Imagine, experiment, partner with students, build capacity – These are some tips in implementing the blended learning approach shared by expert practitioners in a seminar on February, 26, 2018. Entitled “Blended Learning: Are we Blending and at the same time, Enhancing Student Learning?”, this seminar featured Professor Bob Fox, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education Portfolio, the University of New South Wales (UNSW); Dr. NS Wong, Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences; and Dr. Allan Yuen, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, HKU. The three speakers shared exemplary cases from various disciplines and their lessons learnt from implementing blended learning.

What is Blended Learning?

“Blended learning is the thoughtful fusion of face-to-face and online learning experiences,” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.5). In addition to that, it is the fusion of formal and informal; as well as synchronous and asynchronous elements in the curriculum, as pointed out by Dr. Yuen. With more and more teachers shifting to this approach, “blended learning is now the norm,” said Professor Fox.

Elements of Blended Learning

Blending different modes of learning in a course is an effective way to enhance student learning. The following is a list of examples introduced by the speakers:

1. Replace traditional lectures with tutorials and group activities:
   • In a Civil Engineering course in UNSW, traditional lectures were transformed into small group and individual tutorials, where students work through the content with a study guide. This mode of learning is problem-based, activity-led and self-paced. Weaker students can obtain extra tutorial support, while more advanced students are encouraged to support weaker one for badges.
   • In Dr. Wong’s course on metabolism, students are guided to form “communities of active inquiry” – together they explore concepts, re-synthesize information, propose new questions and complete in-class exercises. By blending “student-based research-style learning” into the course, “in-depth learning is positively promoted”, commented Dr. Wong.
2. Use of ed-tech
   • Videos: In UNSW, videos developed for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are re-used in flipping on-campus courses. This is termed as the ‘BOOC Flip’ (Blended Open On-campus Course).Dr. Wong also developed videos for his course CCST9006 Scientific and Technological Literacy. Here is a glimpse of his course:
     
   • Learning Management Systems, such as Moodle, are widely used as a gateway for students to coordinate learning, including conveniently access course materials, submit assignments, receive feedback and discuss with their peers.
   • Adaptive learning platforms: In UNSW, the course team of MATH2018 Engineering Mathematics 2D used an adaptive learning platform called Smart Sparrow to develop self-paced adaptive online tutorials for students, replacing F2F tutorials.
   • The MATH2018 course course team also developed a Ninja game. This game consists of a series of exercises with progressive levels of difficulty. Students need to work their way up until they obtain the black belt. This creates incentives for students to learn better.
   • 3D and VR technology: In BLDG1021 Industrial & Infrastructure Construction, an undergraduate course offered by the Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW, students receive industry training through stepping into the AVIE mining space, an immersive 360-degree construction site environment. It is a virtual space and a safe environment to gain industry-relevant experience.
3. Experiential learning and industry partnering
   • In BLDG1021, faculty partners with professional builders and create opportunities for students to get involved in real world construction projects off-campus.

Tips for Developing Effective Blended Learning Experiences
To maximize the impact of blended learning, the speakers offered the following tips in implementing the approach:

1. Pilot and experiment
   While it is exciting to incorporate new modes of teaching into your course, it can also be worrying for some – What if it does not work? One way to minimize risk is to pilot test your new ideas and conduct controlled experiments, advised by Professor Fox.
2. Partnership with students
   1. Work with students in developing course materials
      One effective way to develop materials that best suit students’ needs is to involve them in the development process. For example, UNSW pays students to develop resources for them and help faculty members innovate. In Dr. Wong’s case, he creates student internship and once invited a student to produce a short video for him to use in a practical session.
   2. Obtain student feedback
      Dr. Wong collects student feedback through administering questionnaires at the end of the course. The feedback is essential for making modifications to the course.
3. Capability-building for staff
   As pointed out by Professor Fox, teachers need ongoing support in developing blended learning resources and materials. Learning from UNSW’s example, the following should be done on the institutional and administrative level to ensure effective implementation of blended learning strategies:
   1. Develop curriculum models, frameworks and strategies for all faculties to buy into
      • In UNSW, the educational design models used are Integrated Curriculum Framework (ICF), RASE Course Design Model and Scientia Education Experience (SEE).
   2. Build partnership with faculties and students
   3. Offer ongoing support to faculties and staff in team-building and capacity-building
   4. Provide resources, technologies and/or funding
   5. Provide promotion and encouragement to staff to get involved in improving teaching and learning
      • In UNSW, the promotion and tenure system has been refined to ensure that teachers get rewarded and promoted for their efforts made in teaching and learning. 400 academic positions which are education-focused have been set up. Teachers who choose this academic track can focus on teaching and learning instead of research for 5 years. After the 5-year period, they can decide whether to switch back to research track.

Imagine new ways to teach
“Learning is fundamentally about change,” said Dr. Yuen. “Students nowadays are very different from us when we were still students”. In order to enhance student learning, it is necessary for us to reconsider our pedagogy and imagine new ways to teach, using blended learning and other digital technologies. To Dr. Yuen, “blended learning / e-learning is not a simple technological adoption, but a call of teachers to carefully examine their pedagogical practices from a new perspective.” He believes that only by “allow[ing] our imaginations to be at work”, can we unleash the “enormous potential for growth and engagement” of higher education. He left us with two thought-provoking questions:

1. How do we shape and reshape new learning environment for the New Generation Learners?
2. What is your imagination in 5 years? How are you going to teach your subject in 5 years?

Dr. Wong believes that by shifting from traditional lectures to blended learning, we are setting students free from a rigid and often unengaging mode of learning. In order to maximize students’ freedom and effectiveness in learning, we need to set our imagination free in innovating our pedagogies.

What is your vision for your classroom in the future? Share your ideas with us.

Further reading

1. Designing In-class Activities for Flipped Classroom: A Step-by-step Guide
2. Getting Students Ready for Your Flipped Class
3. Designing Your Own Flipped Classroom: Online and Pre-class Elements
4. Flipped Classroom: A Grassroot Movement of T&L Change
5. Garrison, D., & Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Blended learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles and Guidelines. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fostering stronger inter-collegiate links and sharing of knowledge expertise have always been high priorities in the World’s No. 1 Dental Faculty in the World. From January 29 to February 2, 2018, Dental Materials Science of the Faculty of Dentistry collaborated with HKU TeLi to run a winter programme in Applied Oral Sciences (AOS) at Prince Philip Dental Hospital.

AOS is a 5-day blended learning programme which aims to share (i) innovative methods and best practices in dental materials science research and on-campus instructions, as well as, (ii) technology-enriched pedagogies in teaching and learning, in particularly, in MOOCs and MOOC-based teaching and learning design to dentistry and medical faculties in mainland China and Korea.

AOS participants included 80+ students and teachers from 22 dental and medical schools from Korea and China, The list of institutions of the participants are as follows: BengBu Medical University , China Medical University , Chonnam National University , Fujian Medical University , Guangxi Medical University , Harbin Medical University , Hunan University of Medicine , Huzhou University , Jinzhou Medical University , Jiujiang University , Kunming Health Vocational Institute , Nantong University , Pusan National University , Qinghai University , Shijiazhuang Medical College , Taishan Medical University , Tangshan Vocational and Technical College , Tianjin Medical University , Wenzhou Medical University , Wenzhou Medical University Renji College , Wuhan University , and Xingtai Medical College.

The programme was packed with intensive knowledge sessions of featured lectures, as well as, experiential learning and interactive workshops.

Professor Jukka Matinlinna introducing the newest endeavours of Dental Materials Science Faculty.

Dr. James Tsoi talked about teaching and learning in Dental Materials Science.

Deepening Knowledge in Dental Materials Science Research

Through featured lectures conducted by Dental Materials Science faculty, students gained insights in some popular Applied Oral Health research areas including Biomechanics in Orthodontics, Biomaterials for Our Life and Current Approaches and Future Challenges in Dental Pulp Regeneration. These face-to-face sessions also allowed participants to interact with leading academics and dental professionals, as well as, peers from different universities.

Experiencing E-learning and Innovative Pedagogy

All the participants were enrolled in a customized version of the MOOC course for AOS. This enabled the participants to experience the courseware, in particular, the learning activities and bite-sized pedagogy, as well as, the newest science in Dental Materials Science education through videos such as close range surgery demonstrations, stereo-photogrammetry and digital rendering of oral cavities in authentic clinical cases.

A sneak peek of the MOOC: Materials in Oral Health!

TeLi colleague’s sharing of MOOC development.

A platform to Scale MOOC Learning Initiatives beyond the Region

In addition to experiencing the educational methodologies in the MOOC course, educators and teachers from visiting institutions were engaged with a practical session – learning how to deliver content using MOOCs and integrating trending technology in teaching. TeLi shared experiences in MOOC development and production with the teachers, and guided them through the course framework and various key components of the course. Among the topics discussed were pragmatic skills in storyboarding and video production, managing schedules and resource requirements. Many teachers were eager to ask questions and some also shared their own experience and challenges encountered in blended learning and online courses.

The sharing with mainland educators and students enabled TeLi and the Dentistry faculty to transfer our experience to future e-learning creators in professional Dentistry, and empowered the participants to pass on their new experience to more people in the mainland.

It is our hope to inspire more inter-institutional and interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching oral health care, and possibly e-learning pedagogical design and research.

Contact us if you are interested in creating knowledge exchange opportunities with us!

 

Further reading

MOOC experience sharing with delegates of Anhui Medical University

Jointly organised by Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI) and Division of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture

Details of the event:

Download PowerPoint slides

Abstract

Student engagement – “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” (From the ‘Glossary of Education Reform’, Great Schools Partnership, http://edglossary.org/student-engagement/)

Persistent low levels of student engagement in his Common Core course CCHU9001 inspired Mathew to re-design the course using a flipped classroom approach, in which students participate in both pre-class and in-class learning activities. Overall student response was highly positive, with students feeling that they had been ‘activated’ and considered that their time had been invested in a worthwhile educational experience.

In this seminar, Mathew looks at the determinants of student engagement in both pre-class and in-class settings and reflects on how learning activities might be designed to promote engagement.

*A light lunch will be provided.

For enquiries, please direct your messages to enquiry@teli.hku.hk.

This blog post is part of the ‘Flipped Classroom Professional Development Series’.

A flipped classroom constitutes of two components – learning online and learning in face-to-face (F2F) sessions. In this blog post, we will discuss the steps and considerations in preparing in-class activities, especially group activities, in a flipped class, with reference to ideas from academic literature. We will also introduce good practices of in-class activity design shared by practitioners in the Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium – Sharing of Pedagogies and Practices.

The Flipped Classroom Learning Symposium – Sharing of Pedagogies and Practices on December 6, 2017

The steps to preparing in-class activities are as follows:

1. Designing the activities
2. Setting up the activities:
   1. How to form groups
   2. Preparation before class
   3. What should be done in class
   4. Useful tools to support the activities
   5. How to set up infrastructure to support the activities

Step 1: Designing in-class activities
Throughout your 13-week course, it is ideal to blend different modes of learning and include diversified in-class activities to constantly stimulate your students. Here are some examples of in-class activity design shared by our practitioners:

By designing activities of different nature, we can ensure students receive multiple stimulus and varied learning experience throughout the course.

 

Step 2: Setting up the activities

These are just some of the many possibilities of what you can do in class. Be creative and design your very own in-class activities. Contact us if you are interested in bringing technology into your classroom.

This blog post is part of the Flipped Classroom Professional Development Series. More articles from the series:

• Flipped Classroom: A Grassroot Movement of T&L Change
• Designing Your Own Flipped Classroom: Online and Pre-class Elements
• Getting Students Ready for Your Flipped Class
• Designing In-class Activities for Flipped Classroom: A Step-by-step Guide
• Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Flipped Class

“Knowledge Transfer” has long been described as the “third mission” of higher education institutions, with teaching and research being the first two missions. HKU TeLi has been actively engaged in the sharing of knowledge, including technology, expertise and skills with global, regional and local institutions in innovations in methods and pedagogies for the enhancement of efficient teaching for teachers and effective learning of students.

On January 25, 2018, 30 delegates of teachers, students and young professionals from the Anhui Medical University (AHMU) gathered at the Prince Philip Dental Hospital for an introduction to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and an intellectual exchange on MOOC-based learning and HKU examples of MOOC development.

MOOCs which make use of the concept of bite-sized learning, are efficient in sharing knowledge to a critical mass of learners, any time, anywhere and with any device; encouraging self-regulated learning, as well as, lifelong-learning. The global interest for MOOC’s potential is on the rise, and China’s MOOC market has expanded exponentially in recent years. Our team illustrated HKU’s endeavours in e-learning with two of TeLi’s professional MOOCs, Materials in Oral Health and Implant Dentistry, addressing how MOOCs couple innovation with technology and on-campus teaching pedagogy i.e. PBL brings global learning to the next level.

Explaining the advantages of MOOC over chalk-and-board education.

During the session with our guests, TeLi showed and demonstrated how MOOC videos serve as one of the core vehicles in delivering contents and information. We demonstrated how frontier technology can be incorporated into course materials to make learning more visual and effective. This includes 3D rendered scans of mouth cavities, 3D printing, stereo-photogrammetry, as well as, close range video demonstrations of step-by-step surgery techniques. Our guests were also guided through the MOOCs’ online courseware on Coursera, navigating and observing the design of an online course and its integrated components. Some features new to our guests are prompting questions embedded in videos (used to check the learners’ understanding), forum questions built by the learner community, and authentic clinical implant cases based on on-campus problem-based learning (PBL).

Showing our guests the use of close-range suturing demonstrations in MOOC videos.

The two-hour session was not only a great opportunity for us to share and showcase HKU’s experience in professional MOOC development and production with dental practitioners and educators at AMHU, it was nonetheless, a meaningful intellectual exchange with mainland institutions. We hope that our visitors are empowered to build their own MOOC courses, and are encouraged to inspire others in China’s teaching and learning community to explore MOOCs. May this exchange lead to a better teaching and learning experience for all.
Contact us if you are interested in learning more about MOOC production, MOOCs based learning or in producing your own MOOC!