BL module

Developing a blended learning module to be copied and adapted by colleagues
Dr Neil Hughes, School of Arts and Humanities

Background

Dr Neil Hughes, Principal Lecturer in Spanish in the Modern Languages Team, has put together a 26-week blended learning International Relations module. It was designed to act as an exemplar for colleagues and as a means of showcasing technology in action. It also aimed to offer students with flexible learning opportunities, combining face-to-face and online elements. The module was designed to build on ongoing work in the existing Contemporary Latin American Society module.

The main driver was a desire to focus and sustain student engagement with the Latin American issues addressed in the module both on and off campus.

It was also hoped that combining face-to-face with online elements would help build a sense of community and encourage social interaction.

Working with large groups and trying to engage students outside the classroom space whilst developing their professional skills was another driver for the course.

Changes to practice

Course Genie, now known as Wimba Create, was used to put together the main body of course materials since it could easily convert Microsoft Word documents into web pages and turn them into interactive courseware, including self-test questions, video and audio streaming, pop-ups, definitions etc.

To find out more about Wimba Create see Wimba's website.

The Virtual Learning Environment provided the location where students could chat and discuss their learning in addition to more traditional face-to-face methods. Neil provided students with examples of posts from previous years to help students come to terms with this new way of learning. He also used a constructivist approach to help students take ownership of their learning and engage with the blended environment. Below are some extracts of discussion starter posts and examples of Discussion feedback that was given via NTU's VLE (NOW):

The eLearning advantage

There were several advantages to the blended approach. Students' evaluations of the module were almost unanimously positive. They were challenged by the discussions but they benefited hugely from the opportunity to acquire language, subject knowledge and improve their overall understanding. The use of discussion forums gave another advantage - an increased opportunity to write in Spanish through the use of focused discussion activities:

Students had to read more widely outside of the classroom and 62% of students felt that their Spanish language ability had improved as a result of the module and over a period of two years, assessment results for the blended version were the highest they had been in the eight years that the module had been running.

There was also a cost saving to be made too since alternating face-to-face seminars with online content meant that a 50% cut in classroom space was required. Staff time was restructured rather than reduced and they were able to spend time on new activities such as developing online materials and one-to-one tutorials.

Key points for effective practice

Blended learning delivery requires careful planning to maximize its benefit. 22% of students singled out the number of posts and the challenging nature of some of the discussion topics which required a considered response as being an issue with the module's design. Careful scaffolding of students' learning is needed, balancing time spent on task with the variety of activities which are potentially available online. The following extracts from Neil's module show how discussion activities were embedded within the core delivery of the module material and provided the stimulus for engagement with the activity:

Conclusions and recommendations

There is no doubt that overall this was an extremely popular and effective way of delivering the Spanish module for students. The course design will continue to be redesigned and developed to improve the experience for students and it is hoped that the module will provide a useful exemplar for others hoping to take a blended learning approach.