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Reflections On The Use Of Blended Learning
Aleksej Heinze, a.heinze@salford.ac.uk[->0]
Chris Procter, c.t.procter@salford.ac.uk
Abstract
This paper reflects upon the experience of the delivery of a program at the University of Salford using blended learning. Facilitated by action research, it reports on the lessons learnt since the paper by Procter “Blended Learning in Practice”(Procter,2003). Within the first cycle of action research we captured staff and students’ opinions regarding the program, these are discussed in this paper. A number of lessons and conclusions are drawn, in particular, we argue for the need for a theoretical underpinning and that Laurillard’s Conversational Framework (Laurillard, 1993)is a valuable tool for blended learning, leading us to test the theory inpractice over the coming two years. One of the main findings is the importance of transparent communication on a blended learning course.
Introduction
Online learning has its drawbacks. One of the main disadvantages is the lack of social interaction which is taken as given in conventional settings. This creates a special need to motivate the less independent student (Salmon, 2002). The need fora compromise between the conventional face-to-face sessions and online learning leads us towards a new approach to teaching and learning, the so called hybrid or blended learning (Rogers, 2001).
The Department for Education and Training (DET) provides a definition of blended learning, “learning which combines online and face to face approaches.” (DET, 2003). Figure 1 visualises blended learningas defined above. There are overlaps between the pure face to face sessions, which use some kind of online activities, and the “pure” online learning, which combines some kind of face-to-face event. The DET has the virtue of simplicity but does not capture the potential richness of it as expressed in the definition from Procter, (2003: 3):
Blended learning is the effective combination ofdifferent modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning.
This definition is more comprehensive, adding the dimensions of teaching and learning styles.
In this paper we use theoretical frameworks, and real life data to help our understanding of blended learning in practice and the way it fits the above definition. As a case for our action research we focus on one year of a program on apart time course in the Information Systems Institute. This particular part time course was re-designed in 2003 to reduce the face-to-face contact time in order to accommodate the expansion of the online resources. Our evaluation draws on data from practical experience of staff and students on the course and educational theories such as the E-moderating model (Salmon, 2002) and the ConversationalFramework (Laurillard, 2002).
Literature
We focus on the conversational framework because one of the main arguments of it is that learning should take the form of an interactive dialogue and no one medium is perfect for it – hence the need for a mixture of media. The e-moderation model is perceived to be valuable as it focuses on the introduction of online media onto the course.E-moderating
Gilly Salmon’s e-moderating model (Salmon, 2000), (see Figure 2) describes a five-stage process, engaging the student with online communication technology. It is based on a principle that there are certain things that have to exist in order to achieve the effective operation of learning via technology. One underlying issue here is the use of activities, to make students interact with each otherand the E-moderator, rather than only accessing information such as handouts and presentation material.
One drawback of the E-moderating model is its prescriptive nature. Lisewski and Joyce (2003) argue that in practice there is a need for flexibility not provided by this model. The application of this model to blended learning is limited as the face-to-face aspect is not incorporated in this...