Part five

CASES OF BLENDED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION FROM AROUND THE WORLD

his handbook contains examples of blended learning from around the globe. In the eleven chapters of Part Five, specific case situations from twelve dif­ferent countries: Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Israel, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, are highlighted. In addition to the specific examples of blended learning here, other parts of the handbook contain perspectives on blended learning from countries such as Jordan and Rwanda (Chapter Thirty-One), New Zealand (Chapter Twelve), and Wales (Chapter Thirteen). These cases show a rich variety of ways that blending can be implemented to address the learning needs of diverse envi­ronments and cultures around the world.

In Chapter Nineteen, Insung Jung and Katsuaki Suzuki focus on blended learning environments in a Japanese higher education context. They describe Japan's slow emergence into the distance learning realm and provide a framework for analyzing the types of blending prevalent in Japan: blending to support in­formation dissemination, blending to support open interaction, blending to sup­port knowledge creation, and blending to support efficient management. In all of these cases, the paradigm incorporates information and communication technol­ogy into a traditional face-to-face (F2F) context. Under knowledge creation, the use of distance experts as instructors is mentioned since it would not be practi­cal to always bring experts into the F2F context. Explanations and cases describing

The Handbook of Blended Learning

the other areas are included. Blending is also discussed at a program level, with some F2F courses required and the rest allowed at a distance.

In Chapter Twenty, Okhwa Lee and Yeonwook Im share their perspectives on the growing popularity of blended learning in the Korean context. They begin with a history of the emergence of cyber-universities in Korea. From 2001 to 2004, seventeen cyber-universities in Korea were started, with fifteen having direct con­nections to traditional campus-based institutions. Despite the rapid growth in enrollments at the cyber-universities, the authors have collected interesting data that reveal a preference for learning experiences that combine aspects of F2F and online instruction over online instruction alone. Among the other findings reported, students in the cyber-universities spent less time studying for their courses each week, and yet 93 percent reported that the online format was more of a bur­den than the F2F format. Amazingly, one-third of the respondents reported that online learning was twice the burden. The chapter also discloses cyber-university data related to faculty workload, perceptions of academic achievement, and stu­dent satisfaction levels.

Ronghuai Huang and Yueliang Zhou address the emergence of blended learning in China in Chapter Twenty-One. They note that experiments with e-learning in China have not provided the expected results, in large part due to the Chinese culture of learning by rote, extensive instructor control, and student discomfort with self-regulated learning. In an attempt to move from such tradi­tional instructional approaches and biases, they set out a model for creating blended learning instruction and present case summaries from two blended learn­ing courses within Beijing Normal University. In the first course, Web-based resources and videoconferencing with remote experts are used to enrich the learn­ing environment. In the second course, students meet in face-to-face lectures for seven out of eighteen weeks, while collaborative e-learning activities account for the remaining weeks.

In Chapter Twenty-Two, Abtar Kaur and Ansary Ahmed showcase a model of blended learning that is used by the recently established Open University Malaysia (OUM). In this model, learning experiences are offered through self-managed learning, F2F learning, and online (virtual classroom) learning. Self-managed learning (using print materials) is the dominant element in the model, accounting for approximately 70 percent of the expected forty hours of learning time per course credit. OUM learners also have the option of meeting in class with a tutor and other students five times in a fifteen-week semester. Increas­ingly, the self-managed and F2F components of the learning experience are being supported by online discussions and interactions with online digital learning objects. The chapter is summed up with ten major challenges for the OUM,

Part Five

including issues such as sustainability, pedagogical effectiveness, efficiency, and the democratization of education.

Chapter Twenty-Three, by Geraldine Lefoe and John G. Hedberg, pro­vides examples of blending in two very different contexts: Wollongong, Australia, and Singapore. In the Wollongong case, the need for blending stemmed from the expansion of the university to satellite campuses where students were physically separated from core university facilities. The Singaporean case is an example of blending that was intended for the convenience of the learners as well as to bring in expert instructors who were separated by distance from the learners in Singapore (local students and tutors with expert instructors at a distance). The authors raise several important issues, including the movement toward student-centered approaches with blending; the changing roles and responsibilities of students, instructors, and support personnel; the need for better support for the online portion of learning; and the perceived increase in workloads for instructors and students.

In Chapter Twenty-Four, Ron D. Owston, Randy Garrison, and Kathryn Cook present a massive study of blended learning in eight courses across universities in Canada that were part of the Collaboration for Online Higher Education and Research network. In addition, they review basic data from a survey given to stu­dents in the eight courses. While instructors and students seemed generally satisfied with their blended experiences, some of the issues that were raised in this study in­cluded the link between interaction and level of satisfaction with the blended course, increased time required by students and instructors, and lack of support by peers and institutional policies. In addition, the authors raise issues related to the usability of online discussions in large enrollment courses, as well as the fact that students appreciated traditional course experiences such as F2F discussions.

Chapter Twenty-Five describes the progress being made in Mexico's educa­tional system to use technological tools to support teaching and learning. Alejandro Acuna Limon highlights a history of educational technology use in Mexico, including satellite television and the recent emergence of Internet learning. Among the key programs described in this chapter is the Red Escolar program, which pro­vides Web resources to K-12 schools across Mexico. Also detailed here are efforts to expand the Mexican Virtual University. Issues are discussed related to the choice and use of a learning management system as well as changing faculty and student roles in a blended environment.

Chapter Twenty-Six, by Paul A. Eisner, chancellor emeritus of Maricopa Community Colleges, discusses the history of blending in the Maricopa Com­munity College system in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. It outlines a trend toward blending that seems to be driven by two factors: convenience and choice on the part of the student and the fact that it allows, and perhaps even encourages, more

The Handbook of Blended Learning

engaging pedagogical strategies. Five individuals from across the system are in­terviewed and provide their insights and perspectives into blended learning within the Maricopa system. One of many significant issues raised is the importance of socialization in the learning process.

The authors of Chapter Twenty-Seven share research data regarding the adoption and use of a learning management system (LMS) at Tel-Aviv University (TAU). Here, Ran Nachmias, Judith Ram and David Mioduser, at TAU point to the steady increase in the number of faculty members using the university LMS as well as an even greater increase in the number of courses with a presence in the LMS. They share the results of an analysis of types of course content embedded in online courses at TAU and how frequently the content items were accessed by students. They found that much of the content placed in courses was accessed by only a small percentage of the students and provided several plau­sible explanations. They also investigated the extent to which asynchronous discussion tools were being used in courses and reported that an average of just 6 percent of courses used asynchronous discussion. In addition, they discovered that the average student participation in the courses that used online discussion to be four to six messages per student. This chapter shows that blending in univer­sity courses at TAU is on the rise but that there is still much progress to be made in the diffusion across instructors, students, and courses, as well as in the richness and depth of the pedagogical strategies used.

Chapter Twenty-Eight by Gilly Salmon and Naomi Lawless addresses an approach to blended learning in the United Kingdom's Open University Business School (OUBS). Since 2002, the OUBS has experimented with providing more flexible approaches to completing its management certificate program. These approaches include allowing students to do the program completely online or online with F2F tutoring sessions, as well as providing an online option to the traditional residential " management challenge" component of the program. Those who select the online option have been able to engage in group work and form social bonds with peers even though they are not meeting F2F. Salmon and Lawless also provide several basic guidelines for promoting self-managing groups in online environments. By allowing students the opportunity to choose a blend, the authors conclude that they are enhancing both the satisfaction and learning of their students.

Research presented in the final chapter of Part Five helped to analyze math education courses at the University of Pretoria, which has seen exploding growth of blended learning since 1999. In fact, Pretoria now has enrollments of over twenty thousand online students, the vast majority of whom are receiving blended learning experiences. Chapter Twenty-Nine, by Ansie Harding, Johann Engelbrecht, Karen Lazenby, and Irene le Roux, focuses on blended learning at

Part Five

the course level. An " anti-semester" course in calculus is available for students who have to repeat the course. This course takes a blended approach with predomi­nantly online materials and group work. Students also have the option of at­tending a weekly lecture session. A detailed case study of the anti-semester course is provided. Importantly, a model is provided for analyzing the blendedness of mathematics courses. This model, which could be readily used at other colleges and universities, entails a radial with six dimensions. The top three dimensions deal with interaction, and the bottom three consider the course materials. The re­sulting radial or picture for a particular class allows one a quick assessment of the level of online versus F2F emphasis in these areas. Three brief examples and radials are provided.

CHAPTER NINETEEN