Putting the Focus on Student Engagement in Blended Learning Courses
by Meg Gorzycki, Ed.D.
Center for Teaching and Faculty Development, San Francisco State University
Hybrid teaching and blended learning are fundamentally concerned with providing an environment in which students assume responsibility for seeing information and completing tasks necessary to understand the material. As students assume such responsibility, the instructor becomes less of a “sage on the stage” and more of a “guide on the side” (Caulfield, J. 2011).
Like the effective face-to-face course, the effective hybrid course sets high expectations for student learning and manifests a strong alignment between student learning outcomes, assessments, and instruction.
Student Engagement in the Hybrid Course
Student success in the hybrid course depends largely on:
- The student’s motivation
- The student’s ability to complete assigned work in a timely fashion
- The student’s capacity to learn independently
- The instructor’s ability to facilitate deep thinking about experiences and new knowledge and to orchestrate meaningful articulation of leanring
As the hybrid course “flips” the traditional paradigm of instruction by tasking students with acquiring new knowledge outside class and using class time to summarize, apply, synthesize, analyze, reflect upon, and augment new knowledge, instructors are challenged to design learning experiences that immerse students in activity and that reduce the student’s dependence upon lectures as an exclusive source of knowledge.
The flexibility of the hybrid course allows instructors to use a variety of environments as a classroom. While some instructors want to students to complete dense course work on-line during “class sessions” off campus, others want students to complete assignments in the community, to conduct interviews, or to take a field trip to an important site.
The key to effective engagement is getting students to reflect upon and articulate the meanig and significance of their experience. In courses that aim to improve students’ crtical reading and resarch skills, exercises both in class and off campus might engage students in a guided analysis of text, the comparison of narratives, or proof reading academic essays.
Methods of engaging students in a hybrid course include:
Discussion
Pair-sharing
Problem-solving
Creative projects
Peer-editing
Debate
Reflection and composition
Creating graphic organizers of material or concepts
Completing critical reading exercises with guided analysis
Taking formative tests
Conducting interviews
Field work
Field trips (environmental studies, art museums, theatrical performances, historic sites, etc.)
Participating in a community project
Reviewing and summarizing
Identifying and exploring the “muddiest point”
Structuring research questions
Building a reference list
Critiquing a website
Six Key questions Concerning Hybrid Course Design
Q1. Who is likely to be enrolled in the course, and what does this enrollment imply?
Is the course is for undergraduates who may or may not have completed other courses related to the subject and who might not be majoring in the subject? What are the implications for course design and instruction? Will I need to keep a slow pace? Will I need to reserve large amounts of time for review and clarification?
Q2. What is the purpose of the course?
Is the cardinal purpose of the course is to introduce students to a subject? Is the purpose to examine a broad or narrow set of issues? Is the purpose of the course to improve specific skills related to reading, research, composition, technical skills, laboratory procedures, or field work?
Q3. Given the likely enrollment and purpose of the course, what is the appropriate scope and depth of the curriculum?
Is the scope of the course manageable by those likely to enroll in the course? Is the course designed to distribute inquiry equitably across the subject? Will some topics and activities receive more attention and do I have a clear rationale for the unevenness of attention across topics? Am I obligated in this course to see that students achieve competence with a particular set of skills or body of knowledge as part of their preparation for the next level of study in a given program?
Q4. How can course materials be designed to help student stay organized and be successful?
How can I ensure materials are accessible to all students? What specific material or resources can I provide on-line that will enable students to complete their assignments with relative ease? Do students know where to go for technical assistance? Do I need to establish rule for communication that address reasonable response time for e-mails or content?
Q5. What kind of course materials will help students learn in a hybrid format?
There are a number of options:
- A glossary of key vocabulary and important people
- List of academic journals carrying articles on the subject
- List of community agencies if service or field work is required
- Links to material on writing styles and citations
- Description of writing assignments
- Grading rubrics or grading guidelines
- Map files
- PDF files
- PowerPoint files
- Video files
- On-line syllabus with class schedule
Q6. What is the best way to assess the quality of student participation in on-line discussions?
As the presence of the instructor in the on-line forum reinforces the students’ sense that the instructor is committed to student learning and interested in students’ thoughts, how many times a week should the instructor monitor the discussions? Do the following criteria matter?
- Minimum requirements for posting responses?
- Level of thinking, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating?
- Respect for others who had different perspectives?
- Prompt feedback on student postings that recognizes important insights, redirects muddled thinking, and guides students to materials they may have overlooked?
A Sample Course Syllabus and Class Schedule for a Hybrid Course: Cold War History (pdf.)
