According to researchers from Canada’s York University, the demand for blended learning is growing. A survey 2,121 students in 34 courses, revealed that 48 percent of their students wanted to take blended courses, while 40 percent wanted to take classes in person.
Getting to this point will not be easy. In addition to getting students move from the passive sit and get to the go and show of active learning, blended learning requires that organizational leaders will also need to address the following 5 key hurdles:
Make sure that institutional, faculty and student goals match up.
Provide policies, one-on-one training and technology infrastructure to support faculty.
Bring key deans, provosts and other university leaders on board.
Meet each type of faculty technology adopter where they are and tailor approaches accordingly.
Evaluate blended learning’s effect on student outcomes in order to give the “early majority” faculty something concrete to factor into their decision.
While these factors are key there are two more fundamental issues that can stop blended learning in its tracks – time and space. Redesigning a course to use the blended learning model takes significant time and unless given release time to make these changes many faculty are not able to do this type of redesign “off the sides of their desk”. A lack of time is another factor for students. Blended learning involves significant amounts of active learning which requires a much higher time commitment from the learner. They must do more of the work. Not all students are aware of this time commitment and with families, full time jobs and the pressures of life there are just not enough hours in the day. This is often compounded by the fact that many instructors new to blended learning will add blended learning activities to already full schedules instead replacing activities.
These blended learning activities that make up the classroom component of the blend will often require collaboration or group activities and many organizations do not have enough flexible space that will allow for group work. Lecture halls and most classroom are configured for the passive reception of information. While these traditional settings can still be use to allow peer based instructions and other minimal forms of collaboration most blended learning activities will require flexible space.
While these two additional challenges are significant they are not insurmountable. With help from instructional design specialists the issues of time for student assignments can be addressed. The issues of release time for course development or redesign can also be address with proper curriculum planning. Educational institutions have begun exploring flexible learning spaces and the learning space literature is filled with examples of how to move forward so this challenge also be addressed.
Implementing blended learning across the entire institutions is challenging but it is worth the effort. It is our responsibility to ensure that we creating the best learning environment for our learners and blended learning is one of the ways we can do this.
In a skype meeting this morning I was asked the question – Are you a constructivist? I hesitated briefly and responded “Yes, I think I am.” I went onto to add… I am If you hold that a constructivist is one who believes we learn by making meaningful connections.
I have been pondering my hesitation and attribute it to the fact that I was debating whether or not go into the full blow definition of contructivism or use the shorthand definition that I have been using most recently- we learn by making meaningful connections.
As a result of this exchange I have reviewed Jerome Bruner’s (1960) definition of learning which states:
Learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to “go beyond the information given”.
An active process of constructing new ideas based on new and old information is what I mean when I state learning is the making of meaningful connections. It has been over 20 years since I first studied Bruner’s work and recognized that his definition of learning and his theory of instruction offered a sound foundation for creating significant learning environments. It is good to reflect on where our current beliefs come from and to confirm how we have grown and developed those beliefs.
No hesitation this time – I am a constructivist even in the classical sense.
What are you? What are your learning beliefs based on? When was the last time you revisited those foundational ideas?
In the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology article Engagement with Electronic Portfolios: Challenges from the Student Perspective the authors point to student disillusionment with the fact that they all too often are being asked to do something, create an eportfolio, which most instructors have not done. The following response from a student focus group session reveals students frustration in the fact that instructors are talking the talk but now walking the walk when it come to using eportfolios:
In terms of promotion the problem is the people trying to explain it have probably never used it so in a way they have no clue what they are talking about, basically. To put it frankly – after listening to them you would be like, Okay so you as an outsider who never even used it is telling us we should do this because it is the best thing since sliced bread but you have never used it – you can’t find someone who did use it – you don’t have enough information to tell us how to use it – and now you’re telling us use it and we’ll grade you on it – this kind of makes it hard for students to accept or appreciate it.
I have been keeping an eportfolio since the late 90’s. Unfortunately, my earlier work was maintained on sites that I did not control and when I left those organizations I was not able to take my work. Therefore my current site www.harapnuik.org archives only go back to 2009. Lessons learned — take control of your domain and site and ensure that you can take your work with you.
Rather then attempt to explain what goes into an eportfolio I am going to offer the following list of examples. You will note significant diversity in the way the sites are setup, the content that is covered and the levels of sophistication. The common factor is that each of these eportfolios highlights the authors personal, professional and social interests and passion for sharing their ideas and experiences.
Levi Harapnuik – My Life as an Extreme Athlete. Levi’s started his eportfolio in primary school and after graduating from high school started to shape his portfolio to help him gain sponsorship for his Down Hill Mountain Bike racing career. The following post and video point to the advantages keeping an eportfolio http://www.levibikes.com/how-my-blog-has-helped-me/
Levi’s main site: http://www.levibikes.com Undergraduate Students Eportfolios:
Roselynn Verwoord’s Electronic Portfolio highlights and shares the work that she is doing with a diverse community of educators, community-based practitioners and researchers, and policy makers, at both the local and international level. http://blogs.ubc.ca/rverwoord/
Rebecca Lynn Taylor – Graduate student teaching portfolio: Graduate student developing a portfolio for professional development https://rebeccalynntaylor.wordpress.com/
George Couros – The Principal of Change: Stories of learning and leading http://georgecouros.ca/blog/
Related Youtube Video – Blog as Portfolio #leadership20
Erin Klien uses her background in teaching and program development to create ideas to infuse technology enhanced activities that directly correlate to the common core national standards. http://www.kleinspiration.com/
Professors/Instructors and Academic Professional Eportfolios:
Tony Bates personal site for resources in online learning and distance education. Perhaps one of the best Academic Professional sites. http://www.tonybates.ca/
Karen L. Kelsky, Ph.D. spent 15 years as an R1 tenured professor, department head, and university advisor, and will tell you the truth about grad school, the job market, and tenure. http://theprofessorisin.com/
Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on K-12 school technology leadership issues. http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
Kevin Corbett’s site highlights his professional interests as they relate to the Internet, education & media technologies. http://kevincorbett.com/
Michael Stephens – Tame the Web site focuses on emerging trends, tools and processes driving change in library and information communities. http://tametheweb.com/
Tony Karrer’s eLearning Blog on e-Learning Trends eLearning 2.0 Personal Learning Informal Learning eLearning Design Authoring Tools Rapid e-Learning Tools Blended e-Learning e-Learning Tools Learning Management Systems (LMS) e-Learning ROI and Metrics http://elearningtech.blogspot.ca/
Alec Couros – Open Thinking and Digital Pedagogy is Alec’s personal and professional blogging. Alec is a professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/
Dr. Helen Barrett – No list would be complete without an acknowlegement of Dr. Barretts work with Electronic Portfolios and Digital Storytelling for lifelong and life wide learning. http://electronicportfolios.org/
Luke Wroblewski – LukeW is an internationally recognized digital product leader who has designed and built software used by more than one billion people worldwide. The simplicty and elegence of Lukes site is impressive. http://www.lukew.com/
Innovative Educator – Lisa Nielsen is currently a director of digital engagement and professional learning and an advocate for changing the future of education. Her blog is a great example of a professional eportfolio. http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.ca/
References:
Tosh, D., Light, T. P., Fleming, K., & Haywood, J. (2005). Engagement with electronic portfolios: Challenges from the student perspective. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology/La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie, 31(3).
With more than 60% of websites still NOT using a CMS the 24.1% of all the websites that do, use WordPress. This gives the WordPress 60.2% of the market share.
One more reason why WordPress should be considered as an excellent platform for a learning eportfolio.
