Types of Blended Learning

Last summer I worked with a team to design a blended learning initiative for Brigham Young University (BYU).  The initiative introduced blended learning topics to faculty members and then helped them to blend a course that they were teaching.  I should note that our definition of blended learning requires that online instruction replaces class time in a meaningful way.  As an introduction we also examined Staker and Horn's (2012) classification of blended learning models.  We used video vignettes to help faculty members envision these models and see how institutions of higher education are using blended learning.  Similarly, I felt that it would be helpful to do the same within a K-12 context.

https://sites.google.com/site/iptedtec/b#TOC-Embedding-a-video-into-a-post

Station Rotation Model

 

Lab Rotation Model

 

Flipped Classroom Model

 

Individual Rotation Model

 

Flex Model

 

Enriched-Virtual Model

The Open High School of Utah is a cyber charter school that has several face-to-face learning opportunities throughout the year include an orientation meeting.


A common theme in these vignettes is that blended and online learning solves educational problems. In someways you can begin to classify models by the pedagogical problems that they solve. The following are some common challenges that blended and online learning models address:

• pacing
• participation 
• personal interaction 
• differentiated instruction
• ability levels
• learner preparation
• authenticity
• real time assessment

The Es of Blended Learning

This semester in 287 we have been teaching that we use technology for three reasons: to improve efficiency, engagement, and effectiveness. Efficiency means that it is saving the teacher or student time but it doesn't really change what they are doing. Engagement means that students are more actively involved in the learning process. This could be mentally or physically. Effectiveness means that the technology is directly teaching students.

"this is all about cheap"

Lisa posted an interesting article in The New York Times called More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality

The article starts off contrasting why many states say they are using online course (i.e. preparing students for a global economy and to prepare students for higher education) with what they believe is the real driving force--to save money. One example that they provide is what Tom Luna has proposed in Idaho. If his measure passes students will be required to take four online courses to graduate and Idaho's state legislature just passes a bill that would provide each 9th grade student with a laptop using money that they will save from teachers salaries. This is just the beginning and Luna recently said that four courses was “going to be the starting number.” I am not against requiring online courses but online courses require teachers too. It feels like Luna has introduced a form of independent study courses with little learner-instructor interaction which I think can be dangerous for some adolescent learners. They said that Memphis also requires their students to take an online course and that "Memphis supplies its own teachers, mostly classroom teachers who supplement their incomes by contracting to work 10 hours a week with 150 students online. That is one-fourth of the time they would devote to teaching the same students face to face." That is just bad policy. One advantage of online learning is that allows for more direct tutoring and contact from teachers. Teaching 150 students is a full time job.

The article also talked about how online courses are being used to makeup credits called "click-click credits." This is being done to help increase graduation rates and avoid federal sanctions. I don't believe that online courses should be any easier than face-to-face. If online courses require less work for the same credit it is problematic and hurts the credibility of online learning.

They also talk about how students are cheating in online courses. They give an example of a student who copied a paper from Wikipedia. I don't think that is a problem with online learning. The same thing happens in face-to-face.

I don't see any of these problems as problems with online learning but problems with policy and instruction. As the student population becomes more diverse the less cost effective it will be. Traditionally online students have been self-motivated who need less contact. However, as students who are less motivated are required to take online courses the time teachers need to spend with on learner-instructor interaction will increase along with the cost.

Interaction models

I was thinking how I could represent the human interactions by their types and purpose of interactions. The yellow circle represents instructors' interactions, the blue circle represents parents' interactions, the red circle represents students' interactions, and the gray circle in the middle represents interactions focused on content. I identified 13 different combinations.

L-L-S=learner-learner-social
I-I-S=instructor-instructor-social
P-P-S=parent-parent-social

L-I-S=learner-instructor-social
L-P-S=learner-parent-social
P-I-S=parent-instructor-social

L-L-C=learner-learner-content
I-I-C=instructor-instructor-content
P-P-C=parent-parent-content

L-I-C=learner-instructor-content
L-P-C=learner-parent-content
P-I-C=parent-instructor-content

L-P-I=learner-parent-instructor

There are a few things that I don' t like about this representation. First, it is not complete because it only includes social and content interactions and not procedural/administrative. (I could figure out how I could add the third.) Second, the learner-parent-instructor is just in the content circle. Also, this includes interactions that I am not sure would exist and if they did they wouldn't really have a large affect on student learning. For instance parent-parent-content. Would parents get together and talk about content? They would talk about social and procedural.administrative topics in a parent organization but I don't see them talking about the American Revolutionary War.

This is a representation that fits Anderson's (2004) categories of interactions. This reaffirms that he was complete in his identification. However, I am still not sure how important some of them are.

Subject of Interaction

Today I have been trying to find information on the nature of interaction. I couldn't find much but I did find out some interesting things. I was reading Anderson (2004) chapter in the handbook and he made reference to Burnham and Walden (1997). It was just a conference proceeding but it gave me some good insight. The first is that what we have been calling nature he has been calling subject which I think in someway is more accurate. They also talk about Learner-environment interaction which Anderson said could include family. I think that this may be helpful when I talk about parent interaction. Anderson also talked about how he doesn't consider learner interface interaction to be a distinct types of interaction but a part of all other types of interaction. The following is my synthesis of what I found:

Burnham and Walden (1997) stated that "interactions have objects (things learners interact with that influence the learner) and subjects (things that the interactions are about). These two elements can and should play an important part of any classification of interactions" (p. 52). Several researchers have attempted to move beyond the types or objects of interaction and have tried to classify the different subjects of interactions. For instance Gilbert and Moore (1998) grouped interactions as either social or instructional. They defined social interactions emotional or informational communication that does not directly result in an improvement of student content understanding but can have a positive effect on the learning environment. Instructional interactions were defined as being content focused with the explicit goal of improving student content understanding including the direct presentation of learning materials and formative verbal assessments (Gilbert & Moore, 1998).

Similarly Huang and Wei’s (2000) review of social psychology literature found that group communications are commonly categorized as either task or social interactions. They also provided the following definitions, “Task interactions of a group are directly related to the group’s tasks and are involved in asking for or giving information, suggestions, directions, and possible ways of action, whereas social interactions are directly related to relations between group members or internal needs (or preferences) of members” (p. 183). Huang and Wei’s definition of social interactions differs from Gilbert and Moore (1998) in that it does not explicitly include informational exchanges regarding progress. Olson et al. (1992) added that interactions focused on the progress and procedures necessary are better grouped into a different category they term management or executive interactions.

In the context of a virtual high school setting, Hawkins (2011) grouped interactions as either social/supportive, instructional/intellectual, and procedural/organizational interactions. Social/supportive interactions are used to motivate, encourage, and create a sense of closeness. Instructional/intellectual interactions are centered on the course content and include providing clarification and feedback. Procedural/organizational interactions are focused on policies, procedures and progress.

The Normative Influence Theory

Huang WW, Wei KK. An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Group Support Systems ( GSS ) and Task Type on Group Interactions from an Influence Perspective. Journal of Management Information Systems. 2000;17(2):181-206.

In class last time we talked about how 40% of interaction is off task. I was really interested in that so I looked up the article from the citations. Interestingly the article only made reference to another article that made the claim. However, I started to read the article and found an interesting paragraph.

"The normative influence theory posits that human beings often need to seek approval and a sense of belonging, and the aim in human social relations is for harmony and communality. There are generally four sources of normative influence: dominance, majority power, persuasiveness, and hierarchy status [19]. Informational influence theory assumes the centrality of being correct, of knowing and understanding the world, and therefore of needing and processing factual information. Sources of informational influence include factual information sharing [55], factual and task messages/rationales/ arguments [57, 67]. Hence, normative influence theory seems to focus more on interpersonal relationships whereas informational influence theory emphasizes more the exchange of factual information and the search for task truth, which conceptually corresponds to the main characteristics of social and task interactions respectively."

This supports our categorization of the nature of interaction. I was also thinking that their description of the normative influence theory supports the use of high fidelity interaction. I also feel that it can help explain the "energy" of a conversation.

Funny. I just wrote this and then as I kept reading I found this paragraph:

"In group interactions, conflict resulting from different values and preferences would
be better resolved in FtF talks with multiple social cues. For example, personal pref- erences can be better expressed simultaneously in the tone, speed, and content of verbal statements, and in the facial expression and gesture of nonverbal behaviors. However, the tone and speed of verbal statements and the facial expression and ges- ture of nonverbal behaviors do not exist within the electronic communication channel of a GSS. Only the content of verbal statements can be communicated in the form of electronically written messages. Hence many social cues are reduced or eliminated in GSS electronic communication [53, 91, 93, 99], which would in turn hinder the ex- change and understanding of personal preferences and values."

Using Facebook in Online Learning

Image location

Article Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/03/23/facebook.underage.users/index.html?hpt=C2

Yesterday in class we talked about how Facebook could be used to hold impromptu conversations between students. In some ways using Facebook makes sense in the upper grades because most students are using the technology already. This article says that "roughly 64% of 13-year-olds are social networking; between the ages of 14 to 17, that figure jumps to 82%." However, the danger is that these impromptu conversations can become too casual, blurring the lines between teachers and students.  There have already been lots of teachers who have been fired for inappropriate use of social media. For instance, here is one example at a school close to where I taught.  I recently talked to a high school teacher about her school district's social media policy.  I was shocked that they didn't have one.  The district simply tells the teachers to "be safe" and "don't do anything dumb."  I think that a "policy" like that is just asking for trouble.  Teachers need to have a better awareness of internet safety and privacy issues with using Facebook.

It's also important to note that Facebook can be addicting for adults and I would assume that the addicting effects would be even greater for young students who have lower self-regulation skills.  I believe that schools/teachers should work with parents and students to provide them with guidelines for using social media safely and responsibly.  The following video discusses some of the addicting effects of social media sites such as Facebook.