What are the Best Practices for Blended Learning in Classroom? Redefine Your Institute's Teaching Learning Process to Empower More to Your Students!!
Abstract:
The future of work is hybrid and educators intent on bringing together in-person and online experiences believe the future of learning is hybrid, too.
In blended learning, the real-world classroom is paired with virtual components to create a more personalized and efficient learning experience. It enables schools, institutions, and organizations to take advantage of the best of both worlds—the personal connections and engagement that come with in-person learning plus the flexibility, convenience, and customization of online learning.
- Personalization and Differentiation.
- Implementation Gamification.
- Encourage Interactive Communication.
- Use Different Blended Learning Models.
- Data and Analytics to Your Advantage
The term ‘blended learning’ actually describes the manner in which eLearning is integrated or combined with a more traditional classroom setup, offering independent study. This particular learning approach makes sure that the audience remains engaged and their overall learning experience is productive. The learning strategy is more popular among individuals who have unique learning styles as this strategy caters to individual needs with more flexibility and convenience.
However, to fully and completely incorporate this learning strategy, there are two basic factors which you should consider. While some learners prefer a combination of online settings and traditional classroom, it is important to consider the target segment of catered students. Not every learner is motivated enough to actively engage in blended learning. For such learners, this particular learning strategy is not suitable.
Secondly, motivation is indeed a critical aspect of blended learning strategy in addition to targeted segmentation. Managing this part of blended learning involves planned crafting of the ‘BLENDED’ assessments. The term ‘BLENDED’ here is associated with ‘ASSESSMENT’ to emphasize more on the non-traditional assessments such as traditional examination and tests. This means that developing innovative content is a major factor that must be considered here.
However,developing unique and engaging content and creating a productive environment of blended learning, whether it is on corporate or students’ level, is not always easy and can be quite challenging for many reasons. Similarly, such kind of learning platforms cannot be accessed in the absence of adequate and fast bandwidth WiFi or internet access. This is imperative to get a complete and easy access to the learning material and to learn in a blended learning environment.
The blended learning materials can be developed in a few of the following simple steps:
1. Define the Outcomes of the Course delivered by blended learning.
As with any learning strategy, the first step for designing blended learning courses is to define the objectives and goals you wish to achieve from your blended learning strategy.
Ask the following questions to yourself which can help you define your goals:
- What skills you wish to impart in your learners?
- What information should be included in the blended learning course?
- What instructional design models and instructional tools should be used to deliver new knowledge and information?
Your goals and objectives will serve as a roadmap to design your blended learning courses. At each step you will be able to see where your course is headed and the points you need to modify or cover along the way.
2. Create an Outline for the Blended Learning Course
A course outline offers benefits to all participants. The learners can use the outline to stay on track while the instructor/ course developer can use it to ensure that the blended learning course is progressing at the desired pace.
In your course outline, specify the course objectives, assignments, papers, and tests that have to be submitted, along with the deadlines that the learners have to meet.
3. Determine the Level of Interactivity
A major advantage of blended learning is it provides learners greater control over their learning. Learning is not just based on information imparted by the instructor, using both online and offline resources. Rather, learners can progress through self-paced learning activities.
When preparing your blended learning course design, determine the level of interactivity of your course.
When you opt for blended learning, you gain an opportunity to choose from a wide range of online learning resources and delivery methods.
4. Integrate Group Collaboration Activities
While learning at your own pace has its advantages, the need for group collaboration cannot be overlooked. In team learning, learners gain an opportunity to interact with their peers, share knowledge and benefits from each other’s skill sets.
While designing an effective blended learning course, you should also create an effective social learning strategy to take learning out of the classroom and open conversations to a larger audience. These group interactions will also promote in your learners problem-solving, analyzing and rational thinking skills.
5. Facilitate Communication
Blended learning involves learners know how as they can communicate with their instructor or facilitator in case they have a concern or query.
This is beneficial for the instructor and the learners: the instructor doesn’t have to be in the virtual classroom round the clock, and the learners also know that they have a solid support system they can turn to in case they face any problems.
6. Compile a List of Resources to Support Learning
With blended learning, you have the opportunity to choose from a wealth of resources to support your courses and provide these ready references to your learners. For instance, you may provide them links to articles, presentations, and videos to delve deeper into their lesson.
Your instructors too are spared the time needed for creating their own learning resources.
7. Create an Assessment Plan
Your blended learning courses are incomplete if they don’t include an assessment plan to check the progress of the learners. Your assessment plan can include a quiz at the end of each module. Or they can be asked to summarize their learnings from a self-learning activity.
This principle question focuses on the responsibility of teachers to provide options for “physical action, expression and communication, and executive functions. The strategies for addressing these concepts may include:
- Providing multiple ways to access content and material (interactive e-books)
- Allowing students to respond in various ways (audio, video, drawing, etc.)
- Using scaffolding techniques when reading and writing
- Using interactive web tools (annotation software, storyboards, etc.)
Since blended learning involves online and digital resources, time limitations are simply the matter of the past, if you do have a good internet connection. The learning strategy is way ahead than these old limitations. The online resources are always there to help – 24/7. In addition, if your blended learning strategy also offers a public forum, you can also learn from the experience of others and get your solution without the assistance of an instructor.
A personalized training experience
The strongest aspect of blended learning is the chance to receive personalized training by every individual, catering to their learning needs. This means that every participant has different learning capabilities and not all of them are always on the same page in terms of grasping the information. They may choose the path through specific topic areas as they deem right.
Undoubtedly, the face-to-face interaction and various aids to receive timely performance feedback have made blended learning a unique training and development strategy. The overall result of this particular training strategy is to enable every learner to focus on the information and skills they are in need of, without having to attend long unnecessary lectures or going through piles of unrelated information.
Better communication and collaborative learning
Even though with blended learning strategy a participant can access the resources in the absence of the instructor, it still improves the communication and interaction amongst the participants and also with the instructors. All of these communication tools offer great flexibility in terms of ensuring timely communication. May it be any concern or feedback / evaluation, all of this is now possible instantly and without any time constraint.
Easy to track participants’ skill and performance development
You can easily track down the data in terms of participants’ eventual performance improvement. This learning strategy makes data tracking a lot more convenient and quick. It helps in eliminating the cookie cutter approach of grading exams. Instead, it offers a better evaluation option of online assessment that comes with a built-in grading rubric with an additional benefit of immediate feedback.
This modern learning strategy can easily track the material accessed by a participant. It also shows at what time and for how long they reviewed the material. All of this, especially in a corporate setup, can easily be done digitally and this provides the track record of employees which are then further used to take their promotion and development decisions. In fact, nowadays many organizations use this opportunity to determine activities which are more effective and the ones which need improvisation or modification to fully meet the objectives or performance goals.
Cost-effective training strategy
Every business strives to make strategies that are both smart and cost-effective and blended learning is just one of these strategies. As you incorporate more and better online options in the blended learning program, it not only saves the traveling cost but also the cost of missed work. That is, as you integrate the events of your training program in an online setup, it not only eliminates the limitations of time and place but also reduces travel cost for both the instructor and the participants.
Use of Blended Learning in Continuous Education
While blended learning has been a transformative force in education, it’s worth exploring how this approach can be harnessed for continuous education.
Continuous education is all about adapting to new trends and ensuring that professionals and lifelong learners are equipped with the latest knowledge and skills. In this context, blended learning presents a valuable opportunity.
1: Temporary increase in the workload (transition phase)
It’s hard to disagree that there’s a significant amount of work involved in the early stage of blended learning where you set everything up. It’s not easy to switch to a new method if you are already accustomed to a traditional approach. You might wonder how to balance face-to-face training with online training. It can take a while to reap the benefits of this learning approach.
Lack of motivation
Another disadvantage is that, depending on how you set up blended learning, it might diminish the motivation of your participants. Not every blended learning model is suited to every person, task, subject, or organization. In the way you consider children’s’ reading levels when choosing books for them, you should consider which approach will work best for your employees or customers.
Basic technology knowledge
Your participants must have a basic knowledge of technology to take lessons and complete assignments online. Your employees won’t learn too much from a screen if they don’t know how to do it or are not interested. This issue can be solved with a quick introduction to the new training techniques and its benefits.
Plagiarism and credibility problem
Plagiarism is a well-known issue in the e-learning world. It might be hard for online learners to resist the temptation of looking up things on the web while learning from a computer or smartphone.
How can you ensure that as you embark upon your corporate blended learning strategy, you’ll meet with success?
The top strategies for suitable implementation of blended learning are:
- Use multiple types of instructional materials
- Incorporate technology for reinforcement
- Try new teaching techniques
- Keep your traditional methods
- Vary your assessments
- Mix up group work styles
- Try a digital curriculum
By using several resources, blended learning will come naturally and easily. A typical day in a blended classroom could look like this:
Class starts with a bell ringer activity you found on the internet
You instruct students to read a section of the textbook
A teacher-led discussion follows
Students break into groups to complete a related activity you’ve created
You end class by assigning homework from your textbook or eBook
Each day will be a little bit different as you mix up the use of each resource.
Technology can be used in a few different ways, including to directly instruct your students, or to reinforce their learning with fun activities or exercises.
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