So what's the deal with blended learning?
Blended learning replaces at least some traditional classroom instruction with digital content, for example watching recorded lectures or presentations individually and then working together to answer questions or practice skills. It might be thought of as a midway point between MOOCs and traditional classroom learning.
At its best, blended learning harnesses many of the benefits of MOOCs while avoiding some of its challenges. In practice, blended learning is a way to bring technology into the classroom while taking full advantage of the benefits of having trained educators on hand to help when students have questions or need additional assistance.
Given the wide nature of this definition of blended learning, it’s hard to determine when and where blended learning occurs. Technology has been creeping into the classroom for a long time. Recorded lectures and presentations are not new.
Perhaps one distinguishing attribute of today’s blended learning is that it can be self-paced and individualized. In modern connected classrooms, as well as at home, students can access on-demand content and complete it at their own speed, rewinding, skipping ahead, slowing down, and speeding up content as needed.
One type of blended learning is the flipped classroom, where students watch recorded lectures and content at home and work on “homework” exercises in the classroom. While the flipped classroom is just one blended learning approach, it has received considerable attention in the academic literature and from educators. Classroom flipping has been billed as an innovative approach in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary classroom settings.
At its best, blended learning strategies have the potential to individualize education to each learner and help students where they need it most. But blended learning is not without its critics. The Washington Post recently reproduced an article written by Phil McRae of the University of Alberta who was critical of the approach. He finds that
“Many myths, when viewed up close, provide deep reflections of ourselves and society. Technologies in particular have amplified our North American desires for choice, flexibility and individualization, so it’s easy to be seduced by a vision of blended learning environments delivering only what we want, when and how we want it customized.”
While the suggestion that American society’s appetite for individualized learning is a reflection of its individualistic values is an interesting point, it is also worth noting that students’ interests and individual abilities are unique to each student. Reaching students at different levels of interest and ability has always been one of the challenges of education. If technology enables the same content to be presented simultaneously in different ways to engage individual learners based on their strengths and interests, it will make little difference whether the students come from individualistic or collectivist societies: as long as students are evaluated for individual performance, customizing content will help individual learners succeed.
As always, it is important to align learning objectives with considerations of audience and content, but blended learning approaches, including the flipped classroom, are another option available to educators looking to innovate their classrooms. And with a growing amount of content, including Open Educational Resources (OERs), available online, implementing a blended-learning approach has never been easier.