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Many of us who teach in higher education do not have a teaching background, nor do we have experience in curriculum development. We know our content areas and are experts in our fields, but structuring learning experiences for students may or may not be our strong suit. We've written a syllabus (or were handed one to use) and have developed some pretty impressive assessments, projects, and papers in order to evaluate our students' progress through the content. Sometimes we discover that students either don't perform well on the learning experiences we've designed or they experience a great deal of frustration with what they consider high stakes assignments. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that it's important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance.

Many of us who teach in higher education do not have a teaching background, nor do we have experience in curriculum development. We know our content areas and are experts in our fields, but structuring learning experiences for students may or may not be our strong suit. We've written a syllabus (or were handed one to use) and have developed some pretty impressive assessments, projects, and papers in order to evaluate our students' progress through the content. Sometimes we discover that students either don't perform well on the learning experiences we've designed or they experience a great deal of frustration with what they consider high stakes assignments. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that it's important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance.

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.

I recently remembered this article published in The Chronicle of Higher Ed a few years ago. It speaks volumes about some pros and cons (mostly pros) of using technologies like Twitter, online office hours, video chat, etc. to connect to super-sized classes. Though I do not have personal experience in teaching courses with this many students, I still think this teacher has found a way to utilize modern technologies to connect to students in new and important ways. He has taken what many of us would consider a nightmare classroom situation (teaching over 2000 students!) and made it into a classroom experience like no other. If you read through the comments, you'll see that his former students say he has changed their lives and that his was the best class they've ever taken. It's amazing to me that he is/was able to create personal connections with so many students using technology. Basically, if this guy can do it with 2,000+ students, then many of us should strongly consider how we might benefit from these technologies in our own hybrid courses.

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.

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.

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.

This isn't exactly a blended learning course but it includes a lot of resources if you are getting students to do self directed multimedia courses as part of blended learning design. I also really like the curriculum design/progression. It is an advanced composition course that engages students in a comprehensive exploration of contemporary rhetoric, creative inquiry, design thinking, media authorship, self-reflection, and social engagement. Directed writings in concert with video production projects allow students to experience an integrated process of thinking, creating, and problem-solving.

Great resource--thanks!

Most interesting strategies for archiving student work. Great learning objectives as well. Interesting way to present them. This is also an excellent example of how a tertiary educator can integrate information from the web straight into their course work. AND how universities can tap into the wonderful and expert learning tools created commercially (e.g. lynda.com) Thanks.

"The implementation of blended learning that I saw during my visit clearly has room to improve when it comes to providing high-quality academic instruction. But for the students in the program, blended learning is a powerful enabler of self-motivated learning and increased teacher support."

A backchannel -- a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity -- provides students with an outlet to engage in conversation. Every time I think about this tool, I remember my student, Charlie (not his real name). Given his learning challenges, he struggled to keep up during class discussions.

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

"Metta (www.metta.io) is a digital storytelling tool that allows you to create lessons using audio, videos, and images from your computer or from the web. It is a great online app for creating short flipped or blended lessons for students to help them learn outside of the classroom. With this outstanding web application, teachers can easily create a digital content based story, supplemented with images and text. Teachers can also include poll questions in order to test the knowledge of students. So, with Metta, you can easily combine multimedia elements together to produce an awesome digital lesson." (Source: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2013/10/create-digital-learning-content-easily-combining-parts-one-more-videos-with-images-text-audio-using-metta/)

This Faculty Focus special report features 15 articles from Online Classroom newsletter, and will provide you with specific strategies on how to use synchronous and asynchronous learning tools to engage your online students.

Tandy, C. & Meacham, M. (2009). Removing the Barriers for students with disabilities: Accessible online and web‐enhanced courses. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 29:3, 313-328. doi:10.1080/08841230903022118.