Four Frameworks for Viewing Blended Learning Cases

The five studies of blended learning implementations in this issue share a certain verve and enthusiasm. The time is right for this “old friend with a new name,” blended learning. It is enjoyable to read these studies, and share in the hope and the enthusiasm generated by the positive comments of students and instructors who have been affected. This enthusiasm and wide political support is breaking down the cultural divide between systematic and research-based instructional design and conventional teaching pointed out by Rose (2003). The teaching culture and the systematic designers have long lived in different worlds and have not had as much impact on one another as would be hoped. We see an accommodation happening in these studies, even as we see the main divisive element, efficiency and lower costs through technology, surfacing as overt goals in these studies. Part of this is due to the BYU environment, but an important part as well may be that the faculty role is blended, expanded and changed, but not threatened.My comments are organized around four conceptual frameworks. All four are coming from the science or engineering-based culture of design, research, and continuing evaluation that is being embraced, at least gingerly, by the teachers, administrators, and designers in these studies. The four frameworks are:Called “case studies” in these articles, and even given the lowly name “pilots” by Christensen, each of the studies evidences being set in a sequence of implementations, followed by design of improvements, followed by successive implementations. The most self-aware of these iterative cycles was Christensen's study. She approaches a disciplined comparison of the newly-designed blended study with its predecessor version of the classroom-taught instructional design course. In what is reported as the first cycle, she and her co-teacher document the design changes they made to make the course a blended learning experience consistent with constructivist pedagogy. When a design study appeals to models or theory, even a model rough as the constructivist principles, we would call the design study “principled.” Her designs as reported are clear and principled, though obviously informed much by the craft lore, artfully applied, of the discipline of instructional design methods she teaches. She also reports the design changes made after the first cycle, and the improved results obtained. She concludes with a clear statement consistent with the logic of design studies: “The challenge, then, is to fine-tune the strategies through successive iterations …” Her iterations of design and evaluation deal with such issues as finding the right balance between web and group activities, reducing negative consequences, and improving effectiveness.One danger of not crediting the power of the J-curve is apparent in her article. Due to negative feedback and marginal value of the first attempt at online peer review, this was abandoned and replaced with face-to-face discussions in class. Yet a key problem in this and other studies like it is that “responding to individual students required a serious investment of my time.” It is known that peer review can be implemented well, can get good results, and can reduce the teacher's grading and feedback time. As a related example, the teacher in the third study had, with experience, cut back on his time in responding to posted messages, relying increasingly on getting the dialogue going well, then only stepping in occasionally. Recognizing that some interventions change habits and practices too much all at once, and that the implementation plan needs to be adjusted to prevent difficulties the next time, perhaps the peer review in Case 1 could have been rehabilitated, rather than pushing it all back on the instructor.Except possibly for Case 2, all of the cases could have explained themselves better, and made more useful comparisons, by placing themselves in a framework of a sequence of design studies, and recognizing the J-curve effect. Case 5 is an exciting beginning that could become a series of design studies. Like Case 1, it reported on two semesters of implementation (but only the designed changes in semester 2, not the results). Case 5 is incredibly ambitious, redesigning writing courses taken by 30,000 students and using hundreds of graduate instructors. It was the best funded study of the group, with both substantial university and Pew Foundation funds, and with formal evaluation funded specifically, rather than as an “out-of-hide” expectation on the faculty or as a low-budget student project. Interpreted as a J-curve, it is a positive, not a problem that such a small, non-statistically significant dip was experienced the first time in comparison with traditional classes. There was also small evidence of student writing improvement on two aspects of the scoring rubric.It is good news, not bad, that the instructors were not well motivated nor involved, because introducing features such as the ones they have already proposed for the second semester, it may be possible to get the buy-in and commitment missing the first cycle from the instructors, taking the slope of the J up each semester as improvements are made. Perhaps I detected a note of defensiveness in the discussion of all the changes made to correct problems revealed by the evaluation. This would be normal, after such a large expenditure of leadership and financial capital had produced nothing spectacular.If a bit of commonly-experienced defensiveness does exist, a forthright grounding of the work as a sequence of design studies (design experiments if the outcome measures become more comparable and valid, and the design changes more principled), takes away any defensiveness. It would then be understood from the first that new implementations, especially with a large group of instructors, are likely to produce no improvement – even a dip from baseline the first cycle, but that the instructional system is now in a form that can be rapidly improved and revised (one of the benefits listed by Osguthorpe and Graham). The greatest improvements related to the J, however, are likely to come as a result of adaptations in the implementation plan – roles (new training and job-aids), rules (new course procedures) and not just in the tools (learning objects, on-line assignment handling, and the like).Case 5 could also have been improved, had it been conceived from the first as a design study or design experiment. More time and resources would have been expended documenting the baseline – the results and features of the English 115 experience before the change. This is true of every one of the five studies. Some mention was always made of what had happened before the study, but it was clear that some of the cases were well along in a series of implementations and try-outs, followed by design changes, while others (e.g., studies 2 and 5) were more truly the first cycle. The addition of the web-based features that justify the designation “blended learning” is only the latest change by some of these innovative and adventurous teachers. It is clear that this is the case in studies one, three, four. In a sequence of design studies, some of these teachers had already removed some of the glitches and mistakes of first-timers and had developed more seasoned habits. Looking backward and documenting some of these learnings is important in writing up such studies. Take a longer view. What is the baseline? Which semester is really cycle 1? How many semesters can we keep the improvement-oriented sequence going, and how far up the J can we move? What metrics (usually more than one) can we use to make the plotting of the J more rigorous, and comparisons between cycles more attributable to introduced design changes?Some of the most exciting and promising results in this suite of blended learning studies come from student comments about the great benefit they received from increased dialogue with fellow students. Consider Case 3, a snap-shot partway up the J-curve for an adaptive, innovative instructor. This instructor had used on-line discussion boards before, and “He found individual responses [to student posts] to be especially important during the first month of the semester, when distance learners were becoming familiar with the technology.” In the ECD framework, the first moderating functions are designed to help students “survive” the initial onslaught of technical issues unrelated to the course content, then right after that, to establish a “feeling of belonging” These early moderating functions help students to overcome the fear of rejection or being ignored or laughed at. Once these levels are achieved, a collaborative discourse can accelerate, and can increasingly focus on the content.Moderating functions are needed to keep the group on track, and to keep the give and take going. This give and take can be very motivating. Later moderating functions, such as “weaving”—putting together comments of others, with excerpts from readings, into a higher synthesis helpful to everyone—can lead to high levels of real intellectual engagement. This is exhilarating for the teacher, and for the students alike. In Case 3, “the instructor was able to see that this objective [learners becoming more conscientious scholars] was being met. He was especially pleased when learners would include links to articles or include valuable references he had not previously accessed.” High-level synthesizing and weaving comments in student posts are a new form of evaluation data useful in detecting higher levels of intellectual engagement.An understanding of the the use of and response to moderating functions by instructors and students alike in the use and response to moderating functions can inform implementations of cases other than Case 3. In Case 2, teaching and applying an understanding of ECD and moderating functions could benefit the dynamics of the blended class significantly. It could benefit interactions locally and collaboration with the distance students. Encouragement through moderating functions would help all students feel more involved and would facilitate the effectiveness of the chat sessions as well. ECD through asynchrounous seminars could be added in a later cycle to further enhance collaborative discourse for all. Lessons from ECD apply in Case 4 as well. Here, the students engage in group discussions, with an overt goal to help them operate at higher levels of critical thinking—the upper end of the moderating function continuum—promoting intellectual engagement. Moderating functions can be applied in oral situations as well as in computer text dialogues. Also, in future cycles of implementation, the instructors in the accounting classes might consider the use of asynchronous computer conferences. If not feasible in the 100 student classes, perhaps in later, smaller classes where intellectual engagement is the clear goal.Case 5 offers some of the greatest benefits potential benefit attainable through teaching instructors to use computer conferences and peer reviews to teach the writing process. In cycle 1, instructors traded off office hours, direct instruction, and other matters for 110 minutes, on average, of email. If they knew the ECD process, and the high levels of intellectually engage application of writing principles attainable thereby, it might bode well for increasing their own intellectual engagement and feeling of accomplishment.A few comments reported from students interviewed or polled in these studies showed individuals reflecting the need for accommodation to their differences. In Case 4, one student said “I just wish that on some of the easy points, you could click through a little faster.” This is the kind of comment that would be made by a transforming learner, the most eager, self-confident, and autonomous of the four levels of the learning orientation construct. (Performing learners are not as demanding of learner options adaptive to their own style and pace, and conforming learners want to be told step by step what to do and how they are doing along the way. Resistant learners [not many in college] dare you to make them learn.) Another student in Case 4 stated: “I thought the step-by-step process on the homework assignment allowed me to check my own work step-by-step as well.” This is a comment consistent with a conforming or low-performing orientation, one who likes a careful, step by step treatment and was well accommodated.It is possible to identify learning orientation by means of a short on-line questionnaire, and it behooves designers to make provisions for the kinds of instructional support favored by learners of different orientations. This includes navigational options to move rapidly, using self-selection of sequence at one extreme, and slow, careful, step-by-step guidance and examples at the other. This is relatied to the personal agency issue identified by Osuthorpe and Graham in the lead article.One point of critique about the generally excellent Case 4: it may obscure more than it reveals to say that self-study students going through worked examples were “getting answers to their questions.” It is true that questions arise in the minds of students as they click through these examples, and that some of their confusions and impasses may be overcome during this process. Worked examples are more instructionally complete than words alone. This is not the same as getting answers to oral questions or text questions asked in English, any more than poking the buttons on a telephone and getting branched computervoice answers all of the questions we have called some company to ask about.VCD is based on a series of cycles of design-implement and evaluate-revise. 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