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BlendKit Course: BlendKit Reader: Chapter 1

Increasingly, faculty who teach an online course may not be the ones who actually designed the course. Thus, current measurements, especially those that focus on course design and innovation, are not appropriate tools for assessing these faculty members. Instead, the authors assert: "We must look at the actions performed by the instructors within the course." The objective of the authors' study was "to identify a set of criteria that would yield objective data easily examined by supervisors and peers during an online course observation and serve as a balance to the more subjective data gathered from student surveys." The authors identified six questions to be used as a starting point for evaluating online instructors. These questions are copied below verbatim: Has the instructor logged in at least an average of every other day? Has the instructor posted a biography of at least a paragraph, in addition to contact info? Has the instructor posted announcements at least weekly? Is there evidence that the instructor answers student inquiries in two days or less? Does the instructor participate in discussion forums where appropriate? Does the instructor provide feedback on assignments? This article is an excellent resource because it clearly delineates between design and instruction. It also provides the six very concrete questions to use when evaluating instructors.

Simmons College instructor Karen Teeley describes her decision-making process for deciding what goes online and what goes face-to-face in her blended learning course. This case study features short video clips, complete text transcript, and an example simulation exercise from Teeley's course. In addition, she provides a sample welcome letter, student expectations statement, and a couple of evaluation rubrics from her blended course.

A hybrid course is much more than just an online course with a face-to-face class session thrown in for good measure. It involves asking, "What is the best way for students to interact with course content, construct knowledge, engage in critical thinking and problem solving?"

I had the same thing happen to me: I was using a model without knowing it was a model! I'm glad I now have vocabulary to describe my work in the classroom.

A good simple approach. A three staged process for blended learning design: Absorb - Do - Connect

"The process model consists of three stages: Absorb-During this stage, students are gaining basic knowledge. This can include reading a chapter in the textbook. Do-Students then engage in an activity such as a discussion before the face-to-face session (in the case of a blended course) or a synchronous online session in the case of a totally online course. Connect-Students apply knowledge to real-world situations."

I've helped faculty implement this model in online courses and think it has been very successful. While a model like ADDIE provides a structured approach to designing an entire course, this Absorb, Do, Connect model, along with models like Gagne's 9 events of instruction provide us with models for how to structure individual lessons and keep them consistent.

Nice free tool for creating online course materials. User friendly, but haven't been able to publish my course yet because the image upload feature doesn't work with Safari on a Mac.

" ...a number of educators living in the world of online learning who took some time out to share these thoughts on practices and challenges associated with creating and conducting compelling online courses and course content."

An alternative schema to the "digital native" vs. "digital immigrant" dichotomy. Emphasis is placed upon one's own adaptation to technology-rich culture using the axes of "access" and "participation" to form a classification quadrant. Some observations are particularly relevant for participation in informal learning via Personal Learning Networks and open, online courses as well as in technology-mediated academic courses.

I like this schema! (I tend to like anything that moves away from rigid, binary-type either/or dichotomies, where we are either include/excluded, with few options for growth and movement.) I am really enjoying BlendKit2012 and only wish I had more time to explore.

Example checklist of what an instructor should do prior to the start of an online course, as well as, different ways to interact with student at several key areas throughout the course. This is a concept that has been applied at many places in the past few years and can be applied to both hybrid / blended or online courses.

EDUCAUSE Review Online Developed in response to the crisis in remedial and general-education math courses, this innovative model pairs an existing parent course with a one-unit supplemental hybrid course to provide a variety of interventions and practices to support students at California State University, Northridge. The model divides instruction among faculty, teaching assistants, and tutors, who coordinate content to create a "flow of learning" that actively moves students from classroom work, to group work, to homework, to exams. First fully implemented in 2008, the model's results have been dramatic - essentially reversing the downward trend in student success and vastly improving students' average scores and the distribution of the grades.

Blended learning course design entails more than simply converting content for online delivery or finding ways to supplement an existing face-to-face course. Ideally, designing a blended course would begin with identifying learning outcomes and topics, creating assignments and activities, determining how interaction will occur, and selecting the technologies to best achieve those learning outcomes.

Good resource listing steps involved in designing a hybrid course.

This has a nice list of FTF and Online appropriate learning activities. The terms hybrid and blended are used interchangeably to describe a course in which less than half all of the instruction is delivered online. Traditional face-to-face instruction is reduced but not eliminated. With a hybrid course, the goal is to optimize student engagement by taking advantage of the strengths of both the face-to-face and Web-based environments.

Great resource - thanks!

Another checklist for online/blended courses (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). I liked the straight-forward language.

"Remixing the curriculum - compiling resources from a variety of sources such as free online texts, proprietary information from publishers, and self-created media such as podcasts - is starting to push its way into K-12 and higher education. Get ahead of the curve with these tips for remixing your own online course materials."

Fabulous! Thank you for this. I find that the more we learn in BlendKit, the more I feel that I need to learn. Having a list of resources to start with is priceless.

Was surprised not to see Padlet included; depending on objective, it's a simple way to get feedback, brainstorm or for students to add content/opinion in a course (2 layouts: sticky note or horizontal which enables more text and so becomes easy to read;) great for sharing multi-media as well.

I chose this article as it relates well to the ch 5 discussion regarding quality in blended courses.

Beth - so interested to see that you chose this article!! I participated in this study as the Quality Matters trainer. So the two groups (short training, long training) worked with me to learn how to apply QM to improve their courses. We have been Quality Matters subscribers for 6 years and incorporate it into all the training and development of online courses.