Blended Learning

Research Perspectives, Volume 2

Anthony G. Picciano, Charles D. Dziuban, Charles R. Graham, Anthony G. Picciano, Charles D. Dziuban, Charles R. Graham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134742097
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Blended learning, which combines the strength of face-to-face and technology-enhanced learning, is increasingly being seen as one of the most important vehicles for education reform today. Blended learning allows both teacher and learner access to radically increased possibilities for understanding how we transmit and receive information, how we interact with others in educational settings, how we build knowledge, and how we assess what we have taught or learned.

Blended Learning: Research Perspectives, Volume 2 provides readers with the most current, in-depth collection of research perspectives on this vital subject, addressing institutional issues, design and adoption issues, and learning issues, as well as an informed meditation on future trends and research in the field. As governments, foundations, schools, and colleges move forward with plans and investments for vast increases in blended learning environments, a new examination of the existing research on the topic is essential reading for all those involved in this educational transformation.

1 INTRODUCTION TO BLENDED LEARNING: RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES, VOLUME 2

Anthony G. Picciano

DOI: 10.4324/9781315880310-1

In November 2002, a small group of colleagues attending the Annual Sloan-C Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Florida had a discussion about what was then a new phenomenon: college faculty were mixing and matching face-to-face and online learning techniques and materials in their courses. This group of colleagues represented institutions such as the University of Illinois, the University of Central Florida, University of Maryland University College, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the City University of New York. As the discussion went on, a consensus emerged; they were witnessing a new approach to teaching and learning that was different from either of its basic components. Face-to-face instruction had been around for centuries and fully online instruction had blossomed in the 1990s with the development and ubiquity of the Internet. They observed that there appeared to be no single pattern or model for blending these approaches. Some faculty taught basically a face-to-face course with a small portion of online activities. Others taught essentially online courses with a face-to-face component. In developing online components, various technologies such as interactive and non-interactive media, asynchronous discussion boards and blogs, as well as synchronous conferencing were being utilized to meet specific pedagogical goals and objectives. There were also distinctions in the development and scheduling of face-to-face components, some meeting once a week, others every other week, and still others once a month. This discussion resulted in the idea that a group of knowledgeable individuals from around the country be assembled to discuss “blended learning” and its implications for education. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, an invitation only workshop was held in April 2003 at the University of Illinois-Chicago. About 30 individuals met for 2 days and, while many ideas were floated and discussion at times was unwieldy, this group concluded that blended learning was important, needed further investigation, and would likely have significant pedagogical, administrative, and institutional ramifications. A community of professionals was born. Since 2003, this community, under the auspices of the Sloan Consortium, has held an annual workshop, which in 2012 attracted 665 participants.

In 2006, a dozen scholars who had attended previous workshops were invited to share their work in a book on research perspectives on blended learning. In 2007, Blended Learning: Research Perspectives was published. This book received a good deal of critical acclaim as the first book devoted entirely to research in blended learning. A. Frank Mayadas, Program Officer for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, was quoted as saying: “Blended Learning: Research Perspectives was the first major and long-overdue work of research on blended learning…. A must read for anyone serious about understanding today's pedagogical practices” (Mayadas, 2007). Diane Oblinger, President of EDUCAUSE, commented: “if you are an administrator or faculty member who wants to do blended learning well, this [Blended Learning: Research Perspectives] is an important resource that integrates theory, research and experience” (Oblinger, 2007).

By 2012, the authors of Blended Learning: Research Perspectives knew that it was time for a new edition. In the world of technology and digital communications, five years is a lifetime. Many changes had occurred and new models had evolved that demanded study and research. Facilities such as YouTube videos, podcasting, wikis, and mobile technologies had emerged that were adding to the instructional blend. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, radically changed the scale of instruction at a number of colleges and universities. Blended learning had evolved from individual courses to entire academic programs. At the Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop held in Milwaukee in April 2012, the authors once again reached out to presenters to determine if there was any interest in contributing to a second book. A meeting was held on the afternoon immediately following the conference to discuss ideas and possibilities. More than 30 people attended, signaling much more interest than could be accommodated in the book the authors had in mind. Nevertheless, names and ideas were collected and invitations were issued for abstracts. In addition to the meeting attendees, the authors contacted colleagues from around the world who were doing important research in blended learning. Again the response was much more than could be accommodated. And so began the careful work of selecting the best ideas and research on blended learning that now comprise this book.

Extent of Blended Learning

Allen and Seaman (2013), after tracking online enrollments in colleges for 10 years, estimated that there were approximately 6.7 million students or approximately one-third of the total higher education population enrolled in at least one fully online course in American colleges and universities in the 2011–2012 academic year. There are few and perhaps no reliable estimates of the number of students enrolled in blended courses. While it is generally believed that blended learning has reached well into the mainstream of American higher education, little data are available that document this reach. There are several reasons why so little is known about this phenomenon.

First, many faculty do not necessarily identify themselves as teaching blended learning courses when, in fact, they are. Many college faculty, along with those in other segments of the general population, have become immersed in online technology. Using Internet tools for instruction has become second nature. They use these tools as they would overhead projectors or blackboards. As the mystique of teaching online that was present in the mid to late 1990s disappears, the faculty no longer see themselves as doing something unique or special. This is particularly true in blended learning environments where only a portion of the class is conducted online. As Eliot Masie (2003), president of the Masie Center for Learning and Technology, has observed: the “e” in e-learning is disappearing and it is all just learning.

Second, colleges and universities are not necessarily keeping records on faculty who teach blended courses. The Sloan Consortium in collaboration with the Babson Survey Research Group conducts annual national surveys on online learning at American colleges. The findings from these surveys represent important data on student enrollments in fully online courses including the percentage and nature of colleges and universities offering these courses. While these surveys are frequently cited in studies and articles on online learning, they contain very little data on blended learning. Jeff Seaman, one of the authors of these studies, is concerned and a bit frustrated that these data are not being systematically collected at most colleges and universities. While faculty might be teaching blended courses, many administrators do not necessarily know who they are or what they actually are doing in these courses. The lack of mechanisms for incorporating information on blended courses in college databases creates a situation in which a large-scale study becomes difficult and vulnerable to misinformation.

A third issue relates to definition. There is no generally accepted definition of blended learning. There are many forms of blended learning but a generally accepted taxonomy does not exist. One school's “blended” is another school's “hybrid,” or another school's “mixed-mode.” The issue is not just one of labels, but the lack of agreement among scholars and practitioners on a broad versus a narrow definition. Without a clear definition, blended learning is perceived as some nebulous combination of online and face-to-face instruction. Without a place within administrative systems for identifying blended learning courses and without a widely accepted definition or taxonomy, collecting data on blended learning remains difficult.

Definitions, Models, and Frameworks

In discussions with the contributors to this book, it became obvious that finding a single definition, model, or framework for blending learning was impossible. The word “blended” implies a combination or mixture. When a picture is pasted above a paragraph, a presentation is created that may be more informative to the viewer or reader, but the picture and text each remain intact and can be individually discerned. On the other hand, when two cans of different colored paints are mixed, the new paint will look different from either of the original colors. In fact, if the new paint is mixed well, neither of the original colors will continue to exist. Similar situations exist in blended learning. For instance, in a course that meets for three weekly contact hours, two hours might be allocated for meeting in a traditional classroom while the equivalent of one weekly hour is conducted online. The two modalities for this course are carefully separated and although they may overlap, they can easily be differentiated. In other forms of blended courses and programs, the modalities are not so easily distinguishable. Consider an online program that offers three online courses in a semester that all students are required to take. At the same time, students do a collaborative 15-week project that overlaps the courses. The students are expected to maintain regular communication with one another through email, wikis, and group discussion boards. They also are required to meet face-to-face once a month on weekends where course materials from the online courses are further presented and discussed, and time is also devoted to group project work. Towards the end of the semester there are group project presentations. These activities begin to blur the modalities in a new mixture or blend where the individual parts are not as discernible as they once were. In this book, the authors have allowed the contributors to define/describe the blended instruction they are studying as they wish without confining them to a rigid definition, model, or framework. Chapter 2 of this book will further examine the issues associated with definitions, models, and frameworks.

Outline of the Book

This book is organized with an introductory chapter, six sections, and a conclusion, as follows:

• Introduction
• Section I: Blended Learning Models and Scale
• Section II: Evaluation
• Section III: Faculty Issues
• Section IV: Studying Non-Traditional Learners
• Section V: International Perspectives
• Section VI: Blended Learning in K-12 Environments
• Conclusion

Section I—Blended Learning Models and Scale

In Chapter 2, Charles R. Graham, Curtis R. Henrie, and Andrew S. Gibbons examine blended learning models and frameworks to assist the reader in under-sta nd ing t he complex it y of the ter m “blended lear n i n g.” T hey rev iew a nu mber of major published works on this topic and suggest that flexibility in definitions be the norm.

In Chapter 3, Patsy D. Moskal and Tom Cavanagh describe the expansion of blended learning to 20 institutions through the development and dissemination of a “Blended Learning Toolkit” based on the best practices successfully implemented at the University of Central Florida. This chapter details the challenges in conducting an evaluation of such a large-scale initiative.

William Bloemer and Karen Swan, in Chapter 4, describe the extent and consequences of informal blending at one institution, the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), with the hope that these findings might suggest patterns that are being replicated nationally. Findings verify the dramatic increase in the numbers of traditional on-ground students taking online classes at UIS.

Section II—Evaluation

In Chapter 5, Susan J. Wegmann and Kelvin Thompson discuss the viability and applicability of gathering and analyzing discourse data in blended courses as a means of studying student engagement. Using a SCOPe framework (Self, Content, Others, and the Platform), they specifically examine ways to analyze the health and sustainability of interactions in blended learning environments.

Janelle DeCarrico Voegele examines the relationships among social, teaching, and cognitive presence, pedagogical design, and students' perspectives on blended learning effectiveness in Chapter 6. Data from 39 undergraduate courses were analyzed to identify indicators of presence in students' observations about learning.

In Chapter 7, Norman Vaughan and his colleagues at Mt. Royal University in Calgary, Canada, describe an action research study that evaluated the effectiveness of a blended Bachelor of Education Elementary Program at a Canadian university f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction to Blended Learning: Research Perspectives, Volume 2
• SECTION I Blended Learning Models and Scale
• SECTION II Evaluation
• SECTION III Faculty Issues
• SECTION IV Studying Non-traditional Learners
• SECTION V International Perspectives
• SECTION VI Blended Learning in K–12 Environments
• Index