scholarly journals THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FUTURE – THE CHALLENGES, POSITIVES AND FUTURE STRATEGIES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION BLENDED TEACHING

Author(s):  
Monica Ward ◽  

There have been many changes that have taken place in all levels of education since the Covid-19 pandemic, including at Higher Education (HE). While the swift pivot to blended teaching has been challenging and not welcomed by all, there are some positives have come about because of it and it would be good to be able to hold on to these. The challenges include moving learning materials (written, video and audio) online, engaging with students in a constructive manner and how to do assessments that are academically rigorous and have academic integrity. It is difficult for those who are used to teaching in a face-to-face environment to suddenly switch over to developing online resources and know who do this effectively and efficiently. Interacting with students online requires a different skill set than in a face-to-face environment and educators should not be expected to acquire these skills automatically. Closed-book, invigilated exams are the norm in HE institutions and ensure a level of academic integrity that has worked well for many years. It is difficult to switch from this scenario to an open-book, non-invigilated exam. It means that questions have to be re-thought to explore the students’ understanding in an academic rigorous manner. Ideally, it would be good to be able to address these challenges as they mean a less positive experience for both educators and students. The positive aspects include a more flexible approach to teaching and learning, facilitation of different modes of learning and in some cases, more interesting and authentic assessments. A more flexible approach enables students to learn at a time and place that suits them and is in keeping with the needs of the more diverse population that makes up student body in HE today. While there is a debate around learning styles, providing learning materials in a variety of formats is beneficial for all students. While it is definitely more difficult to develop open-book assessments, it is also an opportunity to do more real-world, authentic assessments that assess students’ higher order skills. This moves assessment further along the Bloom’s taxonomy. This paper looks at the challenges and positives outcomes of the move to blended teaching and learning and how the challenges can be addressed, the positive aspects maintained and how a sustainable approach can be adopted to ensure that future changes to teaching are less challenging and more positive.

Author(s):  
Zane L. Berge

Just as the agricultural era gave way to an industrial society at the turn of the 20th century, an information society is now emerging as we move into the 21st century (Bell, 1993; Naisbitt, 1988; Toffler, 1980). With this shift in the means of production come drastic changes to every segment of society—including higher education (Rowley, Lujan, and Dolence, 1998). New delivery systems that increase the effectiveness of learning at a distance, new organizations such as virtual universities, and other models of teaching and learning are forcing higher education to change the way they do business (Mangan, 1998; Oblinger, 1997; Selingo, 1998). Compared with that of the past 100 years, the rate of change occurring in society is unprecedented. There have been unparalleled increases in global competition, in customer expectations, and in new technology. These factors contribute to a lasting sense of crisis. Can traditional organizations in higher education respond to the changing environment by using the same approaches business has? The traditional universities and colleges can be characterized as having: a residential student body; a recognized geographic service area from which the majority of student are drawn (a local community, a region, a state, or a nation); full-time faculty members who organize curricula and degrees, teach in face-to-face settings, engage in scholarship, often conduct public service, and share in institutional governance; a central library and physical plant; nonprofit financial status; and evaluation strategies of organizational effectiveness based upon measurement of inputs to instruction, such as funding, library holdings, facilities, faculty/student ratios, faculty qualifications, and student qualifications (Hanna, 1998, p. 69). However, technology is allowing non-traditional organizations to meet the curricular challenges many students are presenting (Whinston, 1994), including the need to develop learning materials that can be easily updated and configured for the particular needs of students, as well as the possibility of learning at any time and at any place. At the same time, the mode of industrial production within our society is being replaced with models that rely on the rapid growth in technology, an increase in the accessibility of information, a more critically aware population, and a shift from the production of goods to a service economy (Merron, 1995). These factors are causing significant change in education as well.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-46
Author(s):  
Dinda Gusti Ayu Berlianti ◽  
◽  
Intan Pradita

Translanguaging is a tool for bilingual or multilingual to learn more than one language.  In the field of linguistic, translanguaging is not something new. However, its implementation is still found rare in higher education. To fill this void, this study aims to investigate the implementation of translanguaging in classroom, especially in higher education. This research was intended to answer how helpful translanguaging practices in EFL Classroom is. By using qualitative method, the data were collected by recording two credits full face-to-face classroom interaction. One lecturer and her forty-five students voluntarily became the research participants.  The data were then analyzed by using thematic analysis. The findings showed that the practices were helpful in a way that the tutors could build an engaging dialogue for the students, enabling them to understand the complex learning materials. These findings then implied that in the teaching and learning process, EFL lecturers tend to be more attentive as they prefer to have their students understanding on complex subject to build English proficiency of their students’.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-155
Author(s):  
Diana-Crina Marin ◽  
Mușata Bocoș

"In the context in which the teaching, learning, and assessment processes take place in the online environment, the question arises whether the currently organized learning situations are as effective as the learning situations carried out in the classroom, before the beginning of the pandemic. One of the disadvantages of online learning is related to the teacher’s low control over students’ activity. Factors such as initiative, creativity, efficient time management, intrinsic motivation, responsibility, and intellectual curiosity play an important role in students’ success in learning activities. Attendance at courses should not be formal and superficial and should be a process that involves the active and interactive participation of the students in the learning process. Providing high-quality educational opportunities to all students is a goal that is increasingly difficult to achieve in the context of the absence of face-to-face interactions. Also, applying a curriculum focused on the needs of the learner is becoming hard to achieve. Through this research, we aim to investigate issues related to how online learning takes place and to establish ways in which we can increase the efficiency of current teaching and learning processes. The study revealed that in the opinion of most of the students, the current epidemiological context has influenced in a negative way the quality of teaching and the student-teacher educational relationship. Keywords: Interactive learning, eLearning, independence in learning, higher education, efficient strategies "


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Betts ◽  
Brian Delaney ◽  
Tamara Galoyan ◽  
William Lynch

In March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted education worldwide. In the United States, the pandemic forced colleges and universities across the nation to adopt quickly emergency remote teaching and learning. The ability to pivot instruction seamlessly and effectively across learning formats (e.g., face-to-face, hybrid, online) while supporting student engagement, learning, and completion in an authentic and high-quality manner challenged higher education leaders. This historical review of the literature examines distance and online education from the 1700s to 2021 to identify how external and internal pressures and opportunities have impacted and influenced the evolution of educational formats pre-COVID-19, and how they will continue to evolve post pandemic. This historical review also explores how instructional design and pedagogy have been and continue to be influenced by technological advancements, emerging research from the Learning Sciences and Mind (psychology), Brain (neuroscience), and Education (pedagogy) science.


Author(s):  
Sergio Francisco Sargo Ferreira Lopes ◽  
Luís Borges Gouveia ◽  
Pedro Reis

The study and investigation around educational models and teaching and learning methodologies is a theme that has long aroused the interest of the academic environment in higher education, both in the period before the advent of digital technology, as in current times in which technology is strongly embedded in the various teaching and learning processes, which involve classroom and distance-learning classes and courses, both in the context of e-learning and b-learning. Understanding how people learn and understand the themes presented in the classroom in face-to-face and e-learning is fundamental for planning and implementing processes that allow teachers to apply teaching and learning methodologies that can be efficient and effective. The main objective is to carry out a critical reflection on b-learning teaching, about the implementation of the teaching and learning methodology of the flipped classroom, one of the variants of b-learning teaching, supported by the results of a field investigation carried out with 152 students (n=152) of higher education.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiam Chooi Chea ◽  
Lim Tick Meng ◽  
Phang Siew Nooi

With the advancements in communications technology brought about by the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, attention has been drawn to Open and Distance Learning (ODL) as a mode for teaching and learning. In Malaysia, the establishment of ODL universities such as Open University Malaysia (OUM) has expanded the role of ICT in learning and knowledge generation. By leveraging on Internet technology, ODL universities are able to transmit education across the country and even globally. ODL sets about making quality e-learning and e-content more accessible to both facilitators and learners. Utilising this method, new opportunities are continuously created to make higher education more accessible to those who seek to improve and upgrade themselves. This paper examines OUM's practice of using the innovative technology of online learning and teaching to make higher education easily accessible to those that seek it. With greater advancements in technology, the future of higher education may lie more with ODL than with traditional face-to-face learning.


Author(s):  
Geraint Lang

Twenty First Century Education is undergoing change not only to keep in step with the emerging technological innovations, but also to address the needs and meet the high expectations of a technically sophisticated student body. Physical manifestations of these changes may be seen in new institutional building work. Technologically, the Facebook Generation of students in our universities expect online access across the campus, not only to all manner of information and social networks, but to their course work. A growing body of the student population now remain in full time employment, enrolled via online courses. Their virtual access to teaching and learning requires a different form of tuition to that generally experienced in face to face lectures. Online teaching and learning is a facilitated process, which this chapter seeks to explain. The role of the facilitator is explained, along with the process of online learning, with reference to an established online degree course, Ultraversity.


Author(s):  
Hui-Chun Hung ◽  
Shelley Shwu-Ching Young

The emergence of open online courses and flipped classrooms has brought new opportunities to unbundle the traditional university. This study aimed to investigate a thermal physics classroom integrated with an open online learning mode to afford various learning strategies for students in Taiwan. Moreover, we examined students' preferred learning modes by adopting a quasi-experimental design with questionnaires, pre-test and post-test scores, self-reported journals and interviews. A total of 89 students participated in the study. The instructor allowed all students enrolled in the class to choose their own preferred learning modes. All students had full access to all course materials in both open online course and traditional face-to-face learning contexts throughout the whole semester. We examined the learners' academic performance in each learning mode and surveyed their perceptions of the course. The findings of this study indicate that information technology can transform teaching and learning in a thermal physics classroom and challenge the instructor to tailor the course to meet students' diverse needs. Significantly, students adopted five learning modes, consisting of face-to-face, web facilitated, alternative blended, online learning and flipped learning. This study provides a valuable reference on how traditional on-campus higher education institutions could be unbundled to create student-centred learning approaches.   Implications for practice or policy: Educators could design a flexible delivery model, allowing students to choose five learning modes, consisting of face-to-face, web facilitated, alternative blended, online learning and flipped learning in terms of their learning style and time management. For students with sufficient background knowledge, the flipped learning mode provides the best learning performance. This study could provide administrators, educators and instructors with insights and new approaches in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and improvements in their course policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 556
Author(s):  
Blake C. Colclasure ◽  
AnnMarie Marlier ◽  
Mary F. Durham ◽  
Tessa Durham Brooks ◽  
Mekenzie Kerr

COVID-19 has been one of the most significant disruptors of higher education in modern history. Higher education institutions rapidly transitioned to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in mid-to-late March of 2020. The extent of COVID-19’s impact on teaching and learning, and the resulting challenges facilitating ERT during this time, likely varied by faculty, institutional, and geographical characteristics. In this study, we identified challenges in teaching and learning during the initial transition to ERT at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) in the Midwest, United States. We conducted in-depth interviews with 14 faculty teaching at Midwestern PUIs to explore their lived experiences. We describe the most overarching challenges related to faculty teaching through four emergent themes: pedagogical changes, work-life balance, face-to-face interactions, and physical and mental health. Five themes emerged that we used to describe the most overarching challenges related to students and their learning: learning patterns, technology access, additional responsibilities, learning community, and mental health. Based upon the identified challenges, we provide broad recommendations that can be used to foster a more successful transition to ERT in unforeseen regional or global crises in the future.


Author(s):  
Håkan Eftring ◽  
Elinor Jeanette Olaussen ◽  
Helen Petrie ◽  
Merja Saarela ◽  
Tarja Ladonlahti ◽  
...  

The TINEL Project is running a series of camps for staff at higher education institution to support them in developing inclusive eLearning. The first camp was conducted face-to-face, but the coronavirus pandemic meant that the second camp was conducted online. This created a case study in inclusive eLearning in itself and allowed us to experience and reflect on the challenges and opportunities of inclusive online teaching and learning. This paper presents the structure and content of the two camps, our reflections on moving from a face-to-face to an online situation and our elaboration how the UDL principles apply to eLearning to create Universal Design for eLearning (UDeL). We found that because we already had a syllabus for the camp prepared, transferring it to an online camp did not present a great number of challenges. Some aspects of the online situation were actually advantageous (e.g. presenting all materials digitally and making them fully accessible) while others were difficult to overcome (e.g. engaging all participants in online activities and discussions). We provide a set of recommendations of how to implement the three principles of UDL in eLearning situations.


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