My ex-colleagues were passionate in their jobs but juggling clinical work, research and teaching load on top of other responsibilities was a tall order, leaving little bandwidth to explore beyond the tested and proven ,ADDIE model. As the idiom goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Despite being a technology-enabled learning (TEL) advocate back in TTSH, I never focused much into the theory. Often the situation would begin with an incident that happened, resulting in a problem that needs to be solved. It would lead to a discussion with a clinician or clinical educator on what training interventions are required to fill up that performance gap, so as to allow staff to solve that problem.
After which, we then determined what would be the “minimum effective dose”, i.e. how much actual content that needs to be created and delivered to the learners by a specific deadline (e.g. training nurses to administer the new COVID vaccine). After a rudimentary lesson plan has been established, our in-house team of multimedia developers would begin the process to co-design and co-develop the course and set it up on the LMS. Rinse and repeat.
Fast forward 16 years, I am now at NUS supporting the ,BL2.0, surrounded by educators with a love for learning, but also keenly interested in the pedagogical constructs of learning. It’s such a privilege to be able to learn from them and deep dive into theoretical frameworks. One framework that I find very intriguing is the Community of Inquiry (COI), which I feel is closely aligned to NUS’s goals of leveraging on blended learning (BL) to enable deep learning.
”,COI model” by University of Athabasca, Canada licensed under ,CC BY SA 4.0
VIP coming to Singapore! Correction: during a LIVE session (14 Sep, 11pm) I found out that Dr Cleveland-Innes will only be meeting with Singapore groups virtually.
Earlier this week, I was delighted to find out that NUS, Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL) is hosting renowned Blended Learning expert, Prof Martha CLEVELAND-INNES from 12 September to 9 December 2022. I am most excited to be attending her keynote and workshops ,during her visit.
Any NUS Faculty members (FM), aspiring TEL educators who are also attending, please drop me a note. Let’s learn together!
Dr Cleveland-Innes is the Professor of Open, Digital, and Distance Education at Athabasca University, Editor-in-Chief of the bilingual Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology.
She is also the instructor, co-designer, and researcher for the open online courses ,Blended Learning Practice and ,Leading Change for Teaching & Learning in a Digital World.
“The Guide”
Earlier I shared about COI. It is one of 2 frameworks highlighted in Dr Cleveland-Innes’s famous guide, ,Guide to Blended Learning. It is a most insightful read that summarizes best practices in how educators can develop BL courses for effective student learning. It’s 80 pages synthesizes theories and principles supporting BL, strategies for successful BL deployment, how to design/develop/evaluate BL courses, and much more. In particular, I enjoy her thought-provoking reflection questions at the end of each chapter.
In my opinion, Dr Cleveland-Innes’s guide is a required reading for all educators. It’s packed with insights and contains references to many other resources for you to deep dive into the wonderful world of BL.
Key takeaways
- ,CABLS vs ,COI framework
- Inquiry-based learning vs content-based learning
- ,SAMR model
- ,E-quality framework
- Alignment of assessment with learning objectives
- Backwash Effect (in education)
- ,Hidden curriculum
- Effective use of LMS to support BL
- Right blend of Synchronous & Asynchronous learning activities
- Evaluation of BL
,The Guide covers many gems but above are my personal 10 key takeaways. I included some extra links to some newer info on that particular sub-topic. Enjoy your reading and hope to see you at one of Dr Cleveland-Innes’s workshops in Nov/Dec!
Benedict Chia
27 Aug 2022
