National Learning and Teaching Forum - Redefining Blended Learning

BLENDED LEARNING:
REDEFINING THE SPACE

Professor Mike Keppell
Director, The Flexible Learning Institute &
Professor of Higher Education
Charles Sturt University

1
Thursday, 30 September 2010 1

OVERVIEW

Assumptions
Principles
Conceptualising the space
of this presentation
What is blended learning?
Dimensions of blended
learning
Space
Multi-dimensional nature
of blended learning
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ASSUMPTIONS
Universities value and seek to enhance the skills
essential for lifelong and life wide learning,
developing graduates who will continue to develop
intellectually, professionally and socially beyond the
bounds of formal education.

Universities believe that programs, services and teaching
methods should be responsive to the diverse
cultural, social and academic needs of
students, enabling them to adapt to the demands of
university education and providing them with the
cultural capital for life success.
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HIGHER EDUCATION
PRINCIPLES
Equivalence of Learning Outcomes ethical obligations

traverses physical,
Student Learning Experience blended and virtual
learning spaces
learning outcomes,
subject, degree
Constructive Alignment
program, generic
attributes

speciﬁc needs of
Discipline Pedagogies
disciplines
4

Subject Learning
Interactions Management
System

Blended
Pedagogy Learning Spaces
Learning

Degree
Digital Proﬁciency
Interactions

5


PERSPECTIVES ON BLENDED
LEARNING

Blended learning means that you need to look at the
cohort, and the resources, the lesson, curriculum and put it
all together. It requires a change of language. I see it as
using technology for enhancing learning and it allows you
to cater more for differences, for the different needs of the
student body (Teaching Fellow, 2008).

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PERSPECTIVES ON BLENDED
LEARNING
The reason I’m a bit cynical about it (blended learning) is
that I think it’s a matter of good teaching that you do...
anyway. It’s a bit of a jargon word, I think, but I can
understand the need to have it for the increased range of
technologies (Teaching Fellow, 2008).

… It’s very, very hard to get people who come on campus to
want to do something that’s not face-to-face and it’s very
hard to get people who want to be totally ﬂexible and do
something at two o’clock in the morning by themselves to
actually want to engage with other people (Teaching Fellow,
2008).
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BALANCE

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FLEXIBLE LEARNING

“Flexible learning” provides opportunities to
improve the student learning experience through
ﬂexibility in time, pace, place (physical, virtual, on-
campus, off-campus), mode of study (print-based,
face-to-face, blended, online), teaching approach
(collaborative, independent), forms of assessment
and stafﬁng. It may utilise a wide range of media,
environments, learning spaces and technologies for
learning and teaching.

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BLENDED & FLEXIBLE
LEARNING

“Blended and ﬂexible learning” is a design
approach that examines the relationships between
ﬂexible learning opportunities, in order to optimise
student engagement and equivalence in learning
outcomes regardless of mode of study (Keppell,
2010, p. 3).

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BLENDED & FLEXIBLE LEARNING

Course/degree-Level blending

Subject-Level Blending

Activity-Level Blending

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PARADIGMS OF BLENDED
LEARNING
Enabling blends
Access and equity

Enhancing blends
Incremental changes to
the pedagogy

Transforming blends
Transformation of the pedagogy

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ACTIVITY-LEVEL BLENDING IN
PRACTICE
Student Resources Resources
Instructor Role Assessment
Role (Content) (Services)

Allocate reading. Some
Ask students to Read discussion
Off-line read required respective Reading about topic in
reading and post chapter face-to-face
summary in LMS class

Feedback from
Post a one
peers in online
paragraph Student and
discussion.
summary instructor
Discussion Feedback from
Online Facilitator and posts in
forum instructor in
comment discussion
online
on two forum
discussion
other posts
forum.

13

Subject Learning
Interactions Management
System

Blended
Pedagogy Learning Spaces
Learning

Degree
Digital Proﬁciency
Interactions

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SUBJECT & DEGREE
INTERACTIONS

Information access (degree and subject expectations)

Interactive learning (learner-to-content interactions)

Networked learning (learner-to-learner; learner-to-
teacher interactions)

Student-generated content (learner-as-designers;
assessment-as-learning interactions)

(Herrington & Oliver 2001).
15

LEARNING MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
e.g. Moodle, Sakai,
Blackboard
Information access tools
(e.g. subject outline)
Interactive learning tools
(e.g. simulation)
Networked learning tools
(e.g. forums, chats)
Student-generated content
tools (e.g. digital stories)
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PEDAGOGY

Independent learning
Peer learning
Authentic interactions
Learning-oriented
assessment (feedback-as-
feedforward)
Learning outcomes

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DIGITAL PROFICIENCY

Multi-literacies
Information literacy
ICT literacy
e-facilitation strategies
e-moderation strategies
Focussed on teaching staff
and students

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LEARNING SPACES
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LEARNING SPACES

Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that enhance
learning

Physical, blended or virtual ‘areas’ that motivate
learners

Spaces where both teachers and students optimize
the perceived and actual affordances of the
space

Spaces that promote authentic learning
interactions
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DIVERSITY OF LEARNING SPACES

Physical Blended Virtual

Formal Informal Formal Informal

Mobile Personal

Professional
Outdoor
Practice
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FORMAL & INFORMAL SPACES

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Formal Virtual Informal Virtual
Learning Spaces Learning Spaces

Moodle Facebook
Sakai Flickr
Blackboard YouTube
Twitter

Formal Formal
I
Informal
Informal

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PERSONAL LEARNING SPACES

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FLEXIBILITY OF LEARNING SPACES
Flexible learning and teaching spaces allow
adaptability over time for different uses.
Spaces need to be used for students who are both
physically present and students who never visit the
campus.
In addition homes, cars, buses, hotels, cafes become
mobile spaces where the student undertakes
learning.
Studying subject materials while travelling to work via
train or bus may represent the learning space for
some students
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Learning Space Affordance Example

Practical work
Peer interaction Practical work on IT
Residential School
Sense of belonging to networks
university

authentic learning
applied learning in
Practice community of practice
discipline
mentor/mentee

Discussion about
Learning Commons Informal learning 24/7 lecture
Peer learning

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Tools Affordance

information access, interactive
Learning Management Systems
learning, networked learning, student-
(Moodle, Sakai, Blackboard)
generated content

Teleconferences, videoconferences,
synchronous
Skype

Podcasts, vodcasts asynchronous

Web-conferencing tools (e.g.
participation
elluminate, wimba)

web 2.0 tools (YouTube, Facebook, social networking, student-generated
blogs, wikis, Twitter, Flickr, etc) content

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REDEFINING THE SPACE
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http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/ﬂexible-learning/

http://www.ascilite.org.au/
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