About the Author
Ganesh M. Pandit is associate professor of Accounting, School of Business.
Blended Class: A Win-Win Situation for Faculty and Students
Ganesh Pandit
pandit@adelphi.edu
Since the fall of 2005, I have been teaching ACC601, a graduate business course titled "Financial Statements Analysis" in the blended live and online format. I first taught this course in the traditional on-site format in the fall of 2004. The same year, because we had several snow storms, two of my class meetings were cancelled and had to be made up near the end of the semester. This experience made me wonder whether there might be a way around this problem, and I found a solution in the form of the blended course design.
In this format, 50 percent of the class meetings take place on campus and the remaining 50 percent are held online. The entire class is divided into seven bi-weekly modules wherein I meet face-to-face with the students during the first week of each module to introduce the topics in the module. I then follow up that discussion using the online discussion board in the second week.
The online discussion lasts for the entire length of the second week, in which I participate almost every day. I begin the discussion with a "starter question" and let the students continue the discussion by stretching it in different directions while staying within the boundaries of the weekly topics. The students are required to post at least four value-added responses to the discussion on at least two non-consecutive days during the week.
Needless to say, some students post almost every day, which is not surprising since even in an on-site class, some students like to answer every question being asked. One benefit of the online discussions is that every student gets the opportunity to contribute his/her thoughts to the discussion. Each student gets some time to think about what he or she would like to say before actually posting a response. This format works very well for those members of my class who are shy and would not usually participate actively in the on-site class discussions unless expressly called upon to do so. My class consists of a significant number of international students who are more self-conscious about their language skills and accents. Such students welcome the opportunity to participate in the online discussion where they are not being "watched" by their fellow classmates. Also, a majority of the students in this class work during the day; so they like the idea of having the extra time to read the notes before participating in the online discussions at their own pace instead of being rushed into the face-to-face discussions one night every week.
I post my lecture notes and PowerPoint slides in the online modules and students can refer to them as needed as they read the online discussions and frame their own responses. At the end of the second week of each bi-weekly module, the students are responsible for an online quiz based on the topics of the module. This system enables me to give them sufficient time to answer the quiz, and allows me the opportunity to give challenging questions to match the time available. The students have to finish each quiz within the assigned time. The students are able to refer to legitimate sources of information, in print or electronic form, to help them perform better on the quizzes.
Of course, a student who is not motivated in an on-site class may similarly lack motivation in the online class, but overall, I am very pleased with this mode of instruction. As the online discussion moderator, I have to be alert and keep the discourse on track every day, and I enjoy doing that. If conducted appropriately, the benefits of using online discussions outweigh the time and effort involved in conducting online discussions. 
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