Creating authentic learning environments through blended learning approaches

Ron Oliver, Jan Herrington, Thomas С Reeves

here is growing use of authentic forms of activities as contexts for learn­ing within many courses and programs across all sectors of education. Influenced by constructivist philosophy and new learning technologies, there is increasing interest among higher education faculty in authentic activities as a basis for learning (Bennett, Harper & Hedberg, 2001; Chains, 2002). Whereas traditionally, activities have primarily served as vehicles for the prac­tice of discrete skills or processes taught in courses using such instructional methods as lectures and readings, an alternative approach being employed by innovative instructors is to build a whole course of study around a large-scale authentic activity. The use of a large-scale activity enables the learning to be undertaken within a meaningful context and provides meaning and pur­pose to the activities of the learners.

Creating effective learning settings that employ authentic activities requires a high degree of creativity and organization on the part of the teacher as well as the instructional designer, and often it is very hard to provide the necessary supports and scaffolds learners need. Contemporary research has identified that blended learning approaches provide many opportunities for the delivery of such courses. Blended learning enables the courses to be delivered in ways that provide flexibility for both the learners and the teachers in terms of resources, supports, and scaffolds.

Creating Authentic Learning Environments Through Blended Learning Approaches 503

Authentic Activities in Learning Environments

Learner activities have always had a firm place within instructional settings. Activities form the basis of learner engagement and are often used to lead learners to prac­tice and apply what has been demonstrated by teachers or read from course mate­rials (Brophy & Alleman, 1991; Lockwood, 1992). In a teacher-centered mode of teaching and learning, activities are often used after material has been presented to learners as a means of consolidating and revisiting the content.

In recent years, the integration of constructivist learning theory and problem-based and case-based learning strategies with immersive scenarios and virtual role playing, have taken the activities that students complete to the heart of the design of the curriculum. Unfortunately, few instructors have ever experienced this type of learning environment themselves, and, thus, they are unable to design and implement these types of authentic activities in their own courses. Our previous research has identified a number of courses that model best practice in the use of authentic activities as contexts for learning.

The design of learning settings that use authentic activities as anchoring tasks can be a difficult process for instructors whose previous experience has been with more conventional teacher-centered settings. As part of our research, we have identified characteristics that we see as essential elements to the design of truly authentic activities. In fact, we have used these to help designers in their course development processes.

Authenticity in Learning Environments

While some researchers will question if it is possible to design truly authentic learn­ing experiences, others are less worried with the esoteric nature of this question. The fact that the learning is occurring in a classroom or in a learning space that is removed from the workplace or such other interpretations of reality is of concern to some writers (Petraglia, 1998a, 1998b). But Barab, Squire, and Dueber (2000) argue that authenticity occurs " not in the learner, the task, or the environment, but in the dynamic interactions among these various components... authentic­ity is manifest in the flow itself, and is not an objective feature of any one component in isolation" (p. 38).

There is increasing evidence that in order to fully engage with an authentic task or problem-based scenario, students need to engage with a process that is called the suspension of disbelief (Herrington, Oliver, & Reeves, 2003; Kantor, Waddington, & Osgood, 2000). The suspension of disbelief is that which members

The Handbook of Blended Learning

of audiences do when they become absorbed in movies with fantasy or fictional elements. When disbelief is truly suspended, the audience accepts as real condi­tions and states situations or circumstances that they might otherwise consider false and unrealistic. In scenario-based learning environments, where conditions, char­acters, circumstances, and parameters are drawn to simulate a real-life context for learning, a similar suspension of disbelief is required. For some students, there appears to be some misapprehension about the approach, because it is so differ­ent from the more academic approaches with which they are familiar. Many students initially perceive authentic environments to be nonacademic, nonrigor­ous, time wasting, and unnecessary to efficient learning. It is often only when the suspension of disbelief occurs that these students see the complexity and the value of the learning environment.

In our research, we have identified the critical characteristics of authentic activities that are needed to support learners' suspension of disbelief and their acceptance of the activity as real. The characteristics have been based on a wide literature review of recent research and theory. In reflecting on the characteristics of activities described by researchers, ten broad design characteristics of authentic activities have been identified (cf. Herrington, Reeves, Oliver, & Woo, 2004):

• Authentic activities have real-world relevance. Activities match as nearly as possi­ble the real-world tasks of professionals in practice rather than decontextualized or classroom-based tasks (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1990a; Jonassen, 1991; Lebow & Wager, 1994; Oliver & Omari, 1999; Resnick, 1987; Winn, 1993).

• Authentic activities are ill defined, requiring students to define the tasks and subtasks needed to complete the activity. Problems inherent in the activities are ill defined and open to multiple interpretations rather than easily solved by the application of existing algorithms. In such situations, learners must identify their own unique tasks and subtasks in order to complete the major task (Bransford, Vye, Kinzer, & Risko, 1990; Brown et al, 1989; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1990a; Lebow & Wager, 1994).

• Authentic activities comprise complex tasks to be investigated by students over a sustained period of time. Activities are completed in days, weeks, and months rather than min­utes or hours. They require significant investment of time and intellectual resources (Bransford, Vye, et al., 1990; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1990b; Jonassen, 1991; Lebow & Wager, 1994).

• Authentic activities provide opportunities for students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of resources. The task affords learners the opportunity to ex­amine the problem from a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives, rather than allowing a single perspective that learners must imitate to be successful. The

Creating Authentic Learning Environments Through Blended Learning Approaches 505

use of a variety of resources rather than a limited number of preselected refer­ences requires students to distinguish relevant from irrelevant information (Brans-ford, Vye, et al., 1990; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1990b; Young, 1993).

• Authentic activities provide the opportunity to collaborate. Collaboration is integral to the task, within the course and the real world. It provides opportunities that are not available to an individual learner (Gordon, 1998; Lebow & Wager, 1994; Young, 1993).

• Authentic activities provide the opportunity to reflect. Activities need to enable learn­ers to make choices and reflect on their learning both individually and socially (Gordon, 1998; Myers, 1993; Young, 1993).

• Authentic activities can be integrated and applied across different subject areas and lead beyond domain-specific outcomes. Activities encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and enable students to play diverse roles, thus building robust expertise rather than knowledge limited to a single well-defined field or domain (Bransford, Sherwood, Hasselbring, Kinzer, & Williams, 1990; Bransford, Vye, et al., 1990;

Jonassen, 1991).

• Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment. Assessment of activi­ties is seamlessly integrated with the major task in a manner that reflects real-world assessment rather than separate artificial assessment removed from the nature of the task (Herrington & Herrington, 1998; Reeves & Okey 1996).

• Authentic activities create polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else. Activities culminate in the creation of a whole prod­uct rather than an exercise or substep in preparation for something else (Barab et al, 2000; Duchastel, 1997; Gordon, 1998).

• Authentic activities allow competing solutions and diversity of outcomes. Activities allow a range and diversity of outcomes open to multiple solutions of an original nature, rather than a single correct response obtained by the application of rules and pro­cedures (Bottge & Hasselbring, 1993; Bransford, Sherwood, et al., 1990; Brans­ford, Vye, et al., 1990; Duchastel, 1997).

Authenticity and Blended Learning

Blended learning appears to offer strong supports for instructors looking to create learning settings based on authentic tasks. Blended learning approaches provide instructors with many affordances and opportunities for creating engaging and supportive settings. Other chapters in this book have provided lengthy and de­tailed descriptions of blended learning settings, so we will not duplicate this discussion in this chapter. It is the capability of blended learning to draw the

506 The Handbook of Blended Learning

FIGURE 36.1. A CONTINUUM DESCRIBING BLENDED LEARNING.

Face-to-Face Technology-Mediated

Communications Communications

For example, For example,

classroom settings, online bulletin boards,

workplace learning, asynchronous

mentoring communications, e-mail

maximum benefit from the technology affordances while retaining the best features of face-to-face teaching that makes it ideal for supporting authentic activities widiin larger learning designs.

The key element underpinning a blended learning environment is the scope and nature of the communication channels provided to support learners. The blend often depends on the level of face-to-face communication that can be provided for students. In most settings, there can be unlimited scope for technology-mediated communication but far more restrictive amounts of face-to-face communication. Writers often use a continuum to illustrate blended learning with the alternative forms of communications as the extremes and the blend comprising a planned mix (see Figure 36.1). Interestingly, there is still a degree of uncertainty in the discus­sion concerning the precise nature of communication. There are, for example, ways to simulate face-to-face communications through videoconferencing and other interactive forms of technology. In such settings, the forms of interaction can be very close to what occurs when participants are in the same room despite their real distance.

The notion of blended learning describes environments where there are deliberate levels of both face-to-face and technology-mediated communication. The exact amount of these forms of communication can be chosen to suit the situation at hand.

McArthur (2001) argues that in any blended learning setting, one should take account not only of the technology use but also the blended learning strat­egy. The forms of strategies guiding the use of blended learning have poten­tially large impacts on the learning achieved. Franks (2002) describes a four-stage model for instructors implementing a blended learning approach that moves from (l)-an initial mode that simply provides administrative infor­mation on a course, (2) through a communications element, (3) leading to materials delivery, and, finally, (4) a more engineered and deliberate use of

Creating Authentic Learning Environments Through Blended Learning Approaches 507

technology for particular learning needs. Any attempt to use blended learn­ing to support authentic activities would clearly represent an activity at the ex­tended stage of this implementation cycle.

When one examines learning environments based on authentic activities and the forms of communication that can be used to support them, it becomes read­ily apparent that blended learning provides strong opportunities for such learning designs. Table 36.1 lists the essential elements of authentic learning settings and indicates where these elements are supported through blended learning examples. It shows how blended learning designs can be employed to support and imple­ment the majority of the characteristics of authentic activity in units and courses. In fact, it is really only in the case of design characteristics associated with the selection and description of the authentic tasks themselves where blended learning cannot be planned as a key factor in the delivery of effective learning environments that are based around authentic tasks.

Blended Learning Courses with Authentic Activities

It is possible to illustrate how blended learning approaches can support the delivery of courses based on authentic learning tasks by describing several case studies of such courses and identifying the opportunities for blended learning in their delivery. An ideal course to demonstrate how successfully blended learning approaches can support authentic activities is the course " Research Methods, " being delivered at Edith Cowan University (Angus & Gray, 2002). This master's-level course challenges students to learn both quantitative and qualitative research methods within the context of evaluating the impact of a school closure on a small rural community. Students are supported in the task by a Web-based virtual learn­ing environment (see Figure 36.2) and through face-to-face classes attended at strategic points within the course. The use of the face-to-face sessions helps students to form networks and connections that assist in their collaborative work throughout the course.

The authenticity of the course is provided through the virtual setting and the role that the students undertake. The technology provides access to a multitude of resources that have been prepared to assist them in their actions. The tech­nology provides a means for communication and collaboration as students work in groups to explore the situation and seek solutions. The blended approach sees the teacher playing a pivotal role in supporting the learners, encouraging and motivating their participation, and dealing with issues and problems as they arise. For many of the students, working in a computer-mediated fashion alone is discomforting and unproductive. For others, the opportunity to work at their own pace and with minimal teacher intervention is quite powerful. Both forms of

Creating Authentic Learning Environments Through Blended Learning Approaches 509

FIGURE 36.2. RESEARCH LABORATORY FROM THE " RESEARCH METHODS" COURSE.

learning support, technology and instructor driven, are within the spirit of the au­thentic learning setting, but each supports the preferred learning styles of differ­ent students. In fact, the blended approach sees the teacher playing a pivotal role in face-to-face as well as distant communications and involvement.

When the nature of the learning design and its intended delivery modes are investigated, it is possible to identify the precise way in which blended learning is able to support students' participation in the authentic learning activities. Table 36.2 demonstrates how blended learning is able to support the achievement of a num­ber of the critical characteristics required to maintain the highest degree of authenticity in the activities of this course.

While this course could conceivably be delivered in a fully online mode with no blended learning, there are many reasons that a blended approach can be a far more effective setting for the students. For example, in many online learning courses, the lack of a face-to-face component creates difficulties for the students and teacher in relation to the form of learning community that results. A number of studies into the factors that influence the development of sense of commu­nity among learners are pointing to the benefits and advantages of approaches where some form of face-to-face communication is provided as a means to

The Handbook of Blended Learning

TABLE 36.2. FORMS OF BLENDED LEARNING USED TO SUPPORT STUDENTS' COMPLETION OF AUTHENTIC TASKS.

Number