This week I have started to think about the ways in which I can design a blended course. In order to do so, I had to consider various issues:

1- What is a blended course?

I realised that I was somewhat confused about online teaching and blended courses. Blended courses, also called hybrid or mixed-mode courses, are a combination of traditional face-to-face and online teaching/learning activities.

2- How can I design a blended course?

In order to design a blended course I drafted ideas of the things I could do, such as this:

Week 1: Introduction, lecture (use padlet to get to know students, their backgrounds)

Week 2: Online lecture (8 mins videos) combined together with readings. These will then be discussed in a Webinar (use Zoom)

Week 3: Group work – presentation of ideas on an online collaboration tool (Mindmeister?)

3- How to communicate it with the Director of Studies?

We have created a draft letter for our group work as Group 1, which can be found below. To me, this was a very useful way of thinking about how I can communicate my ideas in the future.

Having listened to the webinar recording for topic 4, I had a chance to reflect on the importance of “emotional presence” in online and/or blended teaching and learning activities. During this discussion, I have noted two important issues I should consider in my future courses:

a- cultural diversity, meaning showing emotions is different/taken differently across cultures, and we need to bare in mind these differences. although it was not discussed, there is also the gender element to showing emotions. quite often women are portrayed as more emotional, although this is not a fact but how women anger is perceived by the patriarchal mindset. so i believe it is very important to consider both cultural and gender aspects of emotions in teaching.

b- safe space, meaning we need to give students a sense of security to be able to reflect their emotions, as it is a vulnerable thing to show them. this safe space should be given by setting the norms right from the beginning, letting students know how discussions should take place, what common rules are to be followed, and explicitly stating what is NOT tolerated.

Last, but not the least, I really liked one of the group discussion reflection that suggested teaching/learning experience is not only about establishing a relationship among students or students and teachers, but also student’s relationship with knowledge. This is a brilliant comment, as I feel I learn better when I think the information I receive is important to me, or for the issues I am wondering, etc.