Our journey from face-to-face to blended learning approach: important lessons learned

Abstract

In the last decade, there are more and more hardware and software available for educators to consider moving from the face‐to‐face approach to blended learning approach. Some teachers and educators are putting an effort to convert their courses and programs to blended learning for a myriad of reasons such as to increase the number of student enrollment (Dziuban, Hartman, Juge, Moskal, & Sorg, 2006), and to provide an effective way to communicate with students (Borup, Graham, & Velasquez, 2006). Nevertheless, this is usually easier said than done because successful blended learning does not happen automatically. Successful blended learning requires more than the mere use of technology. Successful blended learning requires a careful consideration of the pedagogy and instructional design associated with how best to utilize the technology tools, how to facilitate the interaction among students, how to motivate students to participate in the discussions, as well as what contents are best delivered through the Internet versus face‐to‐face (Dziuban et al., 2006). Our Master of Arts (Instructional Design & Technology) program was launched in 1999. In this paper, we will share our experience of converting a face‐to‐face course in the MA program to a blended learning course. The original course was a 13 weeks one (39 hours of face‐to‐face instruction). Now it is a two and a half days course (20 hours face‐to‐face tutorials and 19 hours eLearning activities). We went through the journey from a 13‐weeks course to a 4 full‐days blended course, subsequently to a 3 full‐day, and then finally a 2‐and‐a half‐day course. We will share the major reasons to change the face‐to‐face course into a blended learning course, the essential guidelines to convert face‐to‐face activities to eLearning activities, the evaluation of the blended learning approach from the instructor’s as well as the graduate students’ perspectives. In addition, we will share the important lessons learned (challenges and issues) that faculty will encounter in converting face‐to‐face courses into blended courses.