Blended learning: Positive effects and possible drawbacks

The past year and a half have served as a crash course in blended learning for a lot of teachers. Through the 2020 and 2021 school years, teachers across the country began to gain experience in educating students over the internet due to the pandemic. Some had already been doing this for a while and it certainly made transitioning to working/teaching from home easier than it could have been. Other teachers, who possibly had less experience with digital learning/technology, got a crash course in educating their students with the computer and the internet as an intermediary.

The manner in which school districts handled the return back to in person learning varied greatly with some states choosing to never return and teach fully remote classes and some that finished the year with all students present. The administrative team in my district’s decision to split the schools into cohorts meant that students would be in person for one class and virtual the next. Because of this pattern, every teacher had to do quite a bit of blended learning, regardless of whether they were experienced with the process or not. By all accounts, results were varied.

Blended learning uses class time for discussion on the topics which were to be reviewed by the student on their own. This differs from the traditional “lecture and evaluate” routine that had been common for quite some time. This can be an effective concept because it offers the teacher more time to clarify student questions, potentially deepening student understanding of the topic. By allowing students to gain exposure to the subject matter first, they have the opportunity to either come to class and start sharing ideas straight away or possibly even ask each other questions or share virtually before they come to class.

Blended learning can help the instructor get out from in front of the class and into the population a little more. If a student is presented with the materials for homework and then asked to apply it in class, it changes the routine that classes have followed for so long. In a 50 minute class, a student might get 30 minutes of receiving information and then 20 minutes to work on a quiz or a worksheet in a more traditional way. Following that, they may be assigned something with similar subject matter for homework.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this, but it doesn’t give students as much time to reflect on the material. If students are given the material to review at home and spend class time working with it, then they get more time to actively put their knowledge to work. Spending more time implementing the material and using the information, provides the opportunity to possibly fail, receive clarification from the instructor, and make another attempt in the same class period, and foster more intrinsic resiliency. In a traditional method, lecture, quiz, homework, the evaluation happens after the student leaves the class. Then, having to do the homework with what may be a tenuous grasp of the material, the student may have spent an hour or more doing the task incorrectly.

It does however place more emphasis on the student to practice good independent learning and study habits. There are, of course, drawbacks to this process, as outlined by Mugeny Kintu:

“Self-regulatory skills of time management lead to better performance and learners’ ability to structure the physical learning environment leads to efficiency in e-learning and blended learning environments.” (Kintu 2017)

Another way that blended learning benefits students is that it can provide opportunities to students who may not have had the same access. “One of the promises of online technologies is that they can increase access to nontraditional and underserved students by bringing a host of educational resources and experiences to those who may have limited access to on-campus only higher education.” (Dziuban 2018) The ability for students to take part in classes online creates many opportunities.

There are many students, unfortunately, to whom these opportunities do not yet present themselves. While updates to infrastructure continue in most parts of the United States, it is obvious that not all areas are equal with regards to broadcast or hardwired internet connectivity. What works in a heavily populated metropolitan area, or even a more modern suburban to rural community may not necessarily work in areas of that country that have not been updated. In a 2021 report by Megan Tomasic for the Tribune Review out of Greensburgh, PA it was found that “In Westmoreland County (neighboring Pittsburgh), 86.5 percent of households had a computer between 2015-19, according to census data. During that same period, 80 percent of households had a broadband Internet subscription. In Allegheny (containing Pittsburgh), 89 percent of households had a computer between 2015-19, while almost 84 percent had a broadband Internet subscription, data show.” (Tomasic 2021). It should be noted that both counties have more that 9x the national average for population density.

In another report, Oklahoma only lists 16.4% of the population within Roger Mills county as having wired broadband access. Some counties list zero access (Pawnee, population density of 29 per square mile). On average 97.8 percent of Massachusetts has access to 25mbps broadband wired internet. However, to show the range of results, only 84.3 percent of Franklin county has access where 99.7 percent of Nantucket has access, even though population density is very similar in both regions. (Cooper 2021)

In all, blended learning certainly presents a new process and a new set of challenges as well as new opportunities to teachers who may not have examined it. It would seem that by this point most teachers need to be fairly well versed in e-learning and blended instruction, but for those who had their first experience with it during the pandemic, there are questions that arise with regards to access and student independence. Blended learning can help the students “work smarter”. It would seem that having more opportunity for clarification also allows the teacher to spend less time checking assignments and more time making sure that each student understands how to use the information.

Resources

Kintu, M.J., Zhu, C. & Kagambe, E. (2017). Blended learning effectiveness: the relationship between student characteristics, design features and outcomes. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 14, 7 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0043-4

Dziuban C., Graham C. R., Moskal P. D., Norberg A., Sicilia N. (2018). Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education

Tomasic M. (2021). Pennsylvania Survey to Assess Student Internet Needs. The Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Cooper, T. (2021, March 10). Internet Access in Oklahoma: Stats & Figures. Retrieved from https://broadbandnow.com/Oklahoma