Part three

HIGHER EDUCATION BLENDED LEARNING MODELS AND PERSPECTIVES

lended learning models, stories, and examples are just as rich and important in higher education as they are in corporate models. Part Three contains higher education models for blended learning from universities in New Zealand and Wales, as well as two in the United States. In addition, officers of a popular course management system, WebCT, provide examples of how some of their cus­tomers are blending their online learning environments. These five perspectives or models should offer assistance on strategic planning, training, grant writing, and evaluation related to blended learning. Perhaps most important, colleges and universities might attempt to compare their in-house blended designs to one or more of the models presented here.

In Chapter Eleven, Barbara Ross and Karen Gage delineate three types, or " flavors, " of blending that they have extrapolated from trends seen among the broad range of WebCT users. The first is technology-enhanced courses where technology is used as a supplement to traditional course practices. The second is reduced face-time courses, which replace some of the traditional face-to-face lecture time with computer-mediated activities. The third is blended programs, in which students can choose to take a mix of both traditional face-to-face and completely online courses. Example vignettes from each of these cases are presented. Some benefits to blending are presented, such as expanding access, improving quality, serving diverse student populations, reducing time to gradu­ation, addressing student desire for technology in education, and greater insight

The Handbook of Blended Learning

and tracking of student progress. Finally, several institutional strategies for im­plementing blended learning are shared along with case vignettes of institution wide adoption of technology as well as multi-institutional collaborations in blending. Ross and Gage feel that the trend toward blending is so prevalent that eventually we will not be asking whether institutions are blending but how they are blending.

Chapter Twelve, by Noeline Wright, Ross Dewstow, Sue Tappenden, and Mark Topping, highlights three categories of blending seen at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. It details the history of blended learning at an institu­tional level and then discusses blends at both course and program levels. Four cat­egories of blends are outlined: fully, mostly, somewhat, and supported online. These four are outlined, and three case studies are provided. The first blend re­lates to Waikato's Law Diploma program, which is mostly online. In fact, only about 15 percent of learning time in this program involves face-to-face contact, with the remaining time entailing interaction with both materials and people through asynchronous discussion forums. The second case study, also classified as mostly online, is of a program for licensing teachers. In this case, teachers teach one day a week at their rural schools and participate at a distance in the more the­oretical aspects of their learning. They were required to attend three weeks of res­idential campus face-to-face learning annually. The last case is a graduate program for secondary teaching that was classified as somewhat online. This one-year pro­gram was conducted mostiy face-to-face with some online components related to instructor-led training and online contact with peers during their practicum ex­perience. Finally, the chapter sets out some basic strategies for supporting blended learning.

In Chapter Thirteen, Norah Jones reviews the research literature indicating that blending can improve learning and also shows how widely blended solu­tions are being adopted and discussed. She acknowledges that we may be be­hind the curve in terms of the amount of research performed thus far on blended learning environments. She follows that with a cautionary note that people are using all kinds of definitions of blended learning, which makes it difficult to under­stand what is really being researched and promoted. She then shares the tech­nology integration continuum that is used at the University of Glamorgan in Wales. This continuum includes basic information and communication technol­ogy usage stage (PowerPoint, Word), e-enhanced stage (use of virtual learning en­vironments, or course management systems for productivity and communication), e-focused stage (use of discussion boards, interactive materials, online assessments), and e-intensive stage (predominandy online courses with minimal face-to-face time for inductions, briefings). She shares a case study in which a curriculum was developed and delivered at a distance and the learners requested more blended

Part Three

experiences. In response, the University of Glamorgan went through the process of incorporating more face-to-face contact for the student socialization.

In Chapter Fourteen, Chuck Dziuban and his colleagues at the University of Central Florida (UCF), an institution known for thoughtful training in the area of online learning and innovation in blended learning, describe the dramatic increase in demand for blended courses that they have witnessed and encouraged. Blended courses at UCF have grown from 8 courses with 125 students in 1997 to 508 courses with 13, 600 students in 2003-2004. The UCF approach to blend­ing replaces some face-to-face class time with online activities. Potential benefits outlined in this chapter range from improved learning effectiveness and satisfac­tion to cost reductions for physical infrastructure. At UCF, the cost reduction due to scheduling efficiencies has not materialized as of yet. Measurements of success rates over three years (as measured by the number of A-C passing grades and with­drawal rates) have shown that the blended approach on the whole is slightly bet­ter than the face-to-face-only and online-only modalities. The chapter also provides data on student satisfaction with blended courses as well as information on the quantity and quality of student interactions in UCF courses.

In Chapter Fifteen, Thomas Reynolds and Cathleen Greiner describe National University's online programs with an emphasis on the fast-growing online teacher education program. This program has no on-site meeting requirements with program faculty. Instead, faculty and peer interactions are carried out through the use of asynchronous discussions and other tools in a computer-mediated environment, though the experience is generally less collaborative than a tradi­tional face-to-face experience. To become a certified teacher in California, National University students must have several in-school field experiences. The blending in this entirely online program occurs as the preservice teachers partic­ipate in face-to-face field experiences in schools within their respective geograph­ical locations. These field experiences are coordinated by a state coordinator as well as local field experience coordinators of National University.

CHAPTER ELEVEN