Blended Learning and Hybrid Courses

blending tools

If blending learning was only this simple.

I saw a mention of "blended learning" in an article that reminded me of that approach that I once taught and endorsed to faculty. I have not heard the term used much in the past few years, but I am no longer involved full-time in pedagogy.

Blended learning is a pedagogical model integrating traditional face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning experiences. In some ways it was a transitional model going back to the shift from 20th century to 21st century learning. As traditional faculty were being asked to use more online tools or even convert their courses to being fully online, this approach was a softer way to launch.

The idea was to combine the best aspects of in-person and digital education to create a more flexible and personalized learning environment. A Personalized Learning Environment (PLE) was another term that emerged at the time. Probably everyone in and out of academia now has a personalized learning environment of a kind, though it may not be formalized. A PLE was supposed to allow students to benefit from direct interaction with teachers and peers while also taking advantage of the accessibility and resources available through digital platforms.

Key components of blended learning include:

    In-person instruction: Traditional classroom teaching where students engage with teachers and classmates in real-time. 
    Online learning: Use of digital tools and resources, such as videos, interactive activities, and online assessments, that students can access at their own pace.
    Integrated learning activities: Assignments and projects that blend both in-person and online elements to enhance understanding and engagement.
    Flexible pacing: Students can often progress through material at their own speed, allowing for personalized learning experiences.

Some of the advantages associated with blended learning were to provide a more dynamic and adaptive educational experience and addressing diverse learning styles and needs.

An effective blended learning module has a good range of learning activities: on-campus activities, such as lectures, workshops and seminars; off-campus activities, such as field trips, exhibitions, and visits to companies; online synchronous activities; and independent learning activities, such as completing tasks after reading case studies or watching videos.

The article I read was from the UK timeshighereducation.com and had suggested goals for blended learning. In brief, they are:
Find a suitable space when attending online classes
Use digital tools
Create a sense of belonging (a difficult goal because online interactions often feel impersonal and might not be well suited to every student - or faculty member)

One suggestion that interested me the most was to use different types of assessment. This was an area that I worked with faculty on frequently as an instructional designer. Blended learning modules should use a good range of assessment types. It was difficult for many teachers to accept that their main form of assessment was testing, especially objective, knowledge-based tests and quizzes. Written assessments, such as reports and essays, appeared in some courses (especially in the humanities) but were often absent in STEM courses. Faculty would tell me, "They are too subjective." "They take too long to grade" "My course requires them to retain lots of facts that I have to assess." The latter was especially true in foundation courses.

Using online tests and quizzes became more popular because once created they could be automatically scored. Easy for the teacher and immediate feedback for the student.

In-person or recorded presentations were more in the blended model but were time-consuming and more popular in upper-level or graduate courses. Interacting face-to-face with their peers as a team or audience during the presentation is also an important skill. I saw video presentations, e-portfolios, digital projects, posters, podcasts and simulation games all used in blended courses. 

One concept that often met with faculty indifference or opposition was the student-as-co-creator of assignments and assessments, though this can serve as a valuable source to gather student voices and improve their learning experience.

The term "hybrid course" became used more than "blended" but was often the same thing or just used interchangeably. While both models integrate online and offline learning, blended learning is a broader pedagogical approach that can be applied at various levels of education and in different ways. A hybrid course is a specific type of course design commonly used in colleges and universities.

A hybrid course refers to a course that "officially" combines face-to-face (F2F) classroom instruction with online components. The term is commonly used in higher education to describe courses where a significant portion of the learning activities are conducted online, with the remaining portion happening in a physical classroom setting. This becomes an issue concerning the registrar and scheduling areas. A course that met F2F on Tuesday and Thursday from 10:30 - noon may now only be assigned a classroom on one of those days. The goal is still to balance the in-person interaction with the flexibility of online learning, usually reducing the amount of time spent in a physical classroom compared to a traditional course.

Of course, hybrid learning models should not be used simply to free up classroom space or reduce parking issues on campus, but unfortunately, I knew of cases where that was a motivation for using it.

The development of online and blended learning modules got a boost during and after the pandemic. To a degree, that was from necessity and convenience, but it introduced these approaches to more students and more faculty and some of it has remained in use.

Developing the right balance between these different teaching modes varies according to discipline, but a mix of synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (self-paced) online activities, along with in-person classroom sessions.is still the pedagogical approach.

 

Some New Numbers on Artificial Intelligence

A report from IE University in Madrid found that 75% of Europeans support the use of AI technologies such as facial recognition and biometric data by the police and military for surveillance purposes.

The extent of the support is perhaps surprising, as Europe holds some of the strictest data privacy regulations in the world.
IE University’s “European Tech Insights” report also found that the vast majority of Europeans (67%) fear AI manipulation in elections.

IE University’s report also found a generational AI divide in Europe. Roughly a third (34%) of people aged between 18 and 34 would trust an AI-powered app to vote for politicians on their behalf. This figure falls to 29% for people aged 35 to 44, and just 9% for individuals aged 65 and over.

Opinions on AI applications vary widely. The level of support for the use of AI in public service tasks, such as traffic optimization was at 79%. However, when it comes to sensitive matters, like parole decisions, most Europeans (64%) oppose the use of AI.

SOURCE:https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/21/three-in-four-europeans-support-use-of-ai-by-the-police-and-military.html

AI Is Not Your Friend

Though artificial intelligence is not your friend, it should not be solely considered your enemy. Like many technologies, it has it positive and negative aspects and applications.

still from HER

Joaquin Phoenix getting friendly with an AI operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) in the film HER

Amber MacArthur wrote "AI is not your friend. Any friend that stops working when the power goes out is a machine." She is at least partially referring to the idea of people becoming friendly with AI in the way that we saw in the film HER. That film premiered more than a decade ago and now looks like something very much is not only possible but is already happening in many ways.

Amber had a longer post on LinkedIn that she excerpted in her newsletter. Here are a few of her observations: 

  • "AI-based social media platforms are not free speech platforms. These platforms curate, amplify, promote, and - yes - demote. Think about it like yelling in the public town square, but depending on what you say, Elon Musk's army of agents is there to either put a hand over your mouth to quiet you down or give you a megaphone to pump you up."
  • Schools should not ignore or ban all AI applications. "AI training in schools should be a priority since AI skills in the workplace are a priority. Kids who grow up in an age when they are taught that AI is only a threat and not also a tool will be at a competitive disadvantage."
  • On the negative side - "AI warfare is the most frightening reality of our time." And it is already here and guaranteed to increase.
  • On the positive side - "AI healthcare is the most exciting opportunity of our time."

She knows that her list is not definitive and admits that it is "fluid, so if there is something you would like me to add, please let me know on my socials or via email so I can check it out.."

Social Media Attribution

social media screen

When I first started consulting on social media in 2005, I was introducing blogs, wikis, podcasts and the newly -emerging social networks such as Facebook. Both with my academic colleagues and with clients, one of the persistent questions was "How do I know I'm getting any benefit from these social tools?"

Seeing the impact of your social marketing relies on attribution, which is similar to the older metric of ROI (return on investment). Both are sometimes difficult to quantify.

As someone who taught writing for many years, when I first heard the term attribution I thought of giving credit to the original source of information, ideas, images, or language used in a piece of writing. Attribution in writing is important because it shows respect for the work of others, helps to prevent plagiarism and those sources often provide additional information. (see my attribution at the end of this post)

That ROI (return on investment) is a much older dollars-and-cents measurement used well before the Internet and social media For example, you invested $1000 for an advertisement and it produced $5000 in sales. (Some might call that ROAS - Return on Ad Spend - but I'm being simpler here.) Or perhaps, you spent a $1000 on an ad and saw no increase in sales.

Attribution in the social media sense assigns value to the channels that drive an outcome. That might mean dollars but it coukd also be a measurement of a purchase, web visit, download, or subscribing to the site or a newsletter.

It is a bit of reverse engineering or backward design in that you are looking at the effect and trying to determine the cause.

My own tracking of the referring sites for posts on this site allows me to see if traffic to a post came from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, one of my blogs or just a search engine. When someone finds me via Google, I can see what search terms they used. Those results can be surprising. I might get a surge of traffic from a search that found the mention of "Erik Satie" or "flat web design" or "social media attribution."

I have little control about search engine attributions, but I can control what I post on social media and how I word the posts.

touchpoints

Attribution is generally broken down as being in three modes:
Last-touch,
First-touch
Multi-touch attribution.
(Take a look at this diagram from digitalthought.me about more on multi-touch models called Even, Time Decay, Weighted, Algorithmic, etc.)

The first-touch attribution credits the first marketing touchpoint. For example, you run an ad and monitor how many contacts came from that ad.

 

Last-touch attribution credits the channel that a lead went through just before converting. Maybe you ran an ad on Facebook which someone later tweeted and the lead came from the Tweet that linked to your site for a purchase, so Twitter gets the attribution.

Last-touch is easier to measure, but both single-touch models fail to show the complete and sometimes circuitous customer journey. That's why multi-touch attribution is used. This gets much more complicated and more difficult to track. More complicated than the scope of this post. But as an example, the time decay attribution gives more weight to touchpoints closer to the final conversion event. If your original ad is the starting point but the final purchase came after a tweet that was retweeted and then posted as a link in someone's blog a week later, the blog gets more credit (as a personal endorsement) than the ad although obviously none of this would have happened without the ad.

Back to that question I started getting in 2005. It is important to remind clients that social media used for marketing and as engagement and brand-building may not always generate leads or sales directly but rather indirectly. Getting visitors to your site alone is a kind of success. It may not lead to sales (ROI) immediately, but it increases awareness of your brand for the future.

I will crosspost this on my business blog, Ronkowitz LLC, and measure which post gets the best results.

Attribution is more complicated than this primer, so you might want to check out these sources: