at a loss when asked to defend their
answers to ill-structured problems or to
articulate the role of evidence in making
interpretations
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Reflective Judgment
college seniors do not typically articulate
concepts that underlie reflective
thinking King Kitchener, 1994
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Dahlgren

• In recent years, it has become clear from
  numerous investigations that
• Many students are accomplished at complex routine
  skills in science, mathematics, and humanities,
  including problem-solving algorithms.

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• Many have appropriated enormous amounts of
  detailed knowledge, including knowledge of
  subject-specific terminology.
• Many are able to reproduce large quantities of
  factual information on demand.
• Many are able to pass examinations.

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• But many are unable to show that they understand
  what they have learned, when asked simple yet
  searching questions that test their grasp of the
  content.

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Goals/Reality

• Academic Plan Principles
• Learning-centred university
• Devoted to multidisciplinary inquiry
• SAA survey quality learning/classroom
  experience
• New resources not likely
• Rethinking new ways

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Structural Imbalance

• To make things worse
• and things have got worse.

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Teaching Research

• Transformation of higher education
• Increasingly dependent on tuition and grants
• Entrepreneurial, market focused
• Research focused merit system
• Research support
• Federal granting councils
• CRCs, CRI, Alberta (AHFMR)
• Provincial granting councils
• Internal research grants
• Comparable bodies for TL innovation?

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Teaching Research Balance

• Funding not congruent with growth (increased
  class size)
• Research driving investment and allocation of
  base funding
• Full-time researchers (e.g., CRC)
• Few incentives for teaching innovation, quality
  (promotion and tenure)

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The Challenge is

• How shall we treat subject matter that is
  supplied by textbook and teacher so that it shall
  rank as material of reflective inquiry, not as
  ready-made intellectual pablum to be accepted and
  swallowed just as if it were something bought at
  a shop?
• John Dewey

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Deep Approach to Learning

• intention to understand the material fully
• focus is on what the material means and how it
  may be applied
• use linking to past knowledge and everyday
  experiences to learn material
• integration, synthesis of knowledge
• students engaged and assume responsibility

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Inquiry-Based Learning

• IBL is core to a deep approach.
• In its simplest sense, it is an interactive,
  question-driven search for understanding.
• Through this process students construct
  meaningful information structures, apply, and
  effectively demonstrate understanding and
  critical thinking.

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Community of Inquiry
Discourse/Collaboration
SocialPresence
CognitivePresence
EducationalExperience
Informal Learning
Non Formal Learning
ClimateSetting
Content
Teaching Presence
Communication Medium
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Blended Learning

• New way
• New technology

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President of Penn State

• cites the convergence of classroom and online
  education as the single greatest unrecognized
  trend in higher education today
• (Young, 2002).

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BL Described

• Thoughtful and logical integration of the
  inherent strengths of face-to-face and online
  learning.
• Not an add-on to a classroom lecture nor a DE
  course
• An optimal design approach to enhance the campus
  experience and extend learning through the
  innovative use of Internet information, online
  inquiry and communications technology.

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E-LEARNING
Blended
Enhanced
Online
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Why Blended Learning?

• New approaches to teaching
• Enhanced student engagement
• Focus on higher learning (e.g., CT)
• Strategy to fundamentally redesign courses and
  programs

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Oral Communication

• Fast-paced
• Tends to be spontaneous
• Ephemeral
• Relatively simple grammatical structure (varies
  considerably)
• A rich medium - nonverbal cues, intonation,
  voice quality, etc.

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Text or Written Communication

• Tends to be slower paced, reflective
• Permanent, can be reread
• Relatively complex grammatical structure (varies
  considerably)
• Page layout, headings, etc. to indicate
  conceptual structure
• A lean medium - lacks nonverbal cues,
  intonation, etc. But can use punctuation to
  partially compensate

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Example - University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Redesigned its General Chemistry sequence to
  increase the level of active learning and student
  feedback
• Eliminated one lecture and one discussion period
  per week and implemented a modularized, online
  system of diagnostic examples, tutorials, and
  quizzes
• Controlled study found learning to be equivalent
  to that of students who were conventionally
  taught
• UWM expects a cost-per-student reduction of 28
• http//www.center.rpi.edu/PewGrant/rd1award/UWM.ht
  ml

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Example - Brigham Young University

• Redesigning its first-year writing course (3400
  students)
• The redesign will
• reduce classroom time from three hours to one
  hour per week
• make use of interactive multimedia lessons, more
  one-on-one time with faculty, and additional
  peer-to-peer sessions
• Initial pilot revealed overall paper quality is
  higher in the online versus the traditional
  version of the course
• A 41 cost savings estimated
• http//www.center.rpi.edu/PewGrant/RD320Award/BYU
  .html

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Science One - UBC

• Less lecturing less content
• More engagement, problem solving
• More collaboration (community)
• Focus on critical thinking, conceptual learning
• Gass Berger, 2004

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Science 311 U of C

• Writing Reviewing Scientific Reports
• Originally capped at 40 students BL used to
  increase cap and implement inquiry approaches
• Students focus on writing instead of passively
  listening to lectures
• Allows professor more time to engage with
  students in the writing process
• Course material presented online weekly
  discussion drop-in tutorials with professor
• Peer review document mgmt system facilitates
  anonymous feedback (reduced administration)

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Roadmap to Redesign (R2R)

• Goal to accelerate adoption of proven redesign
  methodology including blended learning
• Focused on improving learning and reducing costs
• PEW study funded 30 projects and institutions and
  impacted gt50K students
• Carol Twigg

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RESULTS

• 25 of 30 have shown improvement in learning
  outcomes 5 have shown equal learning
• Redesigned courses reduce costs by 40 on
  average, with a range of 20 to 77

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Blended Courses

• 80 of U.S. institutions offer hybrid i.e.,
  blended learning courses
• (Evolving Campus Support Models for
  E- Learning Courses, 2003)

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UK Survey

• 94 of lecturers stated that blended learning is
  more effective than classroom-based teaching
  alone
• 85 of lecturers stated that online learning
  improves both teaching creativity and student
  learning
• WebCT Survey, 2004

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Higher Education Survey

• More American faculty teach online and hybrid
  courses 16 vs 11 24 vs 18 and more have
  course websites than Canadian HE institutions.
• it seems that faculty in the United States are
  pulling well ahead of Canadian faculty in
  practice.
• Technology and Student Success in Higher
  Education, 2003

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Albert Einstein

• defined insanity as the belief that you can
  get different results by doing the same thing
  over and over.

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Organized Abandonment

• If we did not do this already, would we, knowing
  what we now know, go into it?
• Peter Drucker, 1999
• From a higher education perspective, would we,
  knowing what we now know, design learning
  experiences with two and three hundred students
  in a lecture hall?

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