Sloan-C: Designing for a Blended Community of Inquiry

Designing for a Blended Community of Inquiry

Karen Swan introduced Norm Vaughan (Mount Royal College) as he delivered an interactive workshop about blended learning across two sessions divided by a break.

Session 1

Norm tasked us in small groups with writing our own definitions of Blended Learning as well as what we saw as the opportunities and challenges. Some of the things brought up:

Definitions

There were a variety of definitions that differed primarily based upon the degree to which the definition was theoretical vs. logistical.

Theoretical definition example:

Blended learning is creating learning environments using web technologies to enhance, extend, and transcend the traditional face-to-face classroom.

Logistical definition example:

Blended learning is any course that is 50-80% online and the rest face-to-face.

Norm’s definition:

Blended learning is the organic integration of thoughtfully selected and complementary face-to-face and online approaches and technologies (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008)

Why do we bother? Advantages?

• Smash the wall of in-class vs. out-of-class, where learning is accessible anywhere and at any time.
• Institutions can make more efficient use of the infrastructure and resources they already have.
• Less front-end design (compared to Web courses);

Student advantages

• Increase in student accountability for ownership of their learning (control and responsibility);
• Increase in opportunities for dialgue with faculty
• Increase in opportunities for teamwork with peers;
• Improvement in learning outcomes;
• Decrease in drop-out, better retention.

Challenges

• “Timesuck”
• If you’re going to use technology….boy you’d better use it well!
• Adjuncts or part-time staff who don’t want to “teach” outside of the certain night(s) of face-to-face
• Developing faculty thinking around student-to-student interaction and not just lecture. Getting faculty to measure and grade interactions.
• How to get faculty to be willing to learn new tools after round 1 of learning tools.

Student challenges

• Time management, focus, motivation