BlendKit 2012 Week 2

For my weekly blog post I am going to address these three questions.

·   Is there value in student-to-student and student-to-instructor interaction in all courses regardless of discipline?

• As you consider designing a blended learning course, what kinds of interactions can you envision occurring face-to-face, and how might you use the online environment for interactions? What opportunities are there for you to explore different instructional strategies in the blended course than you have in the past?

• What factors might limit the feasibility of robust interaction face-to-face or online?

At first, to me, this question does not seem to ask for a serious answer, only to make a point.  How could there possibly NOT be a value in student-to-student and student-to-instructor interaction in all courses?  Isn’t the whole point of higher education supposed to be that interaction of minds to minds, iron sharpening iron, to quote the book of Proverbs?  Yet, how often does the interaction actually take place?  Certainly in a lecture class of 300 or more students, as is seen in some universities, interaction is not a realistic goal.  All of my teaching has been at institutions where my classes were relatively small, and I teach classes that normally require smaller classes (writing and speaking skills).   So, while the question seems silly on the surface, it isn’t.  Especially nowadays with the online course as often provided, there are a set of learning steps and assignments that may or may not require much in the way of real discussion.

Early on in online education, the tools for interaction were more limited; now they are abundant, so the instructor is really without excuse if he/she says, I know interaction is important, but it just isn’t possible in blended and online.  I have heard many say over the years that online is good for the introverts, those who don’t like being around people (which is of course not a definition of introverts!  See the recent book QUIET for a better understanding there!)  The underlying message is “take online so you don’t have to interact.”

But back to the question—is interaction necessary and valuable in all courses regardless of discipline?  Yes, I believe it is, because if we lean in the direction of a constructivist view of learning (which I do partially, but not totally), learning takes place in social situations and interaction with others.    If we forgo using all the great tools for interaction now available, we are then just falling back to the banking model of learning, or what I call the “tea pitcher model,” where an instructor just pours “knowledge” from a pitcher into the “glasses” of the students’ minds.  Not a very good metaphor for learning. 

This question addresses much deeper questions than how much interaction should be included in a blended or online course.  On the other hand, I think there can be too much.  The interactive tools that we would like to incorporate can just become busy work unless they are tied to something useful. 

I am currently teaching two blended courses and am taking this course to improve them and find out what I have been doing “wrong,” mostly in terms of the retention in the public speaking course.  But as far as what I do when the class meets versus the online portion, in speech class we give speeches and have f2f group/collaborative learning activities.  I lecture some on the subjects where interaction and back-and-forth are needed and where the students’ input drives the lecture.  For example, how to outline a speech and how to do research.  I believe the students would skip over those. 

This summer I filmed the majority of my lectures but have not found a satisfactory way yet to ensure they are watching them, since the lectures are housed on YouTube currently.  In the spring I will institute a series of quizzes.  We are changing to a different LMS in the spring, so I also may be able to post the video lectures there and be able to track their engagement in them. 

The other hybrid class I teach is Humanities 1201.  The students have a great deal of reading to do during the online portion.  In class we clarify the lecture and book material, watch a video, read a play outloud, and play review games for the exams.  I try not to resort to much of me talking, but to get them to interact and talk.  They are doing better than the speech class.  They also have a discussion  board assignment.

As for the last questions, what factors might limit the feasibility of robust interaction, I would say (a) teacher personality and energy, (b) teacher defaulting to lecturing when they meet because the students aren’t being responsible and processing the material on their own (big issue) , (c) teacher not being creative and using the best interactive tools, (d) teacher not being responsive to emails and communications from students during the week between class meetings.  The students should be held to a reasonably high standard and the instructor should not fall back to spoonfeeding them.  They took the blended course not because it is easier but because it allowed them a flexibility the other did not have.  Can a blended course be valuable beyond the flexibility?  Yes, especially if the instructor takes advantage of online tools and believes and understands learning, online or otherwise.  The instructor should design a quality course that might be better than a slapdash one that meets in a traditional format.