What is Blended Learning
Thinking
What is blended learning and why is it important to students?
What theoretical frameworks help us orient our perspectives on teaching or designing in blended learning environments?
What is the role of social presence in a blended learning environment?
Please watch this video clip first and see if your thoughts change.
What is Blended Learning ？
The simplest definition of the term blended learning is the use of traditional classroom teaching methods together with the use of online learning for the same students studying the same content in the same course. It is a “thoughtful fusion of face-to-face and online learning experiences” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008). There are also blended learning methods, in which students study some courses in face-to-face classrooms and other courses are delivered fully online. In other words, blended learning is a term applied to the practice of providing instruction and learning experiences through some combination of both face-to-face and technology-mediated learning. During the technology-mediated components of these learning experiences, students are not required to be physically together in one place but may be connected digitally through online communities. For example, one blended learning course could involve students attending a class taught by a teacher in a traditional classroom setting while also completing online components of the course independently, outside of the classroom, on an online learning platform. Classroom instruction time may be replaced or augmented by online learning experiences, and online learning can include varying degrees of interaction or just time alone in independent study and learning activities. However, in a quality blended learning experience, the content and activities of both in-person and online learning are integrated with one another and work toward the same learning outcomes with the same content. The various learning experiences are synthesised, complement each other, and are planned or orchestrated to run in parallel.
Blended learning is sometimes called hybrid or mixed-mode learning. These systems of instructional design use many types of teaching and learning experiences and vary in design and implementation across teachers, programmes, and schools. The potential variations of mixed-mode learning are virtually endless.
The Community of Inquiry Theoretical Framework in Blended Learning
In 2000, Garrison, Anderson and Archer published a theoretical framework developed to structure the process of learning in an online or blended environment. The Community of Inquiry (CoI), a model of inquiry-based teaching and learning, is based on the work of John Dewey and constructivist views of experiential learning.
The CoI framework describes the necessary elements to create deep and meaningful learning. The original framework identifies the education experience as occurring at the convergence of three presences: cognitive, teaching and social. In our application of this model, presence is defined as a state of alert awareness, receptivity and connectedness to the social, cognitive, emotional and physical workings of both the individual and the group in the context of their learning environments (adapted from a definition by Rodgers and Raider-Roth, 2006, p. 1).
An educational community of inquiry is a group of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding.
The Community of Inquiry theoretical framework represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements – social, cognitive, and teaching presence.
Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop interpersonal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (Garrison, 2009, p. 352).
Teaching Presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001).
Cognitive Presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001).
History of the CoI Framework
The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework theory, methodology and instruments were developed during a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities research funded project entitled "A Study of the Characteristics and Qualities of Text-Based Computer Conferencing for Educational Purposes" project which ran from 1997 to 2001. Central to the original study was the creation of a framework of a community of inquiry comprised of three essential elements of an educational experience: cognitive, social and teaching presence
Outcomes of the original project were published in peer reviewed journals which, in turn, have resulted in hundreds of research studies applying and extending the original CoI theory, method, and instruments. The seminal paper "Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education" (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000) has been cited more than 2,800 times (as reported by Google Scholar August 2015) and provided the foundation for valuable empirical research in learning theory across multiple disciplines and in varied educational settings.
In the following interview for the Reflective Teaching in a Digital Age podcast, Dr. Randy Garrison describes the history of the CoI framework, including its role in the thoughtful design of online education, and practical ways of helping students learn through active participation and shared meaning making.
Useful Site
Please visit this website to learn more about CoI： https://coi.athabascau.ca/