New Zealand examples of blended learning

Noeline Wright, Ross Dewstow, Mark Topping, Sue Tappenden

lended learning has been a feature of both the tertiary education scene and the compulsory schooling sectors in New Zealand for many years. For in­stance, traditional distance-based education through Massey University and the Open Polytechnic has existed since the 1960s. The Correspondence School, New Zealand's largest, with over twenty thousand students, serves primary (elementary) and secondary school students from around the country. For most of its sixty years in existence, traditional paper-based distance learning was its core method of delivery.

During the 1980s, universities, polytechnics, and some schools explored PC-based learning, educational television, video, and CD-ROMs. The Univer­sity of Waikato (UOW) pioneered New Zealand's Internet use with a dial-up connection, which later became an " always-on" connection. The Waikato Insti­tute of Technology, also an early pioneer, developed mobile " classrooms" plus videoconferencing to service remote teaching locations.

In 1995, the Open Polytechnic blended traditional paper-based distance education with computer technology by using emerging Internet-based bulletin boards. It established mixed-mode Web-based teaching in 1996 and graduated the first New Zealand cohort of fully Web-taught students at the end of 1999. The UOW's School of Education mixed media program (MMP) Bachelor of Teaching (Btchg) degree began in 1997. This combination of on-campus resi­dential blocks of time with fully online learning is discussed as a case study. In the

The Handbook of Blended Learning

compulsory school sector, the Correspondence School has recently developed a range of educational technologies to support its students' learning, including video as well as computer-based or online learning components.

Since about 2000, the Ministry of Education has developed IT-related strate­gies for the compulsory schooling sector and more recently commissioned a study of tertiary (higher education) sector e-learning. Highways and Pathways (Ministry of Education, 2002) contained several key recommendations:

• That government provide leadership and policy to encourage collaboration and adoption of e-learning by tertiary providers

• That issues relating to the development of e-learning for Maori be examined

• That an e-learning leadership center be established

• That a central portal be developed and a collaborative funding pool be established

• That quality assurance standards for e-learning meet the same standards as conventional education

• That tertiary funding be at the same level whatever the mode of learning

• That infrastructure for e-learning be addressed

• That the New Zealand Copyright Act be examined to remove particular barriers to e-learning

• That intellectual property issues be addressed within the tertiary sector

Over the following two years, most of these recommendations were addressed, including a tertiary information strategy setting overall direction for the sector, the initiation of a Web portal development project for the tertiary sector, and the allo­cation of funding to develop a new-generation high-speed Internet. A significant collaborative funding scheme, the eGDF, has also been established.

The University of Waikato: A Tertiary Institution Case Study of Blended Learning

The UOW, located in Hamilton, a North Island provincial city with a geograph­ically spread-out rural population, offers a number of qualifications described as fully, mostly, somewhat, or supported online. Fully online means that students can complete qualifications without coming to the campus. Mostly online means that there is a mix of online and some on-campus work in the qualification, and some­what online means there is an online component for on-campus students. Finally, hundreds of individual courses are taught in the traditional lecture-tutorial mode, supported by material provided through the online learning or relevant university

New Zealand Examples of Blended Learning

schools' document management systems. Such courses are referred to as supported online.

Fully and mostly online qualifications encompass a wide spectrum of courses from most faculties. Fully online options include the Arts and Social Sciences fac­ulty's graduate diploma in applied ethics, while the School of Education's fully online options include bachelor's and master's degrees in sport and leisure stud­ies, postgraduate certificates in counseling supervision, school principalship, and e-education, plus postgraduate diplomas in education and sports and leisure stud­ies. The Schools of Management and Maori and Pacific Development also have fully online postgraduate diplomas.

Mostly online options feature in the Arts and Social Sciences faculty, the School of Education, and Law. They include undergraduate and postgrad­uate diplomas plus master's degrees, allowing students to study wherever they live. Case studies of these are discussed.

Blended learning at Waikato means a mix of online and face-to-face plus tra­ditional distance learning. The mix varies from course to course, depending to a large extent on the subject and the skills of the lecturer in pedagogical knowledge related to using blended forms of learning as well as technological skills. This par­ticular aspect can be significant for students in terms of their access to and familiarity with learning through a technological medium. It is important to foster a lecturer's increasing knowledge of effective pedagogical practices for successful online learning because it supports students. This is therefore an important aspect of the university's online learning strategy.

Fully online courses assess participation and contributions in online discussions as well as more traditional assessment forms like essays. Most of these are submitted online, and many lecturers mark the work online, posting the results to individuals using the facility of the online private learning space. This mirrors on-campus situ­ations where lecturers can shut their office doors for consultations with students.

Online interactions and discussions are mostly asynchronous. On some occasions, lecturers use synchronous chat rooms for " office hours" and tutorial ses­sions. Time zones are a complicating factor for chatrooms with students living in different countries. Course materials (readings and administrative information) are provided as online HTML Web pages or attached documents, as CD-ROMs (containing videoed lectures, readings, or PowerPoint presentations, although no central unit develops them), or as printed and bound collections of readings that can also be provided by mail.

Although students may not physically visit the university, most staff are keen to form positive relationships with students, as they would in traditional classroom environments. The online environment developed by UOW (ClassForum) specif­ically supports community and relationship building as a pedagogical tool. By

The Handbook of Blended Learning

linking to the student records database, students upload their identification pho­tograph (taken at enrollment) so that every time they post an online message, their photograph appears. Lecturers include their photographs too. This relationship-building tool is important, especially for fully or mostly online courses. Commu­nicating with people and responding to faces and voices (or their substitute, the written word) is important. Building trust, for instance, is much easier when students feel that they correspond with a real person.

Secondary school students, for instance, frequently comment on how they develop commitment to a subject. Such commitment is initially based on believing in their teachers and trusting them to provide effective learning environments (Smyth & Hattam, 2004). This sense of trust and commitment partly occurs through connecting with teachers visually and through their actions and speech. Online pho­tographs support this connection while informal and friendly postings by lecturers encourage relationship building. Students who do not display their photograph are represented by a silhouetted blank image. Sometimes this leads to " flaming" when other students become distrustful when they cannot " see" their classmates.

Another strategy that helps students develop a sense of community and trust is beginning an online course with an introductory discussion to meet each other, just as we do when we meet socially. Through this initial activity, students and lec­turers share family information, hobbies, something of their learning history, and what they are looking forward to in the program. This ice-breaking helps new online learners get used to posting messages and finding their way around the site before anything challenging is asked of them and encourages a supportive, collegia] environment.

ClassForum is also used for mostly online course components. The comple­mentary, compulsory on-campus components often include an orientation pro­gram, midcourse tutorials, or end-of-course presentations or exams. Initial orientation sessions include an introduction to ClassForum, logging on, setting up computer accounts, practicing using the software, becoming familiar with the sys­tem and how individual courses work, and knowing what to do after leaving the campus. At the same time, students meet each other. Such orientations for new online students reflect Salmon's model (2000) in which students successfully negotiate stage 1, access and motivation, and become more than ready for stage 2, online socialization. Introductory sessions such as these at UOW effectively prepare students to become independent online learners.

UOW has satellite campuses in more rural areas supported by videoconfer­encing lectures. Students view these lectures from a local videoconferencing cam­pus. They are then supported by their classroom tutor, with ClassForum as an adjunct, since it can be used for discussions about the lecture after the event with the lecturer.

New Zealand Examples of Blended Learning

For courses that fit within the somewhat online category, an online assessed component complements the bulk of the course, taught through traditional lec­tures and tutorials. Lecturers whose courses fit the somewhat online category are often starting out as online educators, and so they experiment in a small way. This helps them develop their skills in a safe and confined way. Lecturers are encour­aged to experiment with this sort of approach before committing themselves to more elaborate forms of online teaching. It is during this time that lecturers often seek the most support in terms of technological and pedagogical knowledge. Support for online technologies at UOW encompasses:

• Course documents (such as articles for discussion, or summaries of lectures or other materials) in files such as Word, pdf, and PowerPoint, which can be uploaded within GlassForum.

• Asynchronous discussions. These help students to communicate with each other and their lecturers. They are used to investigate readings or lectures through prompts or questions designed to provoke discussion. Such discussions may be assessed in terms of the quality and frequency of students' contributions and their ability to foster and maintain effective community-building cues (such as supporting and encouraging each other, being critical in a positive way, or suggesting alternatives to ideas).

• Other areas. These are usually nonassessed and noncompulsory. Such areas include online cafes for students, question-and-answer areas so that students can ask questions of the lecturer or tutors about course-related material that do not belong in the discussion areas, or a place where students and lecturers can add resources that could benefit each other.

Examples of Blended Learning at UOW

Pedagogical support systems are described later when Waikato Innovation Cen­tre for e-Education (WICeD) is discussed. What follows now are three examples of blended learning at UOW. The first two are qualifications programs; the third is a course module within a program.

Diploma of Legal Executive Studies (DipLExSt): Mostly Online

The Diploma of Legal Executive Studies (DipLExSt) teaches law to the same stan­dard as the LL.B. (bachelor of law), which is taught to people employed in law of­fices who have no previous university-level learning. The diploma raises their academic profile and professional standing as legal executives. Maintaining the aca­demic rigor of the program is critical so that it compares favorably with on campus LL.B. courses.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

Because of the learning background of most legal executive diploma students, academic rigor was a top consideration for those designing the diploma. A blended learning program satisfies the needs of learners to function independently, study­ing when and where they please at their own pace, and enables teaching staff and learners to interact in various ways.

The diploma combines online learning with face-to-face contact, plus paper and CD-ROM materials. Face-to-face contact concentrates on ensuring that various electronic media are used effectively and gives learners opportunities to cooperate within group settings that reflect the organization of the online envi­ronment Face-to-face interaction constitutes approximately 15 percent of diploma students' total learning time. A key goal of the program is to create engaged, in­dependent learners who participate fully. To that end, the paper and CD-ROM materials are presented in conjunction with group discussion activities, promoting these learning outcomes:

• Demonstrating an ability to identify relevant facts and legal issues

• Distinguishing relevant laws and their application to specific issues

• Demonstrating an ability to critically analyze outcomes of problems in their social contexts

Lecturers support learners through individual feedback on their written work. online comments, and group discussions where issues may be dealt with without the teacher's intervention. Also, students interact with the supplied materials in a guided manner by lecturers' providing indications of important emphases and explanations of more difficult concepts or topics. Interactions with materials com­prise approximately 40 percent of the total learning time; group discussion and other online activity constitute the remaining 45 percent.

In this particular model of blended learning, the proportions of time spent face-to-face, reading and using material presented using CD-ROM, or working online reflect several decisions about the diploma. The legal academic commu­nity in New Zealand traditionally favors courses based on written materials and face-to-face teaching, where the main support for students occurs through tutor­ial sessions and individual critique of students' assessed work. So that the diploma is seen as a serious academic program, its roots are in this model. However, by using UOW's technology, it was possible to create learning environments that im­proved on the on-campus model. Asynchronous tutorials through the online com­ponent allow learners to input ideas or responses at any time. They can therefore take time to absorb and think about concepts, composing thoughtful responses. This facility has resulted in high-quality asynchronous discussions. And by having lectures and presentations using CD-ROM, learners access them whenever the\

New Zealand Examples of Blended Learning

need to, repeating lectures as often as necessary, adding to their course content understanding, and improving their note-taking skills. These diploma students gain a tertiary qualification by studying anywhere they can plug into the Internet.

An added benefit of this blended learning diploma is the cooperation and support for students generated by online group work, increasing their under­standing of the subject matter in a safe learning environment. This is often not possible in large face-to-face classes. In ClassForum, every student's input is val­ued. If it appears, for example, that a few students dominate discussions, various strategies can be used to circumvent this. For example, they may be asked to pose discussion questions related to particular readings or presentations and take on the role of chair rather than participant. Learners' self-esteem and confidence is there­fore promoted as they are encouraged to participate in discussions, adding to the class's thinking about various topics and issues.

In the midst of these online teaching innovations, there are several difficul­ties. For instance, a few diploma students, believing that " real" teaching and learn­ing happen only during face-to-face sessions, are reluctant to commit fully to ClassForum. Awarding grades for online contributions is therefore a necessary in­centive. Another difficulty is staff commitment to online teaching because it can be highly intensive and specific as a result of the closer relationship between the teacher and learner. This often means considerable one-to-one feedback and sup­port, particularly in the initial stages of students' using ClassForum, when gen­erous feedback to individuals and groups indicates the extent to which they are on the right path. As students gain security in using ClassForum, the frequency of this kind of feedback decreases. Pedagogical knowledge about such learning activities and needs is necessary for staff to work comfortably online.

Mixed Media Programme (MMP): Primary: Mostly Online

The MMP program began in 1997. Its first bachelor of teaching graduates were capped in 1999, and so this degree program can claim to be the first blended learn­ing bachelor of teaching degree in the country, and possibly elsewhere too. As Barr (2000) notes, it was " initially designed to meet the needs of pre service [primary] education students in the more distant areas of the University's region particu­larly Gisborne, East Coast, Wairoa, Taumarunui and Thames-Coromandel [and in] 1998... was extended to... Taranaki, Northland, Auckland, South Auckland and the Bay of Plenty" (p. 3). In other words, MMP supports students from almost the entire North Island of New Zealand.

MMP is shaped so that during school term times, students work one day per week in their base school (a local primary school that agrees to mentor them; this agreement is a program entry prerequisite). The rest of their week centers on

176 The Handbook of Blended Learning

working online to meet course requirements related to the more theoretical as­pects. Students attend three compulsory on-campus week-long courses annually: in February, June, and August. The February on-campus section introduces stu­dents to the program plus specific courses within it, their lecturers, the technol­ogy, and each other. The face-to-face segments build relationships between students and with lecturers and increase learners' self-confidence.

This program has had a number of benefits: more remote areas are better able to staff their schools as they mentor learner-teachers, the new teachers enjoy two support networks (their local schools and their online lecturers), and these new teachers become, simultaneously, effective computer users. The program also broadens the teacher base. Traditionally many MMP students would not have en­rolled in teacher education because of their physical distance from a university or their family commitments. Many of these students, who are mainly over age twenty-five, have children. For instance, during the period of research into this program, forty-one of seventy-five children of students across all three year levels of the degree were under age fifteen, with the largest number of children between five and nine years old (Donahy McGee, Ussher, & Yates, 2003). The levels of sup­port students get by being able to stay at home is crucial. As one participant in the study said, " This opportunity has changed my family, my husband is very proud of me and my children egg me on. I have support coming out of my ears and with­out that I would be lost" (Donahy et al, 2003, p. 5).

There are also unexpectedly positive benefits for the staff in base schools. For instance, teachers mentoring UOW students have found that their self-reflection has been enhanced as they began theorizing their own practices more explicith. Many staff subsequently upgrade their qualifications by enrolling in UOW online papers, strengthening the university's relationship with schools, and increasing the schools' professional leadership and learning capacities. This learning circle has strengthened the credibility of the program in ways not initially envisioned. In the first cohort of fifty-two students, forty-eight graduated. Of those, two-thirds did not know how to turn on a computer when they first began the MMP bachelor ot teaching. Within eight weeks, most were comfortable computer users, and by the end of the first semester, many had bought their own computer. Schools too, which may initially have had low levels of ICT, benefited from the learner-teachers' developing skills with Internet and e-mail because they shared their knowledge and skills with other staff. As noted by Donahy, McGee, and Yates (2004), " MMP was focused at local people who were more likely to stay in the area and teach after they graduated. The ICT component of the Mixed Media Programme was viewed as complementary to the school's own development" (p. 19).

There are also some challenges. A key one is to sustain the quality and sense of innovation. Once a program becomes institutionalized, it can lose its edge as it becomes commonplace. Some staff too are reluctant volunteers, preferring and

New Zealand Examples of Blended Learning

being more comfortable with face-to-face pedagogies and struggling with accept­ing the validity of online learning even though courses successfully cover a wide range of subject areas and disciplines including art and music education.

Secondary Graduate ICT Module: Somewhat Online

In New Zealand, secondary school teachers follow one of two common patterns in preparing for their careers: full-time university study (either bachelor's or mas­ter's degree level), followed by a one-year, full-time intensive graduate diploma in teaching or conjoint undergraduate and teacher education degrees. Within the one-year graduate program, learner-teachers focus on pedagogy centered on both their subject disciplines and on wider issues important to learners, teachers, and schools. Compulsory topics include understanding Maori perspectives and issues on learning, ethics, literacy across the curriculum, plus information and com­munication technology (ICT) and pedagogy. The ICT module has twenty face-to-face hours in four-hour blocks, coupled with an online component that straddles two practicum periods. Face-to-face sessions in this module center on PowerPoint and classrooms, developing and using truth and validity detectors for checking the quality and validity of online sites, developing Web pages for classroom use, and using digital audio and video tools in the classroom. Students are assessed three times in this module:

• Twice via online postings, using ICT tools during their teaching practicum periods (April to May and August to September; the New Zealand compulsory education sector calendar is from February to December). Their task is to explain what tool they used, how and why they used it, and how they could tell if it enhanced student learning. The aim is to focus on pedagogical purposes for ICT. Students also have to comment on someone else's posting by being supportive, critiquing their work, or offering suggestions. This is designed to develop their reflective skills.

• A group face-to-face presentation. Each group uses ICT tools to demon­strate understandings of challenges, provisos, and opportunities regarding ICT and pedagogy. This assessment is intended to help them synthesize their understandings about pedagogy (incorporating learning from other parts of their graduate program) and ICT, while having some cooperative fun. Their source text, a short story, " And Madly Teach" (Biggies, 1975), raises issues about technology and education.

ClassForum components include opportunities for students to learn more about each other, share ideas about using ICT, and discuss issues that may have no other forum. This openness allows these learner-teachers to voice their personal perspectives and their developing knowledge. An area initiated in this online module, called " Chewing It Over, " has become hugely popular as students share experiences and

The Handbook of Blended Learning

keep in touch while on practicum in different schools across the region. This entirely nonassessed informal function proves to be an important aspect of these learner-teachers' growth, as they divulge emotional and relationship-oriented experiences as well as successes and challenges. One first-practicum contribution amusingly cap­tured this: " Hey guys, I'm completely stuffed! Whew, who knew this teaching thing was going to be so tiring?! Trying to juggle the intricate planning of three units really does inforce [sic] reality! Hope everyone is having a swell time and enjoying it as much as I am—the bags under the eyes and sleepless nights are all worth it in the end."

Student feedback is also invited, because they can post questions and offer re­sources to share online. While there are private areas between each student and the lecturer in charge of this module, the areas where students must share their trials with ICT in classrooms are a rich collegial repository of strategies and sug­gestions they value.

By the end of the ICT module, all students have had opportunities to ex­periment with common ICT tools available in New Zealand schools, trying out ideas and learning from each other as their confidence and competence with ICT tools improve while also focusing on pedagogy.

All of these case studies rely on effective technological and pedagogical sup­port. The following section explains how this is provided.

Technological and Pedagogical Support

The Waikato Innovation Centre for e-Education (WICeD) was initiated in 2000 to support the university's existing e-learning strategy. This center continually de­veloped the in-house e-learning system by developing pedagogically sound tool-to assist lecturers and providing professional development support for lecturer-learning about teaching online. The center consisted of programmers, designei -and learning specialists. The learning specialists work closely with lecturers t< assist them in developing their pedagogical understanding about working onlin< while programmers and designers interpret their needs in terms of the technol­ogy. This interrelationship means that the online learning system is under con­tinuous development, as lecturers have helped customize its tools to suit their individual pedagogical needs.

Teaching staff within UOW have therefore been the drivers of ClassForum. WICeD has supported staff in these ways:

Training courses. These introductory and advanced courses were regularly schei uled at the start of each semester. Sometimes they were on demand, accordin_ to online lecturers' needs, and always focused more on pedagogy rather ш; software or technical issues.

New Zealand Examples of Blended Learning

• Seminars. Staff often requested these (for example, for departmental or faculty staff meetings). There are also regular updates of the e-learning software.

• Weekly drop-in afternoons. WICeD staff are available every Wednesday afternoon, in the same place, so that staff can drop in for a coffee and ask questions about their online teaching. This tends to be one-to-one casual support.

• One-on-one consultancy. Staff can request individual support where WICeD staff visit their offices, or vice versa.

• The Online Campus (accessible once logged onto ClassForum). It provides pedagogi­cal, technical, and administrative resources for staff, including spaces to air online problems.

• E-mail and phone support for e-learning problems. Staff send e-mails to individuals within WICeDs or to a group list.

In addition to providing support to instructors through the multiple training op­portunities listed above, some specific tools have been developed to support lec­turers' needs:

• Group management tools to establish and manage groups within classes

• Workbook Wizard to establish individual discussion areas between lecturers and students for drop boxes, journal entries, assessments, and private conversations

• Peer Feedback tool, so groups of learners give feedback to each other for presen­tations to the group

«More sophisticated access rights management, which emulate effective online pedagogies

• Online testing, which develops recall-type summative self-assessment tests to help
check students' understanding of concepts

WICeD was commercialized in June 2004, becoming ECTUS, an incuba­tor innovative e-learning company supported by UOW E-learning educational tools so far include products (distributed free through the New Zealand Transport Authority) such as CD-Drives, a new drivers' hazard detection simulation game, currently being modified for motorcyclists.

Another development is Ectus PLACE, a fourth-generation collaborative learn­ing environment (LMS) based on principles of social constructionism. While includ­ing all the usual aspects of an LMS, it focuses on took that encourage the Five Cs: using Collaboration and Communication to build Community and to Construct Content. PLACE also transcends boundaries between the synchronous world of videoconfer­encing and the asynchronous world of LMS systems with Ectus MEDIA. MEDIA makes the results of videoconferences or video clips available for later streaming and discussion. Because it tightly binds these results into PLACE'S discussion environment, the collaborative value of the initial videoconference is gready extended.

The Handbook of Blended Learning

These two features, coupled with developing collaborations with other orga­nizations to extend the capability of PLACE and related tools, clearly position UOW, staff, and ECTUS as innovators in e-learning.

References

Barr, H. (2000, December). A study of the University of Waikato Bachelor of Teaching degree taught through mixed media. Hamilton, NZ: School of Education, University of Waikato.

Biggies, L. (1975). A galaxy of strangers. New York: Doubleday.

Donahy, A., McGee, C, Ussher, В., & Yates, R. (2003, April). Online teaching and learning: A study of teacher education students' experiences. Hamilton, NZ: Wilf Halcolm Institute for Educational Research, University of Waikato.

Donahy, A., McGee, C, & Yates, R. (2004, March). The impact of information and communication technology upon schools. Hamilton, NZ: WMIER, University of Waikato.

Ministry of Education. (2002). Highways and pathways. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education

Salmon, G. (2000). E-Moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Kogan Page.

Smyth, J., & Hattam, R. (2004). " Dropping out, " drifting off, being excluded: Becoming somebody with­out school. New York: Peter Lang.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN