Category: Blended Learning

Blended FLO (Facilitating Learning Online) at Camosun (Robin Fast and Emily Schudel)

In case you don’t know, Camosun offers a Blended Facilitating Learning Online workshop – and not only do we offer it, we designed it!  In this post we are going to tell you a little bit about how this special workshop came to be and invite you to become a participant this fall.

History of the Facilitating Learning Online Workshops 

The Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) workshop series originated with Royal Roads University many years ago.  You may know that Royal Roads is mostly a distance learning institution, and the FLO series was designed to support the many faculty teaching from afar, but perhaps not experienced with online teaching.  Over time, the series, which was Creative Commons (CC) licensed, was picked up by BCcampus and run at a provincial level.  

FLO focuses on research-based “adult and online learning concepts, principles, and strategies,” and gives participants opportunities to experience what it is like to be a learner in an online environment, to facilitate learning activities, and experiment with teaching and learning strategies. 

The first course on the series is FLO Fundamentals, which supports learning to plan and facilitate learning in a completely asynchronous mode.  Over time, FLO Synchronous was added to address synchronous facilitation, a FLO Design which explores designing online learning and engagement, a number of one-week micro courses concentrating on specific aspects of facilitating online learning, and short one-hour sessions called FLO:Fridays.

Why did Camosun develop FLO Blended?

After adapting and running both FLO Fundamentals and FLO Synchronous at Camosun during and after the pandemic, there seemed to be an important one missing – one that would address the post-pandemic need for blended or hybrid courses. When faculty and students returned to in-person learning after almost two years of online (and some argue more flexible) learning, many students wanted to hold onto the flexible options they had enjoyed during the shift to online.  And, while many instructors longed to come back to the classroom, many of them also wanted to continue to take advantage of their new online teaching skills even when teaching a course that was primarily face-to-face. Hence, the desire for blended courses that could meet this emerging need. 

What we did

So, we, Robin Fast and Emily Schudel who are both part of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, decided to design a Blended FLO workshop for Camosun College (which we would CC license and ultimately share out to the broader education community).  Of course, this would be a different kind of FLO because we were working from the assumption that “blended” would mean having an in-person component, whereas other FLO offerings are completely online.  But we also saw blended as the best of both worlds, so to speak, and the best option to support faculty wanting to give their students a bit more flexibility (and also to relieve the pressure of classroom space at the college, among other things).

Our preparation led us down a few interesting rabbit holes as we grappled with how blended learning is defined (There are many opinions to choose from!); what guiding principles to consider when planning a blended-learning course; what instructors and students have found to be the biggest challenges and benefits; and ways instructors ensure students have a seamless, integrated experience when they move between modes throughout a course. We consolidated what we found and created opportunities during FLO Blended for participants to share their own insights. 

And, once we had settled on answers to these questions, we did our best to integrate them into our course design. FLO participants needed a well designed blended course experience while they explored how they would create their own. 

One of the best resources we found were Camosun faculty already engaged in teaching in a blended format. Robin interviewed several of our colleagues from different schools and disciplines about their experiences and we included video clips from these interviews throughout the course. (You can view these videos here. You may recognize a few faces.)

We completed a peer review of the draft Blended FLO workshop in February, 2022 (Thanks team!), made adjustments based on feedback, and planned for our first offering of FLO Blended in the Spring of 2022. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the registration numbers we needed and had to delay until the following year. It was clear: faculty were tired! We’d all just come out the otherside – or hoped we had- of two years of stop-start-adapt-pivot-learn-breath-rest-keep-moving Covid weirdness. The course would need to wait. 

Our Experience with Blended FLO

In the spring of 2023, happily, we had our first group of FLO Blended participants signed up and ready to go! Facilitating the course was such an uplifting experience! Participants brought a wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm, questions, concerns, hopes, and lots of laughter! They designed blended-learning lessons and delivered them to each other, giving and receiving feedback, making adjustments, and hashing out how to create the best experience for their students.  And we all had fun and exciting conversations about teaching (and not just in a blended environment!)

The feedback from participants was very positive. They appreciated the clear organization and ongoing guidance, the supportive community that was created, the immense value of giving and receiving feedback from facilitators and peers, and how the course activities brought the blended-learning strategies to life. Some of the comments they made were:

“Practicing with 2 mini-lessons was incredibly useful so we could take the feedback from the first mini-lesson and integrate it into the second. Additionally, participating in other sessions brought other strategies to life, and helped me reflect on my own practice.”

“Amazing organization, people, interaction, wisdom.  Very clear guidance. Supportive community, new ideas (like a really good buffet). Great teamwork, inspiring, thoughtful…good reflection tools and ideas.”

“I look forward to more courses on this topic, and I also recognize that at this point my program doesn’t have a lot of opportunities for blended learning. Now that I actually know what it is I feel much more confident in discussions with my Dean and colleagues.”

“I found this course rich in learning outcomes, but also demanding, more so than I expected.  I loved the icebreakers and in-person discussions, and the follow-up summaries!”

“I really loved the interdisciplinary approach – learned a lot from different faculty for methods of delivery! I also really appreciate the in-person discussions and the free flow that came from those discussions.”

Plans for the Future

We will be offering FLO Blended again in Fall 2023, but this time we will stretch the course over six weeks to give a bit more time for participants to work through the material and plan and deliver their lessons (knowing that they will likely be teaching at the same time as taking the Blended FLO). We also plan to publish the course on an open resource to make it, at least the non-interactive portion, more easily available. Stay tuned for more!

Interested in taking the Blended FLO at Camosun?  Find out more and/or register on our website, or contact Robin Fast (fast@camosun.ca) or Emily Schudel (schudele@camosun.ca).

Blended Learning Perspectives: Examples from Camosun Faculty

Today is the fourth, and final (for now), post in our series on Blended Learning Perspectives.  So far, I have shared with you a video with several Camosun faculty members explaining their views of what blended learning is, a series of videos where some of these same faculty members talk about blended learning and how it supports equity, diversity, and inclusion and a series of videos with faculty talking about the importance of student feedback.

This week, three instructors share some of their own blended learning lesson examples.

Tanis (Kinesiology) – where students reflect, discuss, review online and then build community when they are together in person.

Diane (Education and Career Preparation) – where students discuss and brainstorm synchronously, then watch and analyze related videos in their asynchronous classroom space, and reflect on them from a personal perspective.

Kari (English) – where students review and reflect and comment on peers’ work online, then come together in person and have a group conversation about the work they have read and reviewed.

Blended Learning Perspectives: Student Feedback

Today is the third post in our series on Blended Learning Perspectives.  So far, I have I shared with you a video with several Camosun faculty members explaining their views of what blended learning is and a series of videos where some of these same faculty members talk about blended learning and how it supports equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Today we have four videos where our faculty talk about the importance of collecting and using student feedback to give instructors the opportunity to improve and refine their teaching and help them make adjustments during the course with current student needs in mind.

Zahra (Academic and Career Foundations) – the importance of one-on-one check-ins with students in her self-paced classes to make sure they are on track.

Brent (Medical Radiography) – the importance of check-ins during the class (not waiting until the end of the term).

Bijan (Economics/School of Business) – addressing the challenge of getting feedback from online learners.

Tanis (Kinesiology) – finding different ways to build in feedback to invite them in rather than putting them on the spot.

 

Blended Learning Perspectives: Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

Last week I shared with you a video with several Camosun faculty members explaining their views of what blended learning is.  Today, I would like to share with you a series of videos where some of these same faculty members talk about blended learning and how it supports equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Diane (EDCP) – Blended learning can include diverse learners many of whom can’t come to on-site classes, address content accessibility, and allow the inclusion of guest speakers from all over the world.

Kari (English) – Blended learning can provide a variety of resources and ways of presenting resources to support diverse learning needs.

Alyssa (Kinesiology) – Blended learning can provide flexibility to students with many competing priorities and who need to take time to digest material before contributing to discussions.

Bijan (Economics/School of Business) – Blended learning can provide multiple supports for learning.

Blended Learning Perspectives: Defining Blended Learning

So today I am beginning a new series of posts showcasing video perspectives on Blended Learning by faculty at Camosun College.  These videos are clips taken from a series of interviews with college faculty which were gathered by Robin Fast, a faculty member in Community, Family, and Child Studies who was also a part of our CETL team last year developing our Blended FLO course.

The videos I will be presenting over the next few weeks were integrated into our Blended FLO course and cover a variety of topics related to Blended Learning.  We hope you enjoy them.

In today’s video we will hear from Camosun faculty providing their own definitions of Blended Learning: Kari Jones from English, followed by Diane Gilliland of the Education & Career Preparation program, Bijan Ahmadi from Economics in the School of Business, Alyssa O’Conner in Kinesiology, Zahra Kimji from Academic and Career Foundations, and Brent Mekelburg from Allied Health and Technologies.

If you have questions about Blended Learning in your own context, if you would like to share your own experiences with Blended Learning, or if you would like to be connected with Robin, please email me at schudele@camosun.ca.

Takeaways from Camosun’s First Blended Learning Conversation CafĂ©

On November 4th, 2021, a group of 20 Camosun faculty and staff got together for a conversation about blended learning – what works well, what can be challenging, and what are some solutions and considerations. I wanted to share with you some of the key takeaways from these conversations.

First, however, here is Camosun’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL)’s current working definition of Blended Learning:

A form of hybrid learning which blends in-person and online instruction and where all students generally follow the same mix of online and in-person activities. In some cases, particularly when traditionally in-person courses are moved to a blended model, online activities may replace some in-person activities. This practice is variously referred to as blended, hybrid, or mixed mode, and has important consequences for scheduling and registration procedures.

The first question we posed for open discussion was: What are the best bits (tools and strategies) from your online teaching experience during the pivot that you want to or are carrying forward this year when teaching in-person or in a blended environment?

Leveraging existing and supported tools (for example, in Camosun’s case, D2L tools). These tools provide both transparency around how learners are being assessed, as well as organization and consistency for both learners and instructors.

Providing learners with multiple content modes (text, images, audio, video). Content like this can be reviewed as many times as learners need to. Videos or audio could contain interviews or discussions between subject matter experts, allowing learners to listen to two seasoned readers modelling critical analysis, discussion, exploration of material.

Providing learners with the opportunity to work on content before coming to an in-person class discussion, problem-solving activity based on the content, or question and answer session, in a flipped classroom model.

Designing activities so that they can be done at home in case students can’t come to class (which is definitely an issue these days when students and instructors cannot come to class if they are sick.)

Bringing in guest speakers, either live into the classroom via videoconferencing, or via videos embedded in a course site.

Having learners create content to share and discuss with their colleagues, for example creating a short video outlining an assignment, checking their understanding of the assignment and explaining their work, why they know what they know and what they’ve learned, or having student teams use discussion boards to share their work with other teams.

In smaller groups, we then discussed the following questions: How could a blended delivery model support your students? What do we need to consider? What might be the challenges of a blended learning model? Potential solutions?

Benefits

Blended learning can make education more accessible, encouraging Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and recognizing the diversity of learners and instructors including the diversity of preferred modes of learning/teaching. It can accommodate students who prefer to learn on their own but also students who don’t have the best access to technology and provide flexibility for instructors and students with busy lives.

Blended learning can add options for students who are perhaps reluctant to speak in an in-person class, who need more time to consider questions before volunteering answers, thus broadening course participation, creating more opportunities for interaction, and supporting more collaborative learning.

Blended learning aligns with student expectations and the skills and experience needed in the current (often blended/ always technology assisted) work environment.

Challenges

As an institution we need to create/use consistent definitions for terminology – online, synchronous, blended, asynchronous – as well as acknowledging the different perspectives of students, faculty, institutional services, and administration around these terms.

Because it can be labour intensive to develop a good online or blended course, we need to provide faculty with funding and/or release as well as dedicated support. There can be a steep learning curve for faculty and students both for teaching/learning online and for using the technology. And additionally, access to technology and support can be limited for some students meaning that some aspects of the online component of a blended course may not be available to them.

We need to consider decision-making processes when deciding to run a course in a blended format. Faculty need the ability to structure the classes to what is best for student learning while recognizing the complexities of scheduling logistics between online and on-campus can be tough.

We need to reflect on changing technologies and institutional attachment to specific platforms and software, while ensuring those platforms don’t define our pedagogy but rather support what we need for teaching and learning.

We need to manage learner expectations by ensuring they understand that online courses or course components are not necessarily self-paced, and that the flexibility afforded by blended learning options may require learners to learn additional time management skills.

What’s next?

The participants in our conversation café are looking forward to continuing the conversations next term, and in the meantime, we in CETL will be sharing the key takeaways with our CETL team and leadership at the college, along with some recommendations for future discussion.

Want to know more about how we in CETL are supporting Blended Learning at Camosun? Contact Emily Schudel (schudele@camosun.ca)