Blended Learning

Through the past posts on this blog we've been able to see the different effects, methods of implementation and example programs of blended learning. Even though blended learning is still not widely adopted throughout the primary and secondary educational systems, it is even more rarely seen in higher education courses. In the article, "Blended learning in higher education: Students’ perceptions and their relation to outcomes"  the authors analyze the effects and reactions of blended learning in an undergraduate general accounting course at the University of Granada. The effects were analyzed on two separate terms: non-dropout rate (students registered vs. students taking the final exam) and passing the course. The sample consisted of 985 first-year students and is said to be representative of the population, although no specific information about the demographics of students is given. The online portion of the class consisted mostly of e-learning activities such ...

In the past couple of weeks, we have discussed the possibilities and potential of integrating our classes. It seems that with blended learning, technology can give students more accessibility to individualized instruction. As a teacher, it seems like a great idea to be able to cater to the education needs of every single student. However, at MIT, the possibilities of blended learning are not only being developed in the classroom or even school-wide level but at the international level. These possibilities are taking on the form of an initiative called BLOSSOMS (Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies Initiative), a cross-border, collaborative learning and teaching system. The system is designed for high school math and science contents by creating short videos that can be used as support by teachers. However, two key components make this intuitive truly unique. First, the initiative is an international one. It aims to make content accessible to students in schools wo...

Last week I created my first video that could possibly be used for Blended learning in my Spanish class. In the video, I taught a lesson on constructing questions in Spanish and incorporated visuals, which I thought would help, but realized that I didn't actually know if it would be effective or not. So this week, I'm taking a look at how we can actually plan and prepare for transitioning into Blended Learning. The book, "Navigating The Digital Shift: Implementation Strategies for Blended and Online Learning" by John Bailey, Carri Schneider and, Tom Vander Ark, provides an overview of what to consider with Blended Learning implementation. The four big concepts to consider are to Create Conditions for Success, Plan, Implement and, Improve. Each one has various subfactors that need to be decided upon. They are as follows: Creating Conditions for Success Define Academic Goals - This will help later when decided the approach and model that will be implemented as we...

Blended Learning combines the most effective components of traditional face-to-face instruction and online learning.  However, in what ways can it be most effective? This week I took a look at an article that investigated the effect on literacy in elementary school students. Although I teach Spanish, and this article focused on English literacy, my high school students are also in the beginning/ practicing stages of reading and writing in a language. I read this article from a comparative perspective of how it could be applied to my own content. In the article, "Exploration of a Blended Learning Approach to Reading Instruction for Low SES Students in Early Elementary Grades" authors Rachel Schechter, Paul Macaruso, Elizabeth R. Kazakoff, and Elizabeth Brooke analyze the effect of students receiving blended English Language Arts instruction and compare the results to a control group of students who received the same material with traditional instruction. The study was cond...

 “The most important aim of a Blended Learning design is to find the most effective and efficient combination of the two modes of learning for the individual learning subjects, contexts and objectives.” Blended Learning is the combination of F2F (face-to-face) teaching with online learning. Blended learning is becoming a popular technique in a classroom that has shown to provide more meaningful and authentic learning experiences. While it is being used across all contents, second language acquisition classrooms are still mainly providing F2F instruction and while some courses offer online laboratory-based programs, language teachers are facing challenges adopting an effective blending learning perspective. The article, "Using the Spanish Online Resource Aula Virtual de Español (AVE) to Promote a Blended Teaching Approach in High School Spanish Language Classrooms" propose an online Spanish resource for language teachers to utilize with blended learning and evaluate its e...