Blended Instruction

Introduction

Having looked at some apps we can use in our language classrooms, this week I wish to draw your attention to another important concept trending in education systems across the world. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in late 2019 and put most aspects of life we all considered normal on hold for the last two years, the world has had to adjust its various operations. Traditional classroom interactions have had to be replaced by virtual ones in the education sector to ensure learning continued during the disruption. In the developing world like my country, where access to technology is still limited, the pandemic literally shut down learning activities for a couple of months or more. With the pandemic seemingly easing off, and having experienced both online learning and face-to-face teaching, we need to give prominence to Blended Instruction. Blended Learning or Instruction is described as the integration of the strengths of both traditional face-to-face instruction and Computer-Mediated Instruction in the delivery of education.

Types of Blended Instruction 

There are two major models of blended learning: Flipped Classrooms and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). 

Flipped Classroom 

"Flipped Classroom is a type of blended learning where students are introduced to content at home and practice working through it at school." Bergman and Sams (2007). It is a pedagogical approach in which conventional classroom-based learning is inverted (flipped) by providing learning access to materials before class and using class time to deepen their understanding through discussion with peers and the teacher, and problem-solving activities in a seminar format online or face-to-face.  The content availed in advance can range from recorded video lesson presentations, texts, pictures, graphs and or audio recordings. During scheduled seminars, the teacher leads a discussion of the materials accessed online before the interaction or engages learners in tasks aimed at demonstrating their understanding of the content through application and problem-solving. 

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)

These are platforms through which lessons are prepared, delivered and evaluated using multimedia tools like texts, images, videos and audio. They include Edmondo, Moodle, Genially and so on.  On the one hand, VLEs allow school, college or university students to access materials at home or hostel before class time through their devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. On the other hand, they enable the teacher to create content for various classroom activities, check learner engagement with the materials and evaluate both the learner and the material remotely. 

An Effective Blended Learning Checklist 

At this point, let's discuss what makes an effective blended learning model. How can you tell that it is working well? There are seven critical elements involved:

Clear Learning Objectives: Before implementing a BI system, you should identify and clearly define the learning objectives of the model for three crucial reasons:

(a) to provide learners with a clear roadmap and expectations 

(b) to help content developers with a sense of direction

(c) to help school/institutional managers understand topics to be covered and how they will be delivered. 

The Right Delivery Mode: It is important to consider and clearly state whether a particular or hybrid delivery model will be adopted.

Flexible accessibility: Blended learning's success will be determined by the degree of flexibility it offers for learners to access content and teachers/tutors to develop and make available digital content to deliver maximum results.  

Micro-learning task and design and materials: Every instruction model is meant to enable learners to access knowledge in the most convenient of ways. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that learning activities conform to the material design conventions and curriculum standards. Tasks should be engaging enough for the learners. 

Learners: Learners' ability to access and use technological devices for learning is crucial. Therefore, considerable input from the learners should be obtained to tailor the system to the tech skill level.

Teachers/tutors: Members of staff who will be involved in content development, delivery and evaluating learning should have a clear understanding of how the model will work to achieve their course goals. 

Assessment and Evaluation: A deliberate decision should be made on when, how and by who the blended learning programme will be evaluated to check its effectiveness and impact on all stakeholders.  It should also be clear how learners will be assessed for both the online and face-to-face activities. 

Content Creation Applications

There are many applications today that can be used to create content for blended learning programmes and fall into two categories: Apps for Adding Interaction and Apps with Interactive Content. 

Applications for Adding Interaction held create content in multimedia which learners access at any time. This category has many apps including H5P, Genially, Xerte, Blendspace, Hot Potatoes and forms with stream videos. Because I am still exploring the others, I invite you to check the content I created in H5P on Vocabulary 

Applications with Interactive Content are platforms through which learners interact with each other and teacher in real-time. This category includes discussion forums, Wikis, Quizizz, gap-fill, drag and drops and so on. Interaction can take a form of a quiz or topical discussion. 

Pedagogical Advantages of Blended Learning 

There are many benefits for both teachers and learners of blended instruction but key among them are:

Increased Learner Participation - Blended learning offers learners who have participation difficulties in a traditional face-to-face classroom a chance to participate in virtual platforms freely.  

Flexible Accessibility - Since content is continually available online, learners can access it from any location and at any time. Teachers can equally modify any part of the content from anywhere when it is convenient to do so. 

Personalised Learning - Since the teacher can monitor learner participation and performance, struggling learners can receive personalised learning confidentially to improve. 

Collaboration - Because the material is available to every learner, it makes it easy for all of them to collaborate on tasks and foster teamwork. 

Easy Evaluation - Since paper tests and examinations take a lot of time and resources, online ones are easy to administer and provide feedback.

Reporting and Tracking - Teachers can easily track and report the participation and performance of learners in various tasks. 

Improved Efficiency - with appropriate content and proper perimeters in place, blended learning is said to improve teacher efficiency. 

Constraints of Blended Learning 

Despite the great benefits that come with blended instructions, there are shortcomings one should be aware of.

Tracking and Reporting - Some learners may find the tracking of their engagement with online material a violation of their privacy. How the teacher handles those who have challenges accessing the materials may make or break their learning. Ironically, this is both a good and bad thing. 

Access to Technology -  Devices required by learners to access materials outside the classroom may not be equally available to all learners. In low income and low tech countries like Zambia, this group constitutes the majority. 

Infrastructural Challenges - Many schools in our country do not have the infrastructure to fully implement blended learning.

Conclusion 

With increased uncertainty in the world, institutions of learning need to carefully consider fully embracing blended learning to improve their efficiency. Challenges are expected and some cases appear insurmountable, but I think it is truly worth the thought.  Let me know what you think in the comments section below.