Teaching Blended/Flipped Courses

During this module, we look at blended, and flipped courses, which are courses that
combine both online and face-to-face activities.

Objectives:
1. Identify approaches and issues involved in blended/flipped course design.
2. Analyze strengths and weaknesses of blended/flipped courses.
3. Create a blended unit.

Reading and Resources

Blended Courses
Here are some attributes of blended courses.

 Some “seat time” is replaced by online activities.

 Courses in which both face-to-face and online components are required.
 Course from one in which online elements are merely supplementary.
 The Sloan Consortium has defined a blended or hybrid course as one in which 30-
79 percent of the content is delivered online.

Explore the resources below to learn more about blended courses. Use these questions
to guide your exploration of blended courses.

1. How blended learning is defined?

2. What are some strengths and weaknesses of blended courses?

 The Basics of Blended Learning

https://youtu.be/3xMqJmMcME0
 Blended learning in 2 minutes and 38 seconds

https://youtu.be/Q5txJfv2q0c

 Blended Learning and Technology Integration

https://youtu.be/KD8AUfGsCKg

Flipped Courses
Flipped courses, emerged from K-12 settings, have become popular in higher education
in recent years. Have you attended a flipped course? Have you used this method in
your own teaching? Explore the resources below to learn more about this delivery
method. Use the following questions to guide your exploration.

 How flipped courses are defined?

 What are some strengths and weaknesses of flipped courses?

 What a 'Flipped' Classroom Looks Like

https://youtu.be/G_p63W_2F_4

 The Flipped Classroom Model

https://youtu.be/ojiebVw8O0g

 The Flipped Class: Is Flipping for Everyone?

https://youtu.be/FAWidtL7pKE

These ten questions (adapted from the University of Wisconsin's Hybrid Course
Website) are a good starting point when thinking about blended course redesign.

1. What do you want students to know when they have finished taking your blended
course? What are the intended learning outcomes of the course?
2. As you think about these outcomes, which would be better achieved in the online
environment and which would be best achieved face-to-face in class, tutorial or in
the lab?
3. Blended teaching is not just a matter of transferring a portion of your existing
course to the online environment. What types of learning activities do you think
you will be using for the online portion of your course? For the face-to-face part
of the course?
4. Blended courses provide new opportunities for asynchronous online discussions.
How will you use asynchronous discussions as part of the course learning
 activities? What challenges do you anticipate in using online discussions? How
would you address these?
5. How will the face-to-face, online and other “out of class” learning activities be
integrated into a single course? In other words, how will all the course activities
feed back into and support the other? How will you make the connections
between the activities explicit to students?
6. When working online, students frequently have problems scheduling their work
and managing their time. What do you plan to do to help your students address
these issues and understand their own role and responsibility for learning in the
course?
7. How will you divide the percent of time between the face-to-face portion and the
online portion of your course, for example 50% face-to-face, 50% online or some
other combination?
8. How will you divide the course-grading scheme between face-to-face and online
activities? What assessment methods will you use to assess student work in
each of these two components?
9. Students can have challenges with using new instructional technologies to
support their learning. What specific technologies will you use for the online and
face-to-face portions of your course? What proactive steps can you take to assist
students to become familiar with your course website and those instructional
technologies? If students need help with technology later in the course, how will
you provide support?
10. There is a tendency for faculty to require students to do more work in a blended
course than they normally would complete in a traditional face-to-face course.
What are you going to do to ensure that you have not created a course and one-
half? How will you evaluate the student workload (and your own) as compared to
a traditional class?

The Process
Most courses have three things in common: objectives/outcomes, course content,
and activities. Knowing the structure of a course helps you organize and then break
down the structure into the pieces you’ll need to redesign for a blended version.
While these course features do not change in the blended classroom,
understanding which content and activities to use in the face-to-face or online
portion becomes important during the redesign phase.
Let’s look at the actual process of converting a course from face-to-face only to a
blended delivery.
1. Review the outcomes – By reviewing where you want your students to end up,
you can make sure that the redesign focuses on teaching strategies rather than
 on the technology. For example, you want students to be able to write but your
design focuses on using a blogging platform rather than giving more direction on
the writing process itself.
2. Identify learning items for conversion/adaptation/change – Map the activities
you are using or would like to use to help students achieve the skills and
knowledge determined by the outcomes. Don’t worry at this point if the activity is
online or face to face, you’ll figure that out next.
3. Online or Face-to-Face – Now that you have your activities listed, identify ones
that you would like to move online. This is different for each facilitator and
course, as there are some activities given a changed circumstance, could be
done differently. For example, a lecture about a difficult to understand subject
might be better done face-to-face so students can ask and receive immediate
feedback to questions rather than as a posted online video (although recording
the session and posting it later would work for those who missed the class). We’ll
discuss which activities work best online or face-to-face in a moment.
4. Rewrite activities and content – As one of the last steps in the re-design
process, you will need to look at the current activities and rework them so they fit
the delivery mode you have chosen for them. For example, a debate you have
held face-to-face typically has been converted to an online discussion, so you will
need to reword the instructions for students to understand what is expected of
them in the online environment, including posting requirements, deadlines,
feedback instructions, etc.
What Works Where
Rather than letting the activities become a stumbling block to transitioning into a
blended format, determine which activities work best for your classroom, whether
that is online or for face-to-face instruction. You will need to make sure that the
activities support the objectives but also integrate well together. For example, if you
offer course content online before a face-to-face meeting, make sure that the
students become familiar with it prior to classroom time.
Additionally, what works in one mode may also work in another, depending upon
circumstances. The key is to ask:
 What activity would work better online, particularly those activities I know aren’t
working well in my classroom?
 How does the student interact with the content, other students in the course, and
with me?
 So, let’s take a moment and consider some common activities you may use in your
classroom and where they may land best for delivery. Notice that some of the
activities can happen both online and face-to-face.

Face to Face Online

 Discussions  Discussions
 Syllabus  Course information
 Essays  Essays
 Tests  Quizzes
 Lecture  Tutorials
 Group collaborations  Small group collaboration
 Readings  Course materials, including multimedia
 Lab work  Independent projects or work
 Presentations  Simulations

Learning Management Systems

You will design an assignment (one lesson or unit, not an entire course) which
includes an assessment component in an LMS. You can use Google Classroom in
your Erdiston G Suite Account to host your online lesson. If you prefer to use other
LMS of your choice, please discuss with the instructor for approval. You will apply
learning theory and lesson planning techniques by drafting a lesson plan.
Meanwhile, you will also learn to use the backend, administrative components of an
LMS. Every LMS has its features and limitations. Please explore your chosen LMS
to understand its functions, which can help you effectively and efficiently build your
course online.

 Google Classroom
 Canvas
 Edmodo
 Schoology

Online Course Evaluation

Quality MattersTM is a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality
of online and blended courses. QM is a leader in quality assurance for online education and has
received national recognition for its peer-based approach and continuous improvement in online
education and student learning.

 Quality matters website

When to Use This Rubric
The Rubric is intended to be used for courses that are delivered fully online or with a significant
online component (blended courses).
The distinguishing feature of courses for which this Rubric is applicable is the use of technology
(typically through a Learning Management System or other online course platform) to structure and
drive the teaching and learning in the courses. The K-12 Secondary Rubric is appropriate for use
with courses that have been locally developed or courses which have been significantly adapted
from publisher content.

 Non annotated QM rubric

Activities and Assignments

1. Readings:

Read the Blended Learning chapter located on the course page and explore the other module
materials

2. Reflection: (worth up to 25 marks)

This will be your third reflective blog post.

Reflect and write about your experiences in creating your Blended lesson. What type of Blended
model did you use? What impact do you foresee this shift having on the teaching learning
process? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of these courses? What are some
implications for your current or future teaching?

b. After completing your entry, please post your blog link to the Module 6 Blog Reflection
assignment area, so that I may issue you a grade.

3. Converting a Face to Face lesson to blended, (worth up to 100 marks)

a. Create a plan outlining your chosen blended topic

You may have a unit of curriculum that you have written. You may use that unit of
instruction to shift it to a blended learning format. Don’t be fooled to think that I am
asking for web resources. I'm asking you to consider what part of the instruction
could be shifted to maximize learning.
 b. Design the Online component
Design a lesson (unit) in your LMS. The lesson should have at least the following:
i. “Course” title
ii. Lesson (learning) objectives.
iii. The lesson title and assignments
iv. Instructional materials
v. Any needed discussion boards, etc.
vi. Due date(s) for assignment(s) and instructions as to how to submit assignments.
vii. Enroll me in the course since I will need that access later on for grading. Use the
student1@myettc.edu.bb account.

c. Create an Assessment Component

Add an assessment component to your lesson. Assessment of successful learning
should be tied directly to lesson objectives. Refer to the resources above for more
information. One place to start as you consider different assessment formats is Kathy
Schrock’s site.
Keep the format of the assessment simple. Here are some tools you might use:
a survey
an online game
a quiz
a rubric in connection with a:
o reflective feedback assignment
o research report
o project
d. Submit your Blended Lesson
When you are completely finished with your course, post the URL of LMS Lesson to
Google Classroom.
e. Sections of the QM rubric will be used to evaluate your module