The Journey to Blended Learning

1. The Journey to Blended Learning ALN Conference Orlando, Florida November 18, 2005

2. Background The University of North Texas has developed an extensive infrastructure to increase access to its credit programs • Intellectual Property Policy • Extensive instructional design and production support • 83% tuition return to departments for students who live more than 50 miles from campus

3. Background (cont) • Infrastructure (cont) • “Private College” model for out of state students • $1,000,000+ grants to develop online courses with an emphasis on outreach • University of North Texas has the largest online program in Texas (8,500 students) • Students throughout Texas and in all 50 states

4. Foundational Philosophy • The most significant impact of the emerging technologies will be on residential students • It’s not about distance; it’s about teaching and learning • In 1998, established the Center for Distributed Learning • In 2001 submitted a white paper to the university leadership describing a U.S. History Course through a blended approach

5. Challenges • There were logistical, infrastructure, design, delivery, and outcome problems in many of the large enrollment undergraduate classes • There was a lack of resources and focus to address these problems

6. Problems Addressed : Infrastructure/Logistics Limited number of qualified faculty to teach the courses Need to expand enrollment Lack of classroom space and classes of the right size Multiple sections taught by faculty (mostly teaching fellows) with mixed content mastery and no training in teaching techniques Not enough time to help those students who need help Lack of consistency of content across multiple sections of the course Lack of standardization of content Need for teaching fellows and teaching assistants to have experience with new forms of teaching

7. Problems Addressed (Cont.): Design/Delivery A reliance on the lecture method Little student interaction with instructor or with each other Need for more interaction Need for a higher level of interaction (Not just more but more thoughtful) Little attention paid to varying learning styles Improving student comprehension of course material through online interactions, for kinesthetic, hands-on learning (drawing on multiple learning styles) Little attention paid to marrying content to application Same delivery method for the whole course Lack of requiring higher-level learning skills and critical thinking Lack of continuous improvement of materials and methods

8. Problems Addressed (Cont.): Outcomes Poor retention of content Poor attendance Poor completion Poor success High repeating of courses Lack of motivation and excitement about the subject Student anonymity Assessment Assessment techniques that encouraged students to absorb large quantities of material, expel it, and then forget it (bulimic learning)

9. The Blended Learning Project • 2004: $50,000 was allocated for the BLP • Goals: • Redesign five large-enrollment undergraduate courses • Offer courses in three formats • 100% face-to-face • 100% online • Blended

10. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Goals (cont) • Assess a wide variety of outcomes on both quantitative and qualitative variables • Create a COP (Community of Practice) for the design and creation of the courseware and to serve as the corpus of a larger COP for subsequent projects • Create a set of model courses

11. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Actions • Created Web site www.unt.edu/cdl/blendedlearning • Goals of the project • Participants • Library • “Journey Diaries”

12. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Actions (cont) • Selected five large-enrollment undergraduate courses • 125+ in section or multiple sections of 30 • Willing to commit the time to develop • Willing to meet regularly and share experiences • Willing to teach or supervise the teaching of the course in different formats • Willing to participate in assessment • Willing to think “outside the box”

13. The Fundamental Questions • For your course: • When should the students meet physically? • How should they meet? • With whom should they meet? • What will they be doing when they meet? • When should the students meet virtually?

14. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Actions (cont.) • Five grants 9-12 thousand dollars each • Provided course release and student assistants • Formed teams of faculty member(s) and instructional consultant

15. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Courses: • Introduction to Nutrition • Communications • Music History • Linguistics • American History

16. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Monthly Lunch Sessions • Progress report • Problems encountered • Discussions around particular topics, e.g., group projects • Considerable sharing of ideas • Followed up by journal entries

17. The Blended Learning Project (cont) • Assessment Plan • Five main areas to be assessed: • Student characteristics: motivation, perceptions, attitude toward subject • Faculty experience: challenges, perceptions of student learning • Student learning: interactivity • Student Satisfaction: instructional methods, course organization

18. U.S. History to 1865 • Blended Format: 125 students divided into groups of 25. Each group meets every other week to engage in the “case studies.” • All content and traditional assessments (quizzes/midterm/final) delivered online

19. Pedagogical Objectives • Objectives: • 1. Students learn and • retain facts/objectives • 2. Students interact with • primary sources, becoming • Historians • Student enjoyment of • Subject matter increases Application: Counter factual Simulated case Studies Content: Chronology/ Facts

20. Content

21. Interactives to Address Varied Student Learning Style

22. Application: Counter-factual, Simulated Case Studies • Students engage with primary and secondary sources as active learners • Problem-based • Used four Texas subjects as a microcosm of National Issues • LaSalle’s expedition (1680s), Philip Nolan and Filibustering (1801), The Politics of Manifest Destiny (1845), The Texas Troubles (1860)

23. Application

24. Lessons Learned (so far) • A “Community of Practice” emerged • The redesign evolved through dialog • Departmental “buy-in” is crucial • Outcomes assessment needs to be in the forefront

25. Next Steps • Second round of courses in 2005-2006 • Involve first-round teams as the foundation of the COP • UNT has adopted Enhancement of Large Enrollment Undergraduate Courses as the SACS QEP Topic • The BL Project will form the foundation for this five-year course redesign project

26. The Journey to Blended Learning Dr. Philip M. Turner Vice Provost for Learning Enhancement University of North Texas pturner@unt.edu Dr. Kelly McMichael Senior Instructional Consultant Instructor, Department of History University of North Texas www.unt.edu/cdl/blendedlearning