Blended learning: The new normal

Dr Nripen Kumar Dutta

(The writer is Founder & Principal,

Miles BronsonResidentialSchool,

Guwahati, Assam. Email:nripen.dutta@gmail.com)

The Pandemic compelled us to learn and adopt virtual technology for education but it also widened the possibilities of instruction. Now with the physical resumption of classes, the challenge is to make the best of both traditional and online learning. How do we blend both to improve learning?

What is blended

learning?

Blended learning can be defined as the mixing of face-to-face teaching and online learning. Students can not only learn in a traditional environment but also online, using internet technology and other synchronous and asynchronous web resources. But it is still the teachers who decide the usage and combination of the two, as well as which portion of the student's learning will take place online and in the classroom. The term blended learning refers to learning that is facilitated by an effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning and applying them in an interactively meaningful learning environment.

Its instructional

strategies:

The blended class and instructional strategies include interactive Video methods, Questioning through the Socratic Method, Vocabulary Programmes, Direct Instruction, Peer Tutoring, Concept Mapping, Worked Examples, Self-Assessment, Reciprocal Teaching, and Problem Solving Teaching and Spaced versus Mass Practice.

Ideally, a blended learning class covers three space-out components within a class period. (i) Instructional Videos: initially instructional videos are flipped as home assignments before the start of the class and it is expected that the students go through the lesson by watching the videos. This is sent by the teachers by recording a self-prepared video or recommending sites on that lesson from the World Wide Web. Once in class students point out the concept that was not clear to them to understand and the teachers through the videos and direct instruction review their doubts by blending them with traditional methods.

(ii) Collaborative learning: In this step follows students' transition to a collaborative exercise whether the students are paired or different groups are formed for brainstorming through peer interaction on the particular lessons.

(iii) On-spot-assessments: Before the class terminates students are administered the exercises of on-spot-assessments for learning tools and techniques like quick writes, no opt-out, cold-call and exit slips graded from simple to complex in the levels of basic, proficient, excellent, exemplary and outstanding. These assessments are framed based or instants on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy, David Kolb's Learning Style and Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences for lower order to higher order (HOTs) analysing through skills.

The benefits: Blended learning represents a fundamental shift in instruction methods. It has the potential to optimize outcomes for individual students in ways that traditional instruction can't. Blended delivery modes allow for each aspect to be taught using the most appropriate medium for the topic at that particular stage in the training.

(i) Different people learn different things in different ways: It's pretty common knowledge that different people learn differently. In 1992, researchers Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills developed a popular model of learning styles called VARK: Visual (when people learn best by sight), Aural or Auditory (when people learn by hearing or speaking), Read/Written (when people learn when things are displayed as words) and Kinesthetic (when people learn by physical use or practice). With so many different learning styles to address, a blended learning solution makes sense. For people who learn visually or through reading and ideally alone, online self-paced video delivery would be the best mode. Social and aural learners would gain the most from live instructor-led classrooms. Meanwhile, hands-on practice from engaging in applied learning projects would satisfy kinesthetic and logical learners.

(ii) Using multiple modalities dramatically reinforces engagement, learning and retention: Numerous studies show how for most people, learning is improved by combining different activities alongside more passive study. Ideally, these could include the "human" element of interaction, such as threaded discussions, video conferencing and internal social media forums to share and compare knowledge and to encourage and demonstrate the effective application of newly learned skills to the workplace.

(iii) Learners can control the pace of their learning: People learn best when they have some control over their learning. Choice reduces learner apathy, relieves some of the stress of the learning process and motivates people to engage with the material. Corporate learners differ from traditional students. Most employees deal with time constraints, as they have to balance heavy workloads and their personal lives. Also, their coworkers come to the table with a wide range of knowledge and experience with the course topic.

(iv) Learning becomes more convenient for learners, as classroom learning is backed up by online activities connecting classroom learning to e-learning creating a 24/7 learning environment for students and teachers and keeping them connected round the clock as they can meet whenever and wherever they want. It is above space and time limitations.

Enables student-centric learning:

Personalized and competency-based learning implemented well and jointly, form the basis of a student-centred learning system. An important part of student-centred learning is that students develop a sense of agency and ownership for their progress and subsequent ability to guide their learning. This translates into an ability to become a lifelong learner, which is necessary in today's rapidly changing world, in which knowledge and skills become outdated quickly. This is why blended learning is so important. Blended learning is the engine that can power personalized and competency-based learning. Just as technology-enabled mass customization in so many people, online learning can allow students to learn any time, in any place, on any path, and at any pace at scale. At its most basic level, it lets students fast-forward if they have already mastered a concept, pause if they need to digest something, or rewind and slow something down if they need to review. It provides a simple way for students to take different paths toward a common destination. It can free up teachers to become learning designers, mentors, facilitators, tutors, evaluators, and counsellors to reach each student in ways never before possible.

Good teaching is dynamic and it is how to make the student an active participant instead of a passive listener. Innovative pedagogy is about giving children a range of activities and experiences where they are self-driven, intrinsically motivated and developed into leaders of their learning. They are as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states are at the state of 'flow'. Blended learning is an important movement in this direction.