Blended Learning, Course Redesign and New Access to Education Anders Norberg Education Analyst Umeå University Or: Time and Space in education is now changing.

Blended Learning, Course Redesign and

New Access to Education

Anders Norberg

Education Analyst

Umeå University

Or:

Time and Space in education is now changing

Or:

New Education logistics

This course, XYZ101, is it a normal course?

Well, what do You mean by ”normal”?

I mean a face-to-face (F2F) course?

Well, people meet now and then…

So it is a distance course?

Well, both people close and far participate…

I mean, is it a course online?

It is more of a ”blended learning” course

What do You mean ”blended”? Half-distance?

Common and unreflected categorisation of education distribution models…

• In classroom• ”Face-to-face”• On campus• Young, ordinary

fulltime students• Not much ICT• Normality

• ”Online”• ”On the Internet”• Somewhere else• Untraditional

students, part time• Very much ICT• Project

How can we put the puzzle pieces together again? How can we get a new overview? How to move on?

…and ICT in a campus course is then ”blended learning”, on ”half-distance”?

Two basic formal learning traditions

• One synchronous, co-localised, social and real-time-teacher-led kind, in classrooms and lecture halls. Normality!

• One asynchronous, ”distance teaching” more individual and sometimes more impersonal and more demanding kind. Project based, always questionned!

But even normal students work mostly asynchronously?

We always learn here and now, wherever we are…!?

Some distance students are close, some normal students are far away?

..and what is a reasonable ”blend” …and what is it good for?

Presently 4 education distribution models at Umeå University:

1. Campus/classroom-based (same place + time)

2. ”Decentralised”/classroom based (same/different place+time)

3. Distance education to groups in learning centres, often video conference-based (different place, same time)

4. Asynchronous web education (different places and times, VLE supported)

…but I think there soon will be only two..

Some problems with education outside Umeå campus

DECENTRALISED AND ”DISTANCE” ed• Different education cultures (normality/project)• Group size problem: The traditional class/ group size is to big to

recruit to continuously and to big for local work market• Too few education possibilities in each town /village• The ”academy feeling” is not inherent in the walls in a new

education environment

ASYNCHRONOUS WEB ed• Too much loneliness in studies • Insufficent social support• Too much procrastination (flexible things can be done later…) • Often too much motivation and self-discipline demanded of students• Students don´t complete their courses

We use ICT (Information and

Communications Technologies)as a delivery truck

for education

…is that really all it is good for?

ICT for transport?ICT for quality?

…in education

Another categorisation; University of Central Florida

New information technology

• Over-estimation of short-term effects?

• Under-estimation of long-term effects?

When printing was invented, what if contemporary people were asked…• Is this going to threathen and split up the

Catholic Church?

• Is this going to foster freedom of thought and democracy?

• Is this going to promote the advancement of science?

• Is this going to cause unemployment among the university teachers?

Looking back on formal education and it´s tools…

• ”Course” – as a defined skill or knowledge to obtain (apprentice system…) …as old as civilisation?

• Teacher /students + isolation/classroom + time + writing (Sumer, 4000 BC)

• Organised learning discussion– Plato/Aristotle 300BC• Teaching groups at a distance – St Paul, 40-70 Ad• ”Dictatio”,”Disputatio”, ”Lectio”, ”Reportatio” - Paris,

Bologna, 1100-1400• Printed texts 1480f• Distance teaching (correspondence) 1750 • Crayon board, Laterna Magica, film, radio, tv, video, CD-

roms, email, Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)

”Blended”? – of which components?

• Face-to-face (F2F) and ”distance”• Classroom and web?• Classroom pedagogy and net pedagogy?• Different kinds of students?• Work and studies?• Mix of all suitable teaching/learning tools? (CR)• Balancing synchronous (at the same time) and

asynchronous (not-at-the-same-time) elements?(Time-based blended learning)

Perhaps ”Blended Learning” is a ”boundary object”, as ”net generation”, ”regional growth”, etc?

Blended Learning – or ”ICT-supported normal education”…?

No big news, really:Shifting of synchronous and asynchronous components in a

teacher-led course, as almost always?

But now: 1) We support the asynchronous part more (With Virtual

Learning Environments, etc)2) We connect the synchronous and asynchronous better3) We move things between synchronous and asynchronous

domains4) We use more forms of synchronous meetings: classrooms,

video-conference, telephone, e-meeting, etc

By location• Students here • Students near • Students farAnd/or• Students, motivated and experienced• Students just attending and passing coursesAnd/or• Net generation• Mature learnersAnd/or…different learning styles

Categorisation of students in education distribution?

”Students here, near and far” (UCF)

• HERE: within reasonable daily commuting distance to some of UmU:s campuses, and with all day at disposal

• NEAR: North Sweden outside commuting distance to campus and or working students with some daytime accessible

• FAR: Nationally, globally and/or students that are occupied all day

New categorisation: Two Education distribution forms

1 Asynchronous web-based education: no times, no places – demanding but flexible. Global offering of university specialities and for studies at work. Students FAR

2 ”Blended learning”, X – everything else, scalable and adaptable after actual needs. Shifting of synchronous (same time) och asynchronous (not at the same time) course components. Highly adaptable. Students HERE och NEAR= Courses where a teacher leads, adjusts, helps and inspires step by step and helps students to distribute study work over time, a more social kind of learning

Is there a ”flexibility paradox”?

If we develop a course with ICT for transportation of it, it does not easily develop in quality, but if we develop a course with ICT for quality, we get a more flexible course a a bonus…?

So many of the flexible courses of the future are perhaps the normal campus courses – both for use on campus and on learning centres and at work places

The ”COMBINED STUDY GROUP”

• Main group at a campus, • Satellite group at a learning centre,• Individuals at workplaces

– in the same course group

We have a lot of these study group setups already at Umeå university…to our own surprise!

Course Redesign, priorities

• Improve learning, not costs, with ICTmore• …convenience and rationality for students• …social component in learning• …reflection on course content• …feedback on student work• …study work distribution during course period• …time on task• …more multimedial course material• …more buffet – like, for different learners with different

needs

Why Course Redesign?To improve learning and lower

costs in existing courses with help of ICT tools

•

●       For being able to scale education solutions up and down, eliminate waiting lists, cope with classroom shortage, etc. Elasticity.

●       To increase learning in a course that has ended up in a ”convenience state”.

•●       To improve student results and flow through courses 

●       To increase student activity without higher cost. As a general rule of thumb: only actions that increases student activity are worth higher spending.

●       To increase the possibility to individualisation of learning, by using ICT solutions to lower costs for easy things.

●       To prolong time-on-task for all students in a course. A clear relation exists between time-on-task and good study results. (?)

• ●       To accomplish better accessibility for students with other time-space conditions 

●       To make social interaction in course matters for all mandatory/ possible (not all really participates in classroom discussions)

●       To easier localise which students are in need of help and support (with help of ICT analytic tools)

●       To increase the individual students elasticity in studies (possibility to choose how to follow lectures, how long time to spend on them etc)

●       To enable or make necessary the teamwork of teachers in big courses / group of similar courses, transforming them from “my course” to “our course”, which makes distribution of work possible

• ●       To increase group size for some components in a course, foracquiring the resources to make some groups smaller, etc

Course Redesign, standard methods

- Describe problems and measure everything before and after changes in a course

- Redesign is for the course as a whole

• Supplemental (some components are put online)

• Replacement (replaces some classroom activities with web-based)

• Emporium (Student activity with guidance)

• Fully online (no classroom meetings)

• Buffet (Students can choose how to study, etc)

• Linked workshops (Students that need extra help can easily get it)

See more on www.thencat.org

What to expect for untraditional study environments?

• Better access to education• More study alternatives to choose from, everywhere• Possibility to host smaller groups than now – with good

economy • Concentration periods on campus or in labs, etc• More defined flexibility in course offerings• More students options / convenience within courses• More of ”social” distributed education• More local-central cooperation• More cooperation between universities in education

…but also some new problems..

• Groups / Individuals When education options are overwhelming everywhere – how do You form a study group at a learning centre in something that your community needs?

• Local support How do You form good local study support, good mentoring and connection to local companies and how to cooperate with universities in this?

Thank You!

[email protected]

As good as…?

• US Dep of Education 2009,Meta-study of 51 studies in higher education:

• Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

• Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.

Is a distance course as good as a normal one?

• 355 studies from 1927 to 2001:

• Thomas L. Russell: ”The No Significant Difference Phenomenon”, 2001

• http://www.nosignificantdifference.org

…as good as…?

• University of Central Florida. ”Research Initiative on Teaching Effectiveness” (Chuck Dziuban, Patsy Moskal)

The results vary depending on course subjects, students, teachers, departments

…but purely face-to-face studies is now gone…

Umeå university in Northern Sweden

• ”An Academy in the big forest” – big university in the sparsely populated half of Sweden

• ”Blended learning” and what that can mean for us in foresee-able future

• Time and Space in formal education – yesterday and today

• What ICT in education changes and not changes (now)

• Changing mainstream education so it fills more flexibility needs

• We now have tools for teaching and learning that we could not imagine before

• We perhaps need some metaphor and/or paradigm change to move on