By Mary Janzen
The Blended Learning Symposium held January 5, 2006 at University Park brought together about forty faculty and staff who wished to get an overview of this increasingly used learning format and discover how Penn State is implementing it. The phrase "blended learning," also called "hybrid learning," refers to learning that occurs via a combination of face-to-face and electronic/online learning. In some instances, instructors reduce the number of face-to-face class sessions, replacing them with online elements.
Audio recordings and associated PowerPoints of the symposium presentations are now available to the public at http://bli.psu.edu/bli/winterfest.html. Symposium organizers plan to provide a podcast of the symposium in the near future as well.
At the symposium, Larry Ragan, World Campus director of instructional design and development, provided an overview of the Blended Learning Initiative. The Blended Learning Initiative is a joint effort of the World Campus and Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT), a unit of Information Technology Services, and is funded by the office of Executive Vice President and Provost Rodney Erickson. Through this initiative, approximately forty Penn State courses will be converted to a hybrid format over the next three years. TLT instructional designers Wendy Mahan and Gary Chinn presented blended learning research, summarized current trends, and shared best practices.
Two Penn State faculty members and a special guest speaker also presented during the Blended Learning Symposium. Jonathan Mathews, professor in the Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering, spoke on "Hybrid Classes, What Works, and Why?" in reference to teaching high-enrollment undergraduate courses. He described how he has creatively replaced in-class time with online time to meet student needs, and emphasized incorporating more practice and multimedia into the online portion of a course. David Passmore, professor in Workforce Education and Development, presented "An Example in Design of Blended Learning." His talk focused on the use of a hybrid format in a graduate data analysis course to accommodate adult students, some living at a distance, by reducing face-to-face class meetings to three times per semester.
Guest speaker Charles Dziuban, director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the University of Central Florida, gave a presentation entitled "Blended Learning Research Opportunities." He described how his university is moving a large number of courses to a hybrid format and also discussed the research he is doing related to this movement. Dziuban is currently engaged in writing a book on blended learning.
Lynne Johnson, instructional designer in the World Campus, who helped plan the symposium, commented, "We felt the symposium was successful in that we had very engaging faculty speakers and participants who asked questions that stimulated discussion." She said that to "continue the dialogue," the World Campus and TLT hope to host another blended learning symposium within the next year.