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Blended What?
Sometimes the simplest tasks can cause the most trepidation. Take for example this week’s blog entry: the relatively simple task of describing my experiences employing blended learning in my classroom.
Easy.
Except that until 48 hours ago I didn’t know what blended learning was. But no matter, academia will come to the rescue. Certainly there must be a measured consensus on what constitutes blended learning? As it turns out the spectrum of modalities (and associated pedagogical practices) through which blended learning may be delivered has resulted in semantic chaos in the literature.
Okay, that may be a bit of hyperbole – but the fact remains that we need a working definition for today’s discussion or we will be chasing our tails all day. For our purposes we will call blended learning “an approach to education that combines online educational materials and opportunities for interaction online with physical place-based classroom methods.” With that out of the way let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
This is the part where we talk about the pandemic for the 4000th time
For most of my career have I worked face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, teenage body odor to gasping instructor with my students. I have employed (kicking and screaming the whole way) technology relatively sparingly as the profession has evolved. I have a Google Classroom, I speak with parents through a learning management system, and I have dabbled with the odd online quiz/game for review purposes.
So like many instructors the shift to teaching online during the pandemic was as refreshing as being hit in the face with a garden shovel. It is clear from the literature that I was not alone in these feelings. It has been pointed out that a lack of preparation and technological challenges left many teachers ill prepared to engage in a online instruction. As such, Emergency Remote Teaching, or ERT, should not be compared to well-designed blended learning courses or distance education programs.
Despite this, ERT was my first true experience teaching in a blended learning environment, and I feel it bears further examination. Outside of a lack of preparation, why did my efforts fail so spectacularly?
Who could have predicted that poor design decisions (ill suited for the audience and medium) would result in disaster?
As Tony Bates points out merely transferring one’s in-person instruction to an online platform is usually met with mixed results, as we saw during the lockdown. My first instinct was to duplicate my regular classroom in the digital world. I recorded my lectures, posted assignments (that I had been using for years), and maintained the same pace that I have used with students face-to-face. There are several flaws with this approach. First, and possibly most importantly, it failed to take into consideration the needs of my learners. Learning online is not analogous to attending a brick-and-mortar building. Students working online have different needs. For example, long unbroken lectures are ill-suited for screen viewing and should be broken up with activities and small group discussion. As Bates put it,
It is important then to look at the design that makes the most of the educational affordances of new technologies, because unless the design changes significantly to take full advantage of the potential of the technology, the outcome is likely to be inferior to that of the physical classroom model which it is attempting to imitate.
Online instruction need to play to the strengths of the digital medium. Essentially my emergency remote teaching was garbage because I didn’t try to meaningfully and thoughtfully integrate technology throughout. Had I effectively used blogging, message boards, or met students on platforms that they were comfortable with (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) I may have had better results.
Furthermore, my asynchronous approach was not well suited to the types of students I was teaching. Distance education is best employed with individuals who have high levels of education, are mature students, or work well independently. Essentially I was fitting square pegs into round holes with a mallet. My students were accustomed to a lot of support with differentiated instruction. Simply dropping dozens of lessons online and saying, “here you go” was never going to work.
So…online is bad?
No. No. A thousand times no.
There is a pervasive belief amongst instructors that online learning is inferior to face-to-face instruction, this view, however, is unsupported by research. I am embarrassed to say that I believed this as well. I thought that without personal interaction online classes would descend into endless tedium. However, instructional practice is the difference maker. As Valerie Irvine argued online learning is neither passive nor boring, pedagogy is the chief determinant of engagement, not modality. Online instruction is engaging if you make it engaging. In a similar vein, face-to-face instruction is engaging if we make it so. Conversely, instruction is not improved automatically by seasoning it with technology. It is not parmesan cheese, its mere presence does not make things better (I love parmesan).
Parmesan Cheese by Jon Sullivan, Public Domain. If you think adding technology to your lessons will improve them automatically, you’re doing it wrong.
The case for cautious optimism
Blended and online learning made a poor first impression on me. But in retrospect it was not a fair shake. I was not given the support required to develop successful blended or online program, and I didn’t put the effort in to make my pandemic teaching work for my students. This is one of the reasons I have taken this course – it is time to learn how to do this well.
Hey Matt,
I enjoyed reading about your experiences with online learning and appreciate the honesty you bring. Covid pushed all teachers into online learning, and the success rate varied depending on many factors. As someone who used technology a lot in the classroom, teaching solely from behind a screen was a new experience. And like you, looking back, there are things that I would do differently, and taking this class is the first step into learning some more effective and engaging ways. Even though my role has changed, I hope to gain new understandings to support the teachers in my building further. Although I hope we never go through another pandemic, there is a place for blended learning, and when done engagingly and purposefully, it can be very effective in hitting all types of learners.
Great commentary on your introduction to remote learning. Being thrown into anything without a foundation or experience is not a recipe for success. However, as educators we all need to learn how to do it well. Online, hybrid, blended learning is not going to go away and the pandemic has cemented it into our culture. It appeals to the generations that have never known anything other than a digital world where information is instantly available , and their digital experiences curated to their preferences by AI and algorithms.
We need to plan these learning opportunities with intention.
Hey Matt.
First of all, I also love parmesan.
Second of all, I really enjoyed reading your post. I laughed out loud (yes a real LOL) many times and found your commentary regarding your online learning experience very relatable and entertaining. To bring up the pandemic for the 4001st time, I could connect with the same challenges switching over to online teaching and I found the sudden pivot about as equally as refreshing as you described. I appreciate that you pointed out the need to separate what educators did during the pandemic (ERT) from a well-thought out blending learning course. I hadn’t made that distinction before and continue to describe my COVID teaching experience as blending learning, when it really should not be described that way.
Like you, I am ready to learn more about online and blended learning, ideally with the help of this course, so I can redeem myself from the ERT that I identify as my online teaching experience.
I really enjoyed this post – it gave me lots to think about! Thank you!
Thanks for the entertaining post, Matt. You made me reflect on my teaching practices over the pandemic and I was very similar to you. It was mostly information (from me) and instruction (for students) to go and “DO IT.” I can’t imagine how the students felt getting the same style of instruction from 5 different teachers and the command to finish the work and hand it in online. They were learning just like us. It was a messy situation at the time, but just as @caked834 mentioned, online/blended learning isn’t going anywhere. This is a perfect class to learn how to engage our learners and decide which platforms are best suited to delivery QUALITY lessons. I am hopeful this class will guide us all in the right direction and we can share our knowledge with others.
Hi Matt – thank you for the thoughtful and entertaining post! As I’m not a school teacher, your insights into middle/high school are enlightening. 🙂
I agree, it does seem that we’ve talked about the pandemic 4000 times, in this class alone (although I fully understand why – it was basically a sink or swim scenario in terms of online/blended teaching development). What impresses me is that you didn’t let the ERT experiences push you away from using technology in the classroom. Quite the opposite it seems. I hope others feel the same. I’m still a novice in terms of teaching and technology in general, but I can already see there are many benefits.
I appreciate you being so open about your experiences navigating blended learning while the pandemic was in full swing. The difficulties and complications that many educators encountered during the abrupt switch to online instruction are well-captured in your story.
It makes sense that the phrase “blended learning” might arouse doubt, particularly in light of the seemingly ever-changing landscape of educational modalities. Your experience brings to light a widespread misperception: that successful results can be achieved by simply implementing regular classroom procedures in an online environment. This method ignores the particular requirements and dynamics of online learning settings, as you quite rightly pointed out.
It’s admirable that you’re prepared to consider your teaching methods critically and adapt to the peculiarities of virtual learning.
I like your pictures!