#ONL – Topic 4
South Africa is moving towards the fourth industrial revolution. Higher Education Institutions have increased their offerings to online or blended learning courses. Blended learning has been a more softer approach to the immigration from historical face-to-face courses and re-designed to be offered online.
Why the blended approach?
The purpose of online and blended learning would be to enhance the quality of the course content, enhance the student experience (access and flexibility) as well as a cost saving measure for institutions and learners.
Shea and Bidjerano (2011) recently completed a study using the community of inquiry framework to analyze levels of teaching presence and social presence in blended and online learning environments and the relative impact of these constructs on cognitive presence. The Blended learning students reported higher levels of all three components of the teaching presence construct (instructional design, facilitation of discourse, and direct instruction) and two of the three social presence components (effective communication and open communication with instructor and other students). Researchers have reasoned that this could explain why meta-analyses show students in blended courses outperforming students in purely online courses.
In our PBL group we focused on the emotional determinants for learning using the blended learning approach. Emotional engagement involves effective reactions such as interest, sense of belonging, enjoyment, boredom, rejection, frustration and confusion. Emotions can have a significant impact on student engagement, motivation and goal achievement. Student emotions need to be addressed when designing a blended learning course, as well as continuous tutor and peer support throughout the learning experience.
Graham, C. R. (2013). Emerging practice and research in blended learning. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (3rd ed., pp. 333–350). New York, NY: Routledge.
Emerging Evidence Regarding the Roles of Emotional, Behavioural, and Cognitive Aspects of Student Engagement in the Online Classroom Alexandra Pentaraki, Gary J. Burkholder
