Dr. Christopher Chandler, Dean of Education | Genesis University
Perspectives About Blended Learning.
- Blended Learning is a combination of Pre-recorded webinars that students can watch at any time and a Live learning experience. The Live experience could be classroom training, or scheduled office hours once a week where the instructor interacts with the Learners. Blended learning has been around since the early 90’s in its present form. It has become a benchmark for the best training programs since research indicates it increases engagement and learning. (It is an excellent competitive marketing tool to be able to say you offer blended learning.)
- Another very effective technique is to establish “cohorts” where students going through a course at the same time are divided into groups and each group has a case study where they can apply what they are learning in the course. The students set up their own meeting times (in GoToMeeting or a similar tool) and work together to complete and write up their case studies. The last session of the class is a live webinar where the students present their case studies. You may or may not have a Moderator or “Encourager” in each cohort with the goal of keeping everyone motivated and focused.
- If you don’t already have a top-notch learning management system (LMS), you will need to find one. Students log in to the LMS where they can view the videos, receive reminders of their progress, access their transcripts showing their progress, and join a discussion board where they can interact. But the first step in selecting an LMS is to document your requirements. Define a User profile for each type of person who will be using the LMS, such as the Learner User, the Admin User, and the Instructor User. Capture everything each user will want to do in the LMS. This will be what you use to evaluate an LMS. One of my favorites is Docebo. Docebo is just starting to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) and will be adding more AI features as time goes on.
- There are many ways to engage Learners and enhance learning in a pre-recorded webinar.
Here are some of my favorites:
1. At the beginning of the webinar, have a brief introductory video of the instructor where he introduces himself and speaks conversationally with the students about the goals for the class and how the agenda will go.
2. Next the instructor asks an Advance Organizer (comment about concept to come) or an Orienting Question (Question to start them thinking about the concept) to set the stage for learning. The goal is for the Learners to pull the concept or content This brings their existing knowledge into the forefront of their minds before you teach content. People learn by attaching new knowledge to an existing framework of knowledge and make connections to the new knowledge. These tactics pulls that framework to the top of the Leaner’s mind.
3. Ask engaging questions throughout the webinar… questions that will make the Learners apply what they are learning. You need to help them move them up the Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning pyramid.
There are many other cognitive learning strategies that help Learners retain more and gain the ability to apply what they have learned to new situations.
References:
(1) Carol Oliver, Supercharged Learning and Training, Sandy Springs, GA 2018.
(2) Dr. Christopher Chandler, Genesis University, Hollywood, FL 2018.