Blended Learning and Online Tutoring

Planning Learner Support and Activity Design

Janet MacDonald

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351955218
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Métodos de enseñanza de la educación

Blended learning provides the flexibility to accommodate the varied requirements of pedagogies, disciplines and levels of course, together with the needs of a wide variety of learners. However, anyone concerned with the integration of online tutoring to support students appropriately may need to reassess current practice. This book adopts a pragmatic and common-sense approach to blended learning by situating the use of online media within a well-grounded teaching and learning strategy. It provides practical ideas for the successful implementation of blended strategies, including good practice in both asynchronous and synchronous tutoring, appropriate assessment design for developing successful blended learners, and innovative approaches to professional development for distance tutors. It is illustrated with a wide variety of examples and comments from students and practitioners in both distance and campus-based environments in 13 different countries. Since the first edition was published in 2006, there has been great interest in Web 2.0 technologies and their potential for use in an educational environment. This second edition has therefore incorporated many new examples of good practice, making use of a combination of tried and tested tools as well as blogs and wikis for supporting students. There has also been a recent rise in the use of activity-based learning and interest in its potential for supporting students in distance and online environments. The new edition incorporates many new exemplars of learning activity design in Part Three, to illustrate approaches to the development of critical, independent learners.

Chapter 1
Introduction

The word ‘blended’ is not particularly scientific, or even academic. In fact, you might feel that it sounds rather more like an entry from a recipe book. At the same time, it is currently widely in use by practitioners in both academic and commercial sectors, and I believe it has some good common-sense value in bringing to the fore the wide variety and richness of situations in which learning takes place. It can encourage us to stop and think about the whole context of teaching and learning, so that we remember the human element in tutorials, or perhaps incidents such as chance meetings in the corridor, as critical parts of the package alongside any technology-mediated intervention with a group.

With changes in student demography, increasingly large classes, and a growth in part-time study, many course developers and tutors are turning to online media for teaching and learning. However, challenges and tensions arise where institutions are also concerned with widening access and retention. Very often tutors find that online approaches do not work quite as the books say they should. There are questions to address. Is online learning appropriate for all my students; does it represent a cost-effective use of the tutor’s time; are we supporting our students, or abandoning them? In this chapter I set out some of the issues, then outline what the book contains and who I think might be interested in reading it.

Distance Technologies: Potential and Pitfalls

Distance technologies have opened up new potential in higher education, and the literature is full of enthusiastic predictions. For example, networks offer scope for new ways to access and combine information using the limitless resources of the Web. Students at a distance, or separated from their peers for other reasons, no longer need to work in isolation but can join other learners in an electronically supported community. These developments offer the possibilities to develop greater self-direction in learners and to move away from teacher-directed approaches to teaching and learning. Instead of receiving information or knowledge from the teacher, students can be encouraged to seek out information for themselves and to develop their understanding by reflecting on course concepts with their peers. In these new approaches, there is a greater importance attached to understanding, rather than simply memorising and reproducing facts.

These are optimistic horizons, and conjure up a halcyon view of networked study. At the same time, we know that not all students like learning exclusively online, or perhaps the experience was not quite what they expected. They may not participate fully and can even vote with their feet. There are serious health warnings in terms of student retention on some courses which wholeheartedly embrace online learning.

It is time we looked at good practice in online tutoring in the context of what we know about our students, what else we do with them, how we support them, and what other opportunities they have for learning from each other. It makes sense: after all, the experience of studying online while sitting in a computer lab, with the possibility of exchanging ideas or the odd joke with fellow students sitting next to you will be very different to that of students who are studying at home, with only a computer for company.

Blended Learning and Blended Teaching Strategies

Blended learning is something of a hot topic nowadays, but like the term ‘e-learning’, everyone has a different understanding of what it means. Early references to blended learning come from industry and workplace learning, although recently it has become more widely adopted in higher education (HE) institutions. The term is commonly associated with the introduction of online media into a course or programme, while at the same time recognising that there is merit in retaining face-to-face contact and other traditional approaches to supporting students. It is also used where asynchronous media such as email, forums, blogs or wikis are deployed in conjunction with synchronous technologies, commonly text chat or audio.

Blended learning seems to have arisen from a general sense of disillusionment with the stand-alone adoption of online media. Many people felt that the promise of online media was somehow unfulfilled. In fact, Mason (2002) comments: ‘… the earlier e-learning adopters have come full circle in rejecting an “either or” view of learning online versus face-to-face … so called blended solutions often offer the most satisfactory outcomes’. Laurillard (2002) suggests that a balance of media is essential to make learning and teaching effective, and the information and communications technology (ICT) element is unlikely to contribute to more than 50 per cent of the total strategy.

In this book, I discuss the effective support of student learning by focusing first on the academic purpose of intervention, which will be influenced in turn by course learning objectives and student needs. The adoption of communication tools or of activity in a classroom follows from this understanding of what the course designer is trying to achieve. That choice will also be influenced by the institutional environment and the alternatives available: attendance for classroom activity is far easier to achieve for a partially campus-based course than it might be for a course which is exclusively for distance students. In this way I describe blended learning as the principled adoption of strategies and media to support course objectives and enhance responsiveness to student needs.

I intend to develop a more detailed description of the characteristics of blended learning later in this book, but I should point out that there has already been much useful and relevant work in the field, from people who have not used the term blended learning, and yet refer to the same or very similar concepts. For example, papers on online or networked learning very often refer incidentally to the use of synchronous face-to-face or telephone tuition sessions, alongside the use of online asynchronous learning.

Networked learning in undergraduate education in the UK is rarely – probably never – used without some kind of opportunities for face-to-face interaction. The tendency is to find ways of blending CMC [computer-mediated communication] with more traditional forms of activity, seeking to get the best from a mix of different methods. (Goodyear et al., 2005)

Another term with similar connotations is ‘distributed learning’, meaning a convergence of traditional distance and on-campus education. In fact, one of the most fascinating aspects of blended strategies is this convergence of interests between traditional campus-based learning, and open and distance learning. With the introduction of online media and with changing student markets and a greater emphasis on lifelong learning, the two contexts are not as far apart as they once were. However, access issues in a campus-based environment are likely to be very different to those faced by distance students.

For distance institutions such as the Open University (UK) where I work, or for campus-based institutions with distance students, the motivation for adopting blended strategies may hinge on the choice of both synchronous and asynchronous alternatives to face-to-face tutorials as a strategy to accommodate the varying geographical or temporal challenges faced by our students. With the widespread use of online media in the population at large, and the exciting educational opportunities that they offer, we are looking at new ways of supporting students and reassessing what we do currently. On the other hand, for campus-based staff whose students are readily available for face-to-face intervention, the emphasis may be on supplementing class contact time and providing enhanced opportunities for supporting a wide diversity of student needs. I believe that as academic communities we have much to learn from each other.

What this Book Contains

Part I of this book concentrates on current practice in blended learning, in both campus-based and distance institutions. In Chapters 2 and 3, I discuss a study of Open University tutors’ strategies for supporting students, and their reflections on what they value in their contact with students. They describe a variety of approaches to supporting students, for a wide range of reasons, and their reflections underline the fact that no single intervention strategy using one medium could possibly support all students effectively.

Chapters 4 and 5 describe a survey of current practice in blended learning in 50 universities and colleges, primarily in Europe and Australasia. The adoption of blended learning and the use of a variety of technologies are influenced by various pragmatic and pedagogic concerns, illustrated here with extracts from those who contributed to the survey.

Part II describes practical ways of using online tools for supporting students in both asynchronous and synchronous environments. Online forums, blogs and wikis can be used for tutor-mediated support in a variety of ways. The purpose of the group and its membership have implications for the extent of student participation, the roles of the moderator, and the time needed to support students. Chapters 6 and 7 cover best practice in the use of online asynchronous tools.

The deployment of synchronous time with students is probably one of the most difficult issues to resolve when designing a blended teaching strategy. In campus-based environments, synchronous intervention has long been associated with the delivery of content, although in many cases other elements of student support have come into play. The move to adopt new patterns of content delivery and support demands a critical appraisal of how synchronous elements can best contribute to the support of students. This is particularly important for distance students, where synchronous meetings may be problematic. Although Chapters 8 and 9 concentrate on the use of synchronous media, there are implications for new ways in which face-to-face sessions might also be used.

Part III covers approaches to learning development for students who will study online as part of a blended course. Very often such courses demand a degree of self-direction and motivation which may be unfamiliar to those who were previously used to traditional models of education. Chapter 10 describes student perspectives, and Chapter 11 concentrates on coherent course design, which ensures that the various learning activities and interventions are aligned with course learning objectives and authentic assessment design. Finally, in Chapters 12 to 14, I discuss three interrelated areas in the development of competent blended learners: e-investigating, e-writing and e-collaborating, and illustrate this with a variety of practical designs for developing competence and self-direction through activity-based learning and assessment.

I have emphasised the central role of the tutor in a blended strategy. If tutors are to be deployed in new roles, then they need appropriate training and professional development. Chapter 15 describes tutors’ perspectives on blended learning, and the practical constraints facing staff developers. It goes on to discuss a variety of strategies that have been used to provide formal and informal approaches to staff development.

Who this Book is for

I have written this book for practitioners who are contemplating blended learning and online tutoring for their course, or staff developers who wish to encourage others. I hope it is a practical book. I have tried to steer away from armfuls of references to learned articles, but at the same time have been anxious to base my observations on the excellent work on student learning which has been undertaken by many of my colleagues as well as my own research.

I may be based in a distance-learning university, but remain firmly convinced of the ground which we have in common with campus institutions. I hope this book will find application and a readership in both camps.

A Personal Reflection

I have lived with this book for the last year. It has been a formative experience for me, and has led me to think long and hard about the relationship between asynchronous and synchronous events, and the way in which I myself work or study.

In the process of writing this book I began to realise how much the process of writing is divided between a synchronous element, as I put ‘pen to paper’, and an asynchronous element, as I revised subsequent drafts and rethought ways of expressing concepts and explaining ideas at odd times of the day or night.

When I was a research student and working some 300 miles from my supervisors on campus, I remember well how much I valued our monthly telephone conversations. For routine communication and even data collection on asynchronous forums, there was no problem with my geographical location. However, after a few weeks of asynchronous working, my progress slowed to a standstill because I felt so isolated and alone. A telephone conversation was enough to get me started again: it worked like a tonic, every time.

In my working life at the Open University, often in touch with colleagues who are geographically remote, it has made me think about the value and centrality of the personal element in the working environment, and the importance of going out of my way to make opportunities to meet people face to face, or over the telephone, since we otherwise rely so heavily on asynchronous contact through email, with all its capacity for misunderstandings.

A blend of the two just makes life a bit more bearable.

Resources

Goodyear, P., Jones, C., Asensio, M., Hodgson, V. and Steeples, C. (2005) ‘Networked learning in higher education: students’ expectations and experiences’. Higher Education, 50 (3), pp. 473–508.

Laurillard, D. (2002) Rethinking University Teaching. A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies (London; Routledge, second edition).

Mason, R. (2002) E-learning: What have we learnt? Improving student learning using learning technology. Proceedings of the 2001 9^th International Student Learning Symposium, pp. 27–34.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Preface to Second Edition
• 1 Introduction
• PART I APPROACHES TO BLENDED LEARNING
• PART II ONLINE TUTORING
• PART III DEVELOPING INDEPENDENT LEARNERS: ACTIVITY DESIGN
• Appendix 1 Blended Learning Case Studies
• Bibliography
• Index