What is Blended and Online Learning?

by Claire Macken and John Hannon

The Radical Learning Project recommends the adoption of a  predominately blended learning model, with some fully online teaching.  What does that mean?

Blended learning design approaches can be designed as:

• Predominately face-to-face teaching, with some online learning
• A mix of face-to-face and online learning
• Predominately online learning, with some face-to-face teaching

Blended learning is an approach to planning and organising teaching for student learning, and offers an alternative to the traditional lecture/tutorial model of delivery.  The approach combines the two aspects of blended learning: to design activities that enable students to engage in assessment in which they demonstrate learning outcomes; and to assemble learning activities and interactions for online and face-to-face modes of engagement. The benefits of blended learning arise from the connections between each mode.  

Blended learning is defined by Bluic et al. (2007) as a three-way interaction: 

‘Blended learning’ describes learning activities that involve a systematic combination of co-present (face-to-face) interactions and technologically-mediated interactions between students, teachers and learning resources (p. 234).

This focus on activities that makes up blended learning spans a continuum between conventional face-to-face and fully online learning.

In blended learning, the student learning experience aligns learning activities, and content/learning resources to subject intended learning outcomes

The task is to select content and design learning activities that will allow students to meet learning objectives, where assessment tasks examine whether the objectives have been met (p.60, Benson and Brack)

-       Oliver and Herrington (2001) suggest that successful forms of assessment occur when the learning tasks and assessment tasks merge, providing the motivation for students to complete the activities.

Littlejohn and Pegler (2009) state: “there is no one standard approach or activity.  Different types of activities and approaches will suit different learning objectives or outcomes and contexts (p.94).

LEARNING RESOURCES 
For example, content/learning resources might include:

Type	Example	How to create or obtain
Spoken content (lecture) Text-or image based resources	- Lecturer content - Links to prescribed textbooks or ebooks - Links to journal articles, websites - Images, figure, diagrams Powerpoint's	- Lecturer-created content, face-to-face lecture - Links to library resources - Web searches eg. Google Scholar, Google Earth - Galleries, museums, professional associations - Library liaison - Licensed products – publisher - Photograph catalogue - Video/ audio - Lectopia / Echo360 capture - Video production team
Video/audio-based resources	- Lecturer created content (audio/video) - Links to Open source content, online videos, La Trobe created or licensed products
Narrated walkthroughs or digital stories	- Photographs or short films telling a story

LEARNING ACTIVITIES
For example, learning activities (how students will interact with content/resources with the teacher and with each other) might include:

Type of learning activity	Learning activities/ tasks could include:	Ways to do this learning activity:
Students work through / ‘process’ online learning content/ resources (‘assimilative information handling activity’)	- Reading, listening, viewing	-Seminars/ workshops / - Direct students to specific reading/ areas to consider - Provide students guided questions, encourage reflection etc
Students communicate with each other or with the teacher as a learning activity (Communicative learning activities)	- Discussions, presentations, debates, critiques, question and answer, hot topics, etutorials etc - Eg. encourage students to participate in an online discussion by asking them to debate (argue each side), work on a ‘real’ problem and present a submission to a report on the outcomes, moderate a discussion topic for their group, or engage in role playing activities	- Group / teamwork (f2f or online) - Activities, tutorials/ seminars/ workshops - - Discussion forums Chat - Social media, Blogs, wikis - Email - Video conference, - Collaborate - Pebblepad ePortfolio
Students produce or do something (Productive activities)	- Quizzes, voting, reflection, short-answer questions, report/paper, essays, portfolio, report, journaling, exercise, exercise	- In class - Offline & submitted online - In the LMS or ePortfolio - Blogs, wikis, discussion forums

The types of learning activities above are based on Laurillard’s Conversational Model (2001), as adapted by Littlejohn and Pegler, 2009, p. 96.

References

Benson, R & Brack, C., 2010. Online Learning and Assessment in Higher Education: A Planning Guide, Chandos Publishing.

Conrad, R & Donaldson, J.A., 2011. Engaging the Online Learning: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction, Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning.

Littlejohn, A., & Pegler, C., 2009. Preparing for Blended e-Learning, Routledge.

Oliver, R. & Herrington, J. (2001). Online learning design for dummies: professional development strategies for beginning online designers. In P. Barker & S. Rebelsky (Eds.), Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2002, World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. Norfolk, VA: AACE, (pp 1500-1505)

Contact: Associate Professor Claire Macken -  c.macken@latrobe.edu.au