As an instructor, how can I make the most out of limited contact hours with students? A semester seems like a long time... between 28 and 30 hour-and-twenty-minute meetings. But in reality, that time goes quickly, and when the end of the semester rolls around, I often ask myself, "did my students actually learn anything meaningful?"
To make learning experiences meaningful, I struggle with a basic question that most collegiate educators struggle with daily. Do I go broad, and attempt to "cover" lots of material? Or do I choose core concepts, and go into depth, giving students the time and scaffolding to ask deeper questions about the knowledge itself. This deep thinking is the gold-mine that all instructors are trying to find, but sometimes students need some "surface knowledge" before they can start digging deeper.
But I don't want to spend eighty minutes per class delivering surface knowledge through a stale power point. And by the looks on my students' faces when I lecture for only thirty minutes, they can only take so much surface knowledge, which is great for me, because I would rather have more interaction. Still, we need to cover some important topics. This is where Blended Learning in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass) offers direction. By mixing online instruction with face-to-face instruction in so-called "blended learning" environments (or hybrid courses as they are sometimes called), instructors can leave broad knowledge education to the computer, and make use of face-to-face instruction time to explain complicated topics like only an expert can. Authors Randy Garrison and Norman Vaughan present theoretical backing with practical strategies for designing blended learning classes. They also present six case studies of course redesigns for existing face-to-face courses.
