Blended courses offer a way to move beyond a midterm and a final. By combining the benefits of online instruction with the advantages of face-to-face instruction, you might improve learning in your course in ways that are impossible to achieve using only face-to-face meetings or only online resources.

I often hear teachers lament that there is so much content in a course that they never have time to do any critical-thinking activities in class. Moving lower-level content—such as definitions, simple exercises, timelines, and other strictly factual content—to online resources allows the teacher to spend face-to-face time on more critical-thinking activities as well as active and collaborative work. But a teacher cannot simply think of the online activities as a way to accomplish lower-order skills; otherwise, online work runs the risk of becoming an electronic textbook. Technology broadens the range of pedagogical choices so that step 2 in the list on Monday’s post requires even more background knowledge, more creativity, and more pedagogical savvy.

When I recently taught nutrition, I was able to guide students through the reading material in the textbook prior to class so that critical-thinking activities could be done in class. We analyzed food labels while eating different food each week: chips when discussing fats, peanut butter sandwiches when discussing carbohydrates, protein bars for proteins, and sports drinks for vitamins/minerals. The face-to-face activities were used to rehearse content from the book but also to help students as they worked on a higher-order assignment online. They reviewed a current diet book, based on the nutritional information they were learning in class.

When designing a blended learning course, the instructor should remember to use the online portion as an opportunity to create more exciting face-to-face interactions. Utilizing a pedagogically rich repertoire of online resources will allow an instructor to become the teacher he or she has always dreamed of being: the creator of dynamic classroom learning environments that fully engage all students. The power of blending online activities with face-to-face work can allow this transformation. Face-to-face interactions should work synergistically with the online activities. The blending of the two components can transform learning. But to accomplish the transformation, the focus must remain on learning.

Ike Shibley, PhD. is an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, a small four-year college within the Penn State system.

From Putting the Learning in Blended Learning. Online Classroom, February 2009, 1,8.

Many discussions about blended learning, however, focus not on learning but on blending. “Blended” is an adjective and “learning” is a noun; why has our focus been directed at the adjective? Do we assume, as is often done in the teaching paradigm, that learning is automatically assumed? I think that blended learning has become widely established enough that attention can now be paid to the learning portion of the name.

In higher education learning must be the focus—the push for learner-centered teaching is a noble, pedagogically defensible goal. Improving the cost-effectiveness of teaching should play only a secondary role. An instructor should not begin a blended design by asking how many face-to-face hours are really necessary, even though some administrators may use reduced hours as a starting point. The course should be designed to maximize learning.

Blended learning course design
In designing a blended course, a simple way to start is to imagine a discrete unit of learning, for example, a particular topic or a chapter of the textbook. Here is a three-step process:

1. Establish clear learning goals for the topic.
2. Design activities to help students meet the learning goals.
3. Sort the activities into two categories: online and face-to-face.

None of these steps is particularly easy. Writing effective learning goals is a skill that teachers must constantly hone. Designing activities requires a creative mind that is pedagogically grounded. Addressing the third step could be the easiest of the required actions but requires much pedagogical savvy. In considering each step, the following questions might help:

• What do I really want students to learn?
• How can I ensure that students read the book prior to class?
• What lower-level activities can student complete online prior to class?
• What higher-level activities can be accomplished during class?
• What higher-level activities can students complete after a topic has been discussed face-to-face?
• Which activities require a grade and which activities will students do because they can immediately see the link to other graded activities?

As small decisions are made about individual topics and the instructor decides the balance between face-to-face and online learning, the bigger picture will emerge. The teacher must start with small decisions then step back to see the picture that is emerging about the course, in much the same way that we step back from pointillism to see the picture that is created from thousands of small paint dabs.

Ike Shibley, PhD. is an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, a small four-year college within the Penn State system.

From Putting the Learning in Blended Learning. Online Classroom, February 2009, 1,8.

Teachers have patients, although we generally call them students. Our “patients” also come to us with problems of one kind or another, usually a deficiency of knowledge or trouble with learning. Whether it’s in the classroom or in the office, we must try to diagnose learning difficulties that range from cognitive to emotional to physiological. The most striking similarity between the medical and the teaching professions is that both require caring practitioners. Groopman and Gawande make the importance of caring for patients breathtakingly clear.

In How Doctors Think, Groopman argues that physicians must treat the patient, not the disease. In medicine, specialists get more praise because of their extensive knowledge of specific ailments; yet specialists in many ways have an easier job because they have fewer options to consider. A general practitioner must try to narrow a set of symptoms into a possible diagnosis and then select which specialist a patient needs to see.

As teachers, we also deal with many students who present nonspecific ailments but still need an accurate diagnosis if they are to be helped. Specialists in a discipline might know their content area incredibly well, but knowledge of a discipline helps little when dealing with the average patient. In a sense, the best teachers are general practitioners: those who diagnose student problems and direct them to the resources that help them remain in school and continue their academic lives.

Groopman discusses a study of physician wait time that illuminates the time restrictions that exist within the medical profession. A physician usually asks the patient to describe his or her symptoms, and after an average 18 seconds, interrupts the patient. Wow! But how often do teachers fall into the same trap? Understanding student issues and needs requires extended listening; yet our time is so precious—papers to grade, papers to write, meetings to attend—that we often rush to judgment about our students. We rely on stereotypes, concluding that students are lazy, unorganized, belligerent, or arrogant, without trying to truly understand what lies behind those behaviors. This rush to judgment causes us to care for students in ways that may not address important learning needs.

Gawande’s Better is worth the read for his exploration of the question “How do I really matter?” He makes these suggestions to doctors: “ask unscripted questions” (getting to know the patient), “don’t complain” (an all-too-common pastime), “count something” (scholarship), “write something” (share the results of your counting and think about ways to matter), and “change” (physicians too often get into ruts).

Each of these five suggestions applies to the teaching profession in uncanny ways. The best teachers matter because they get to know their students, they remain optimistic despite the critical milieu of academe, they assess their own teaching as well as consider the ideas of other pedagogical scholars, they share their findings at conferences and in print, and they continue to develop as teachers. Teachers (like physicians) can always do better, and Gawande’s list points the way.

Dr. Ike Shibley is an associate Professor of Chemistry at Penn State Berks.

Excerpted from Saving Academic Lives, The Teaching Professor, June-July 2008.

In How Doctors Think, Groopman argues that physicians must treat the patient, not the disease. In medicine, specialists get more praise because of their extensive knowledge of specific ailments; yet specialists in many ways have an easier job because they have fewer options to consider. A general practitioner must try to narrow a set of symptoms into a possible diagnosis and then select which specialist a patient needs to see. As teachers, we also deal with many students who present nonspecific ailments but still need an accurate diagnosis if they are to be helped. Specialists in a discipline might know their content area incredibly well, but knowledge of a discipline helps little when dealing with the average patient. In a sense, the best teachers are general practitioners: those who diagnose student problems and direct them to the resources that help them remain in school and continue their academic lives.

Groopman discusses a study of physician wait time that illuminates the time restrictions that exist within the medical profession. A physician usually asks the patient to describe his or her symptoms, and after an average 18 seconds, interrupts the patient. Wow! But how often do teachers fall into the same trap? Understanding student issues and needs requires extended listening; yet our time is so precious—papers to grade, papers to write, meetings to attend—that we often rush to judgment about our students. We rely on stereotypes, concluding that students are lazy, unorganized, belligerent, or arrogant, without trying to truly understand what lies behind those behaviors. This rush to judgment causes us to care for students in ways that may not address important learning needs.

Gawande’s Better is worth the read for his exploration of the question “How do I really matter?” He makes these suggestions to doctors: “ask unscripted questions” (getting to know the patient), “don’t complain” (an all-too-common pastime in the medical profession), “count something” (scholarship), “write something” (share the results of your counting and think about ways to matter), and “change” (physicians too often get into ruts). Each of these five suggestions applies to the teaching profession in uncanny ways. The best teachers matter because they get to know their students, they remain optimistic despite the critical milieu of academe, they assess their own teaching as well as consider the ideas of other pedagogical scholars, they share their findings at conferences and in print, and they continue to develop as teachers. Teachers (like physicians) can always do better, and Gawande’s list points the way.

Gawande also writes about fighting for a patient’s life: “The seemingly easiest and most sensible rule for a doctor is: Always fight. Always look for what more you could do.” (161) Yet he argues that sometimes the physician must consider not doing more. Some of our students are not ready for the rigors of college or cannot continue, given unexpected circumstances. Accepting that not all students can be helped allows a busy faculty member to spend precious time on students who genuinely need our guidance and influence to keep fighting. Yet how can we tell when we have spent enough time with a student? Helping a student decide whether to stay in school requires inordinate insight and patience, and listening for much longer than 18 seconds.

Groopman and Gawande impress me as caring doctors (with writing skills that any academician would covet), and they point the way for caring teachers. In the medical profession, the struggle is epic—between life and death. But educational “life and death”—the tipping point between a student finishing a college degree or becoming a dropout—is also compelling. Thinking about how we want our doctors to treat us might help us take better care of our students. A few more minutes devoted to a student is rarely time poorly spent. Only by truly knowing our students can we make those diagnoses that give them the best chance at healthy and rewarding academic lives.

Contact Ike Shibley at Ias1@psu.edu.