Blended by Design: Designing and Developing a Blended Course

1. Blended by Design: Designing and Developing a Blended Course Jennifer Strickland, PhD, jennifer.strickland@pvmail.maricopa.edu

2. 5-Minute University

3. Program Overview Format Topics Day 1: Blended learning overview and redesign Day 2: Community & Quality Day 3: Blended & Instructional Technology • Hands-on, curriculum (re)design work • Team/individual work • Binder resources • http://ablendedmaricopa.pbworks.com/ • Evaluations & Assessments

4. Learning Objectives • Define blended learning in higher education. • Evaluate a blended course’s strengths and weaknesses. • Design a module for blended delivery utilizing a blended module design tool. • Develop a plan for designing a blended course or redesigning an existing course as a blended course. • Explain the value of community in the blended course. • Identify quality assurance principles and practices in a blended environment. • Review and select instructional technology options for delivering blended courses.

5. Today's Agenda • Overview and Introduction to workshop & resources • What is Blended and what does a blended course look like? • Benefits of a blended course • National & Local Data regarding Blended Learning • Course redesign strategies • Bloom’s Taxonomy and Six Innovative Course Redesign Practices • Mapping your course • Close

7. Who are we? • Facilitator • Participants • Break into pairs • What is your “signature” teaching technique? • Share

8. Day 1:An Overview of Blended Learning and Redesign

9. Face-to-Face Course

10. Getting from A to B

11. What is blended learning?

12. The 10 Blended Questions As a Guide Throughout

13. A way to meet Net Gen student expectations • Attractive alternative to Face2Face instruction • A good match for the Net Gen’s visual, exploratory, participative learning preferences • Usually more work to design (at least at the beginning), but improved student engagement and achievement • The best of both worlds Motivation…

14. The Optimal Model Teaching Opportunities Student Engagement Potential to increase and extend instructor-student and student-student connectivity Discussions started in class may be continued online Students who rarely take part in class discussions are more likely to participate online Integration of out-of- and in-class activities allows more effective use of traditional class time • Allows for many diverse solutions to course problems • Enables the incorporation of new types of interactive and independent learning activities • Variety of online and in-class teaching strategies • Learn technologies while you learn your material

15. Learned more • Wrote better papers • Performed better on exams • Produced higher quality projects • Were capable of more meaningful discussions on course material • Were better able to master concepts and apply what they have learned • Developed higher-order skills of critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to apply theoretical models to real-world data Faculty report that students… Source: University of Central Florida Data, 2007

17. National data reports The Sloan Consortium

18. The Sloan-C Definition • What is Sloan-C? • Blended learning courses combine online and classroom learning activities and resources in an optimal way to improve student learning outcomes and to address important institutional issues. • Classroom attendance (“seat time”) is reduced.

19. More on definitions… • What you call it is not important; but a defined and consistent model is • Blended learning as an optimized pedagogical approach, rather than an arbitrary time division between online and F2F

20. New Skills: Rethinking Course Design • To develop a successful blended course instructors must • Re-examine their course goals and objectives, • Design online learning activities to meet these goals and objectives, and • Effectively integrate the online activities with the face-to face meetings • Make transition from lectures and presentation to a more student-centered active learning

21. New Skills: Rethinking the Course • Facilitate online discussions and small group activities • New forms of assessment of student • Scheduling and communication challenges as courses meet online and face-to-face • Work overload for faculty and students • Students need understand their active role in the learning environment

22. Potential Pitfalls • Fundamental change in teaching and learning • Not just about the “delivery” • Time to redesign • Changes in campus policies • Reliance on technology • “Course and a half” syndrome • Training and support

23. Why (re)design into blended? • Ensures your design facilitates your course • Engage students in dynamic and vital communities • Students take more responsibility for content and learning • Students learn through active participation and inquiry • Assessing the Role of Teaching Presence from the Learner Perspective Dr. Randy Garrison, Dr. Norm Vaughan. Available at Blended Learning and Course Redesign in Higher Education &http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI07159.pdf.

24. 6 – 5 - 4

25. 6 Innovative Redesign Practices • Creating "Small" Within "Large" • Undergraduate Learning Assistants (ULAs) • Freshmen Don’t Do Optional • Modularization • New Instructional Roles • Avoiding “Either/Or” Choices http://www.thencat.org/PlanRes/Innov_CrRedPractices.htm

26. 5 Principles of Successful Course Redesign • Redesign the whole course. • Encourage active learning. • Provide students with individualized assistance. • Build in ongoing assessment and prompt feedback. • Ensure sufficient time on task and monitor student progress. http://thencat.org/PlanRes/R2R_PrinCR.htm

27. 4 Basic Redesign Steps • Identify course content for a module • Write learning objectives and develop instructional modules • Select course (re) design strategies: determining which strategy is most appropriate for your course • Integrate course content activities in classroom and online environments: determining what is best suited in either the online or classroom environment

28. Why Objectives? • Clear statement of what students will be able to do when they are finished with an instructional component • Focuses on student performance • Provides structure: beginning, middle, and end • What are the core concepts your students must learn for each module? • What do they need to know? • What do they need to be able to do? • What will they know as a result of my instruction?

29. Support Objectives by • Integrating learning technologies • Classroom technologies • Emerging technologies • Online resources • Developing diverse assessment techniques • Infusing active learning, interaction, and peer engagement

30. Why Modules? • Easier to find course content • Support consistency • Allows students to focus on content rather than form • Content becomes manageable • Prevents information overload • “7 +/-2 rule” Source: Blending In, March 2007

31. Meeting Objectives • Source: Blending In, March 2007

32. Course Organization • Dates • Topic • Readings • Section • Unit • Module

33. The Organization • Course content broken down into “chunks” • Course structure in a repetitive manner allowing for easy navigation • Content organized in conceptually related blocks • Consistent, logical, clear, common sense, apply past experience, let the content set the chunks Source: Blending In, March 2007

34. Bloom’s Taxonomy Focus on learner Focus on measure of learning

35. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy

36. What can be done in the F2F classroom?

37. What can be done in the online classroom?

38. What is the relationship between these two?

39. Mapping Your Course • Handout: Mapping your Course • Map out your face-2-face course from the syllabus and/or other course documents • Identify the chunks in your course via the topics or learning objectives in your syllabus • Select one chunk to work with during the week