About the Author
Kristin Pepper is a Part-Time Instructor with the
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.
An Impression of Blended Teaching
Kristin Pepper
I no longer spend class periods watching some students play solitaire while others struggle to keep up with the class. Students can now spend some class days at home or in the library, using online tutorials and assignments to learn at their own pace. My “Introduction to Information Technology and Their Applications” course is now taught in a blended format, with some days held online and some in the classroom. Blended teaching presents many challenges and rewards, both for the students and for the professor.
Motivation
While Adelphi’s motivation in offering blended courses may have partially been to free up classroom space, my motivation started out with the thought of being able to do more work from home so I could spend more time with my young child. I also saw online teaching as a solution to the less exciting "watch me and do what I do" exercises that are so necessary to teaching students how to find their way around the personal computer and its applications. Moreover, students would learn the technology I was teaching by using it largely outside the classroom environment, so they would be better prepared to continue using and expanding their skills upon completion of the course.
I also hoped it would address the problem of handling the broad range of skills students brought to the course. The students who take the course range from experienced computer users who are already familiar with much of the material to computer novices who are learning their way around the keyboard for the first time. This situation presents the challenge of preventing boredom in experienced students without frustrating novices. I wanted the blended format to enable experienced students to tackle advanced assignments more independently while novices could opt to work more slowly with a great deal of instruction.
The students’ view
An anonymous survey completed by 60 students from two sections of the blended course during the 2006 spring semester revealed that over 80% of them would like to take a blended course again in a subject where they had some prior knowledge. Of these students, over 50% would always prefer a blended course over a regular classroom course. Many did report, though, that they were sometimes frustrated while working on assignments on their own.
Here are some benefits shared by responding students:
- Learning to work harder and not to give up easily when figuring out how to do things.
- Becoming more efficient independent learners (They correctly perceived the need to learn independently on the job later.)
- Benefiting from extra help during small group sessions
- Learning how to control and take better care of their own computers
- Improving time management skills and working through technical problems
- Working early and then sleeping
- Working at their own pace
Helping students succeed in the blended environment
A few sessions into my very first blended course, I surveyed the class and was overwhelmed by their frustration. They found the amount and placement of assignments confusing. They were extremely frustrated when they couldn’t solve an online assignment immediately even if I had only instructed them to give it a try.
I changed many assignments, so that a smaller number covered the same amount of material. This change helped students stay on task without feeling overwhelmed by the list of assignments due each class. I also labeled activities differently, presenting a clearer overview of what was due in each session, and handed out some printed instructions for assignments. These structural changes resulted in students being much more comfortable with the environment.
Offering optional class time on the more difficult online days also helped. On those days, students who found the assignments too difficult to complete on their own could come to class to receive small group instruction and practice. About half the students in the class reported that the optional days added value to the course. Enabling students to help each other via a Blackboard discussion board also reduced frustration since students could receive quick answers from each other. In fact, using a discussion board as the sole means for class communication was much more effective than allowing students to email me with questions because it kept the entire group on the same page.
While students loved optional days, they didn't love me changing which days would be online. They had used the original online date schedule to set their work and personal schedules. The first time I changed an online day into an in-class day because the class had needed a lot of extra practice, many students were unable to attend. That was the last time I ever changed an online day to a required in-class day during a semester.
Instructional movies showing step-by-step instructions for more complex assignments turned out to be a great asset. I created these clips in the FCPE lab by video-recording required steps of an assignment. Students reported that they watched these movies over and over again when they had difficulties with an assignment, until they got it right. Afterwards, they felt they had really learned the material because they figured out what their mistakes were on their own.
Time commitment for the professor
Everyone, professor and student alike, fears that a blended course will be more work. For the professor, time spent preparing any course makes it run more smoothly, but for the blended format, that preparation is mandatory. Whenever I didn’t spend the time needed to prepare very detailed instructions, or when I gave assignments without a solid introduction in class, I had to spend many more hours supporting the students. The payback for a well prepared assignment, though, was a very relaxed online day.
At the same time, there is an over preparation trap for the professor developing a blended course. You need to teach the first few online days before you know what will work for your subject and level of students. For my first blended course, I had everything mapped out, listing what was to be done each day. I put a huge amount of work into trying to make it as clear as possible by creating assignments with detailed rules and procedures. I later found the more creative assignments worked much better, since assignments with too many rules led to confusion as no one was available to answer questions. The creative assignments allowed for a broader range of solutions while relieving me from spending hours of writing out every little detail of the work process.
Having taught the same course in both the blended format and in the classroom I would confirm that the blended one was definitely more work the first time I taught it. Teaching the blended courses a second and third time, however, took approximately the same amount of preparation as a classroom course, and maybe a little less. The time reward manifested itself by providing me with the opportunity to manage my own time, and to be able to handle any kind of emergency days by offering online sessions instead of having to meet for make-up classes.
Time commitment for the students
I surveyed my students about whether they thought that the blended format involved more work than the traditional format. More than 75% of the students that responded felt they would have spent at least the same amount of time if they had taken a regular classroom course. More importantly, 90% of those that responded said the blended format was a worthwhile investment, either because of the freedom it allowed or the additional learning it fostered.
Some students started out treating online days as homework and skipped them or completed assignments late. They quickly learned that this approach caused a tremendous time management problem for keeping up with the course work. Of those students, many learned how to manage the independent commitment of online days by the end of the semester. That time management skill was a tremendous gain for those students.
Final evaluation
The blended format does address many of my desired goals. It accommodates the broad range of skill level in the course while
providing both the students and me flexibility as to when and where to work. The students seem to be learning well and enjoying the
modality. I do have to struggle to make fewer, better assignments, and to give students more freedom in assignments. Being able to
work with small groups of students while still supporting those who easily work through the material has proven to be the greatest
teaching advantage in my blended course.
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