Let me start by saying that I’ve had no experience in a blended learning environment. Throughout my education, I’ve always had traditional education in a lecture hall style setup. The contact time would be in the physical classroom and face to face interactions with the lecturer either before, during and/or after a lecture has taken place. There has been the rare occurrence with email between me and the lecturer.

Being a scientist and not an educator, I’ve never engaged in such discussions prior to the introduction of ONL. It has sparked my interest somewhat. I’ve read previous blogs and topics around blended learning. Although the topic seems to be discussed from an educator’s perspective, it has me thinking about the “student” side. How has blended learning been perceived by students? How do students interest get sparked to choose a blended learning course over the traditional classroom learning?

In this topic, our group has discussed many points and decided to work on a “pilot” online course, currently being developed by one of my PBL group members. One of the main points that surfaced was how to keep students engaged. The Gilly Salmon 5 stage model is something that stands out and provides an understanding of how blended learning should be set up along with the perspective of the participant. In my opinion, the social experience of participants is just as important as the actual content provided in the course.

The adoption of blended learning is being incorporated more and more by so many institutions. With the correct deliverables and system incorporations to deliver those deliverables, it greatly increases the success rate of students when compared to traditional classroom learning as so many of us are used to. Blended learning also produces better results than either online only or traditional only.

Now knowing the advantages provided by blended learning, it is something I am willing to pursue in my own learning moving forward. There is no doubt that the use of blended learning is the way of the future. No longer do students need to participate in a synchronous teaching. Students are now given the tools to teach themselves along with teaching each other to become comfortable in their environment. If the blended learning encourages students to learn from each other and partake in group assignments, their learning experience could be more interactive than that of the traditional learning.

Gilly Salmons 5 stage model (https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html) is again integral in this process of setting up the blended learning course. Bringing education to students instead of bringing students to teachers. The gains of eliminating the need to travel to classrooms alone is a massive time saver. Students/participants become familiar with the concept of exploring and familiarising themselves with the tools available. The collaboration here equips students with the skills they later need in the workplace, where collaboration is required for the combined success of different departments.

This skillset alone helps students become comfortable with exploring and later thinking outside the box. Learning the skill to find the information they require to complete a task. The aspect of face to face also gives them the opportunity to raise any questions, uncertainties or concerns to the lecturer.