This document discusses blended learning programs implemented at Centralian Senior College and Kormilda College in the Northern Territory of Australia. It aims to support secondary students so they complete Year 12 and transition to university, targeting low socioeconomic, indigenous, and remote/rural students. The programs provide students and teachers access to Charles Darwin University's online learning platform Learnline. Challenges in implementing blended learning included attendance issues, teacher time constraints, technology access, and measuring outcomes. Solutions involved online access to materials, paid teacher training/development time, laptop distributions, and surveys. The programs showed mixed results in addressing challenges and positively impacting student learning.

1. Blended Learning:
A Territory Approach.
Amanda McCubbin
• Charles Darwin University
John Morton
• Kormilda College
Martin Yeaman
• Centralian Senior College

2. This session:
• Overview of the Into Uni project
• Blended Learning from Centralian Senior College
perspective
• Blended Learning from Kormilda perspective
• Summary/Conclusion
• Questions

3. Background:
• Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program
• Federal Government funded project.
• Known as ‘Into Uni’ among the three partnership institutions.
• Three year project with ongoing support.

4. 4
Structure:
• The project consists of a number of different strategies :
• Mentoring and Enrichment
• Education Outreach
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Learnline in Colleges
• This presentation will be focussing on Learnline in Colleges.

5. Purpose:
• Support secondary students in the Northern Territory so they complete
Year 12 and successfully articulate into university.
• Specifically targeting students from a low socio-economic
background.
• Indigenous students.
• Students from rural or remote communities and towns.

6. 6
Charles Darwin University:
• Unique position for a university
• Students accessing Learnline from middle school to post graduate level
Learnline in Colleges:
• Students and teachers at both colleges have access to the CDU learning
management system called Learnline (Blackboard).

7. Underlying Philosophy:
• Blended and online learning is used in the Colleges as part of the best
practice learning and teaching.
• Students access and use Learnline, including a wide range of Blackboard
tools, while at school. The aim is to remove the online learning
environment as a challenging factor in the transition between school and
university.

8. Role of Charles Darwin University:
• To provide teachers in partner schools with training and support to
develop learning materials for online and flexible delivery in the CDU
Learnline Learning Management System
•
To support the production of high quality teaching and learning materials
that enhances the timely and tailored delivery of school subjects to
students in NT that are accessible and culturally appropriate and
sensitive to the life environment of students

9. 9
Role of Charles Darwin University:
• To develop a sustainability plan for schools to work directly with the Learnline
Development Team from 2015-2016, when training support will no longer be
available.

10. BLENDED LEARNING
A new way of learning was required for a new generation of students, a
more flexible learning style, blending the old and the new.
This is the experience of Centralian Senior College in Alice Springs as it
moves into this new world.

11. Over 400
students in
years 10, 11,
and 12.
45% of
these are
indigenous,
11% are
foreign born

12. INTO UNI PROGRAM
Opportunity in this technology to help overcome many challenges it faces with
engaging students and helping them achieve their goals.
A third of teaching staff became involved in the Project to provide students with
access to online lessons.
Use ranges from a resource access point to delivery of entire lessons and units
(enabling students to move at their own pace, or catch up on missed lessons).

13. Why and How we use Blended Learning
Main educational challenges - how Blended Learning can help
the school meet these challenges.
Challenges of integrating Blended Learning and lessons we have
learned thus far.

14. WHERE DOES LEARNING TAKE PLACE?
CLASS
TIME
STUDENT
TIME
TEACHER-STUDENT
TIME
Professor Randy Bass of Georgetown
University

15. WHERE DOES LEARNING TAKE PLACE?
CLASS
TIME
STUDENT
TEACHER-STUDENT TIME
TIME

16. Insufficient Teacher-Student Time
LMS a means to increase quality interaction.
via:
Information & Resource Dissemination.
= teacher-student time can be devoted to actual teaching/learning and
relationship building.
Online Interaction & Modelling
Some higher order thinking is transferable to online interaction

17. CHALLENGES:
ATTENDANCE TEACHER TRAINING & SITE
DEVELOPMENT
ACCESS TO
TECHNOLOGY
TEACHER PARTICIPATION
TECHNOLOGY AVAILABILITY MEASURING OUR
PROGRESS
WHAT DOES BLENDED LEARNING LOOK LIKE?

18. ATTENDANCE

19. ATTENDANCE:
Over a third of the school’s students failing to meet minimum
attendance requirements.
We need to find ways to make students want to engage with
learning, and to have access to learning outside of traditional school
hours.

20. Clontarf, Polly Farmer, and the Girls Academy
Incentive of sport and social learning groups to attract students to attend and engage.
Involve group travel on sporting, academic, and cultural trips
Disrupt regular lessons amongst mainstream classes that the students are involved
with.

21. SOLUTION:
Lessons online =
Access to their school work
Contact with classroom teachers.
Homework tasks: delivered and completed outside of the home.
varied to optimise the use of blended learning strategies.
i.e.
using smartphones to videotape tours, interviews, or training sessions.
Online class discussions via the site when absent, without needing to do
so in real time.

22. OUTCOME:
Mixed
Attendance amongst students enrolled in the programs has
improved.
Work output has not improved as the program leaders have not
participated in the Learnline project, given their own goals and time
constraints.

23. CHALLENGE: TEACHER TRAINING & SITE
DEVELOPMENT:
THE TIME BARRIER
Teachers have just one 50 min block of free time during the school day.
In 2014 the school increased teacher load by an additional 50
minutes a week.
A number of teachers then withdrew from the Learnline program
citing time problems.

24. SOLUTION
Paid Relief:
To alleviate this Into Uni team asked and received from the Steering
Committee a full week of paid relief for each involved teacher in order to
release them to create courses.
Pre-Developed Sites:
To encourage teachers to stay with the program I have created and
developed sites for a number of teachers with minimal interaction.

25. OUTCOME:
Paid Relief : Mixed
Still requires time away from their students
Unlikely to get a relief teacher who knows the specific subject matter.
Pre-Developed Sites: Successful
Four new sites running this year as a result of lower demand on teacher time.
New teachers to the school have enjoyed the benefit of being able to run with
a subject they have had no time to learn or prepare for.

26. ACCESS TO TECHNOLOGY:
Not all students have computer or internet access at home.
SOLUTION:
The Learnline project investment $100,000 to replace laptops from the BER
program. MacAirs were chosen due to battery life and portability.
Student access to a home laptop is based on attendance.
After hours study sessions after hours where students have access to
technology and mentors in a safe environment.

27. OUTCOME:
The tutor sessions are well attended during crunch times and will be
ongoing.
All year 12s and 70% of year 11 students have access to a home laptop

28. TEACHER PARTICIPATION & TECHNOLOGY AVAILABILITY
Technology available to teachers differed by room.
Individual Experience in/with:
Elearn
LAMS
Sharepoint
Wikispaces
Interactive Whiteboards
React & Adobe Connect
MS Office

29. SOLUTION:
How we set up online learning: what was already available and what we
have now and for the future
Ongoing Professional Development of involved staff.
Installing projectors and laptops docking stations across the whole
school.
Learnline Trainer & Developer - hardware and software help on call to
ensure a smooth use of technology.

30. OUTCOME:
TEACHER PARTICIPATION: Mixed
TECHNOLOGY AVAILABILITY: Success
The school has the appropriate technology to deliver blended learning,
but staff expertise to adapt to and use new technologies blended
appropriately to pedagogy must be ongoing.
To incorporate it across all school the College would need to make it
mandatory and provide adequate training and creation time, or employ
someone to create basic sites for all subjects.

31. MEASURING OUR PROGRESS
What measurement determines whether we have used Blended Learning
effectively?
Has this has had an positive effect on student learning?

32. SOLUTION:
Comparison to Pedagogical Models
Unit and User Data from Blackboard
Student and Staff Surveys

33. OUTCOME: SAMR Model

34. SUBSTITUTION: Using websites or eBooks in place of Texts
AUGMENTATION: Using Word, Comic Life, or PowerPoint to
complete media rich tasks
MODIFICATION: Using Smartphones to create movies outside of
school
REDEFINITION: Flipped Classrooms & online real time class
discussion outside of school

35. OUTCOME:
STUDENT & STAFF SURVEYS
Do you think it has been useful to have access to Learnline in your subject?
STUDENTS STAFF

36. Q3. In which ways is Learnline used in your subject/s? Tick all that apply.
In which ways is Learnline used in your subject/s? Tick all that apply.
STUDENTS
STAFF

37. WHAT DOES BLENDED LEARNING LOOK LIKE?

38. • Clear identification of the blended learning course objectives.
• What skills are being developed?
• What information needs including in the course syllabus?
• Which learning tools and instructional
design models/theories are best suited
to the course?
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39. • Motivating learners by creation of a blended learning course outline that:
• Has appropriate pace for the audience
• Contains key information; learning objectives, assignments, presentations,
materials required, deadlines, expectations of attendance and participation.
• Explains how the content will be delivered
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40. • ‘The level of interactivity’
• Online training versus self-paced learning activities.
• Choice of tools and methodologies can be overwhelming – which is ideal for particular content?
• Synchronous versus Asynchronous activities
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41. • Integration of group collaboration activities
• Sharing knowledge with others (pupil expert) – reinforcing own understanding through
teaching
• Using chat rooms, wall wishers, wikis, discussion forums to share opinions and problem solve
as a group
• Creating an effective social learning strategy
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42. • Developing communication and feedback guidelines
• Contact with course leader with 24 hour response – solid support
• Feedback through surveys, class discussion or live chat
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43. • Gathering in the good stuff – compiling resources
• Links to reference sites and articles to broaden and deepen experience
• Course plan tied to relevant news stories to create a narrative
• Enabling students to contribute further resources from course research
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44. • The all-important assessment plan
• How to check student progress?
• Quiz world!
• Discussion forums and content summaries
• Why?
• Pinpoint personal areas for improvement.
• Apply knowledge and skills from the course to boost retention.
• Module recaps to summarise essential information.
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45. • In conclusion:
– Measures of Success of Blended Learning:
• Increase in equity and access to learning for students
• Increase in on-task learning time for students.
• Increase in technology skills for both teachers and students.
• Increase in motivation for students to access learning content/resources in
unit.
• Increase in range of pedagogies used by teachers.
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46. • Issues to be worked on:
– Engagement by some teaching staff with the blended learning model.
– Technology issues associated with tyranny of distance.
Questions?
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