What did I know before this:

I actually assumed I knew what blended learning was, in my simplistic mind. I didnt think there was that much to explore. 

 What do I want to know?

I didnt think I needed to learn any more things actually, I had thought that I have “been there, done that”. I know what it is, what is there to learn?

 What did I learn

I learnt so much. Firstly, that blended learning doesnt always means online learning. Online learning doesnt always mean it is asynchronous, neither is blended learning always asynchronous. Then there is also hybrid learning. So so much! In summary, I think that the best thing to do is to first determine what it is we want students to learn. Blended learning is a category of learning (as opposed to traditional learning) whereas online learning, hybrid learning etc is the method of delivering the material / content. For example, for those which require the training of a skill, for example, history-taking in medicine, then one cannot do asynchronous online teaching methods. However, we could still do blended learning, ie. we could design the pre-synchronous activity to direct the learner to readings and videos for prep work. While in synchronous session, we would get them to role play to practice. For the synchronous session, it would preferably be in person, but in an emergency like in lock downs, zoom could be the default. We could get them to carry out the flipped classroom technique, or it could instructional or both, depending on the level of seniority and complexity of the case background.

I particularly liked this the suggestion of how to preserve community be it online or in person:

I hope this would help many of you too!

Cheers!

Design for online and blended learning – Topic 4 ONL221