Blended Teaching and Learning: Sharing Challenges and Successes for a Classroom-to-Campus Strategy

Pre-conference Workshop Session 3

Brief Abstract

Blended courses and programs continue to grow and mature on a range of campuses, but we do not always have the time or resources to strategically plan for the success of future blended initiatives at the classroom and institutional levels. Simultaneously, we have a lot to learn from each other about how best to tap into the potential of the blended mode. This pre-conference workshop will allow participants to network with colleagues from other campuses as they engage in a hands-on, real-time gap analysis of their current blended courses and programs. Topics to be explored include current classroom and institutional successes and challenges, quality indicators, possibilities for growth, and what it means for an institution to embrace the blended modality at scale. Participants will leave the session with an institution-specific strategic plan and action steps for nurturing blended courses and programs on their campus over the next five to ten years.

The fee for this Pre-Conference Workshop is: $205 Early Bird / $235 Full Price

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Presenters

Lead Presenter: Katie Linder, Oregon State University

Dr. Katie Linder is an avid writer and researcher with a passion for process and peeking behind the scenes at what it takes to be a successful academic. Currently, Katie directs the Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit and serves as an associate editor for the International Journal for Academic Development. She is also the creator of the Radical Self-Trust Podcast Channel and the host of a weekly interview-based podcast called Research in Action. She writes a weekly essay series called The Academic Creative. Her most recent book is Managing Your Professional Identity Online: A Guide for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators.

Co-presenter: Kelvin Thompson, University of Central Florida

A popular speaker and facilitator, Dr. Kelvin Thompson regularly addresses groups throughout the US on topics related to online/blended learning and educational technology while he serves as the Executive Director of the University of Central Florida's (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (http://cdl.ucf.edu) with a faculty appointment as a graduate faculty scholar in UCF's College of Education & Human Performance. Dr. Thompson has collaborated on the design of hundreds of online and blended courses over the past twenty years and is active in the online education community. Kelvin developed the BlendKit Course open courseware (http://bit.ly/blendkit) as part of UCF's Blended Learning Toolkit, and he also co-hosts TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast available on iTunes and at http://topcast.online.ucf.edu. His personal research interests center around how interaction affects learner engagement, and information on his Online Course Criticism qualitative evaluation model for facilitating the scholarship of teaching and learning in online and blended environments is available online (http://onlinecoursecriticism.com). Kelvin Thompson holds an EdD in curriculum and instruction and an MA in instructional systems technology from UCF and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Florida State University. Curriculum vitae is available online at http://bit.ly/kelvin_cv.

Co-presenter: Linda S. Futch, University of Central Florida

Dr. Linda S. Futch is the Interim Direction, Instructional Design, for the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida. Her duties cover instructional design, technical support for online courses, and management of the course management system. Linda has been instrumental in guiding faculty development for online courses and developing systems to support faculty and students. She has developed curriculum and delivered instruction in business, high school, community college, and higher education. For her doctoral dissertation, Linda studied blended learning at a large metropolitan university and is currently studying the design of successful blended courses.

Co-presenter: Cub Kahn, Oregon State University

Cub Kahn is coordinator of the Oregon State University Hybrid Initiative in Extended Campus. He focuses on hybrid pedagogy and faculty development across the curriculum. He facilitates faculty learning communities in a hybrid format to support course redesign for blended delivery. Cub has extensive experience in curriculum development, instructional design and blended/online course development. Prior to his current position, he taught environmental sciences and geography. He holds degrees in environmental and marine sciences and an Ed.D. in technology education.

Co-presenter: Jason Snart, College of DuPage

Dr. Jason Snart is Professor of English and Chair of Literature, Creative Writing, and Film at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Florida and his research interests include hybrid/blended learning, 1-1/BYOD teaching models, and mobile learning. His books include Making Hybrids Work: An Institutional Framework for Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education (NCTE, 2017); Hybrid Learning: The Perils and Promise of Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education (Praeger, 2010); and The Torn Book: UnReading William Blake's Marginalia (Susquehanna UP, 2006).

Tags

OLC Accelerate 2017 Institutional Strategies and Globalization Administration Implementation Infrastructure Initiatives Institutional change Institutional culture Institutional effectiveness Organization Planning Quality assurance Stakeholders Strategic planning Strategy

Extended Abstract

The 2017 New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report says blended learning “is on the rise at universities and colleges. The affordances blended learning offers are now well understood, and its flexibility, ease of access, and the integration of sophisticated multimedia and technologies are high among the list of appeals” (Adams Becker, et al., 2017, p. 4). This learning model is indeed on the rise at many colleges and universities, and blended courses, even whole programs, are not necessarily brand new innovations for many campuses. But there is still much work to be done to see the great potential of the blended model emerge, and thrive, across higher education. Blended learning is no longer the new kid on the block for many institutions, but to realize its full potential, especially scaled across an institution, we need more opportunities to share practices, strategies, and challenges.

The workshop will provide a framework for each participant to consider what his or her institution is already doing well regarding blended course and program development, but also to assess gaps and identify needed tools and resources for growing blended learning, especially at the institutional level. The workshop proposes that to thrive long-term, blended learning needs strategic institutional planning that assures effectively designed courses; well informed faculty, support staff, and administrators; and a shared vision for how blended courses and programs exist within a broad institutional framework.

The workshop is designed as a hands-on networking opportunity in which a variety of institutional stakeholders can share blended learning successes and challenges, with a view to having every participant develop a tangible action plan, a set of next steps, to take back to his or her home institution.

We will start with introductions and initial discussion about workshop participant expectations and backgrounds. This will give us a good sense of what voices are represented, hopefully from faculty, support staff, and administration. As part of our introductory section we will also provide an overview of existing hybrid/blended learning resources, whether about course development, assessment, or institutional policy, with a view to building a comprehensive picture of what support resources are already available and to identifying potential gaps and research opportunities. In other words, we want to see what is there in the research and scholarship on blended learning, but, equally valuable, we want to determine what is not there and thus what work remains to be done.

Participants will be asked to complete a Google Form in which they indicate what their programs, departments, or institutions are already doing well. What is successfully up and running and producing positive results? Using the same form we will then gather participant input about where their programs, departments, or institutions are struggling and what barriers to success they are facing? What would they like to see happening that is not already happening?

Gathering input on strengths and areas for improvement from the workshop group as a whole sets the stage for initial whole-group analysis. Are there common challenges faced across multiple institutions? Are there common success stories? Do blended learning programs share a similar developmental trajectory and narrative across institutions or are they all unique?

From here we believe that workshop participants will find the deepest value of the experience as we work with our Google Form results and large-group brainstorming to then actively partner those who have expressed a need in one area relative to hybrid/blended learning with those who are actively addressing that challenge successfully. These gap analysis groupings may not be perfectly aligned--although it would be great if some were--but we believe that moving the conversation forward, towards action items that participants can return home with, will happen even in cases where needs and existing strategies are not identical. Our workshop is designed to shape conversation into productive channels, not to over-prescribe or over-determine it by being too rigid.

Participants, now working in strategy groups, will have the opportunity to share challenges and successes in that smaller format and to network for further collaboration and support. We will be sure to re-formulate groups multiple times so that all participants who express a need in our Google Form analysis have the opportunity to work with somebody at another institution who is meeting that need.

The workshop will conclude as we come together again in one large group to share, broadly, what kinds of conversations we have had and what good strategies and ideas have emerged.

References

Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., Freeman, A., Hall Giesinger, C., & Ananthanarayanan, V. (2017). NMC horizon report: 2017 higher education edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.