Beyond blended – new definitions, principles and resources
1. Beyond blended – new definitions,
principles and resources
Helen Beetham, Sheila MacNeill,
Consultants
Sarah Knight, Elizabeth Newall,
Jisc
Student Experience
Experts’ meeting May 2023
2. Session Overview
• Post-pandemic curriculum and learning design
• Design process and four modes of learning
• Beyond blended: exploring the principles
• Designing with the four modes: exploring workshop resources
• Feedback and discussion
bit.ly/JiscBeyondBlended
3. Jisc Curriculum and Learning Design project
(phases 1 and 2)
• Literature review in two phases: general pandemic
teaching and learning; deep dive on blended and hybrid
• research papers, past projects, policy reports, models and
frameworks in the published literature
• Survey of current curriculum practice in UK HE (n=155)
• Analysis of models in use (n=30)
• Interviews and vignettes (n=12)
• Advisory group and partnership discussions
• Workshops x5
ji.sc/curriculum-and-learning-design-report
4. Pre-pandemic: digital activities and resources
• Learning design approaches
• Support for task design & sequencing; taxonomies of activity and outcome
• Typologies of (digital) tools, mapped to tasks and outcomes
• Organisational transformation around:
• Virtual learning environments
• Support for digital media production, adaptation and use
• Transformation of library services to support new media in teaching/learning
• Assumptions: learners use a digital device to…
• Access digital materials
• Produce notes and assignments in digital media
• Achieve tasks using generic and subject specialist software
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5. Post-pandemic: digital modes of learning
• Curriculum design approaches
• Support for session planning, whole-curriculum redesign
• Design for different modes (online, in place, hybrid, flexible)
• Assessment redesign, including new assessment timeframes
• Organisational transformation around:
• Space design, platform development
• Ubiquitous recording (e.g. lecture capture, online classes, streaming)
• Student journeys and staff workload planning
• Assumptions: learners use digital devices to:
• Access spaces and places of learning, conversations, collaborative
environments
• Connect their learning across time, place and platform; construct pathways
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6. Objective and deliverables for phase 2
”Deep dive’ into place, time and pace issues in curriculum
design, leading to:
• Guidance around the core learning/curriculum design process
• Guidance on the pedagogies of diverse spaces, places and modes
of participation (resources for curriculum teams)
• Implications for organisational planning e.g. staff workload,
student pathways, estates and platforms, digital capabilities,
digital divide (resources for strategic teams)
• Exemplars
• Work on terminology and definitions with partners and advisory
group, to support dialogue and reflect real world practice
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7. A general process model (phase one)
Workshop process or design sprint (90 mins-half day)
involving curriculum team and other professionals, ideally students and stakeholders
Relevant
information
e.g.
business
case,
prof
body
requirements,
teacher
reflections,
student
feedback,
stakeholder
input,
learner
data
Aspects to be determined e.g.
aims, outcomes, sessions,
activities and assessments,
media and materials
Principles to be applied
Prompts (decision support)
e.g. typologies, checklists,
algorithms, heuristics, flash cards,
personas, design rubrics
Prototype,
design,
outline,
plan
etc
showing
decisions
made
Timetable or session plan,
workload/assignment map,
learner journey
Spaces & places, learning
environments, real world
locations, rules and roles
Course handbook with
learning outcomes, skills
required and developed etc
Materials e.g. readings,
notes, recordings,
interactive content
9. Beyond blended
Learning considered in terms of:
1. Time, pace and timing
2. Place and platform (learning spaces)
3. Learning materials
4. Groups, roles and interactions
1 and 2 combined give four ‘modes of learning’
• Online and synchronous
• In place and synchronous
• Online and asynchronous
• In place and asynchronous
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9
10. Almost all learning is ‘blended’
Learners can access diverse spaces and places of learning,
conversations, collaborative environments using their own devices
Digital media can compress, extend and reconfigure learning time
Learners can connect their learning across times, places and modes
What combinations of time and space support different students?
What works for different subjects, activities and interactions?
responsiveness versus reflectiveness
structured/paced versus open ended
rules and norms (e.g. formal, informal, academic, professional)
pace and presence
roles, locus of control
What choices should students have? How do their practices develop?
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10
13. Beyond blended: five principles
13
Learners and educators are always physically
somewhere
Learners and educators can always be (virtually)
somewhere else
Most learning has both in-place and online
elements
Learners and educators expect choice and
flexibility in mode(s) of learning
Learners and educators need support to engage
in diverse modes
14. Activity: exploring the five principles
Decide which of the resources to work on:
Five principles infographic
Five principles with prompts (curriculum and strategic)
Curriculum design lenses on the five principles
Strategic lenses on the five principles
Discuss and note on the padlet
How you might use this resource
Do the five principles add value?
What else would add value (e.g. new lenses)?
bit.ly/JiscBeyondBlended
more detail
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15. Activity: materials for design workshops
Decide which of the resources to work on:
Session types (mock up in Trello)
Activities and interactions (mock up in Trello)
Exploring online and in-place learning (infographics)
Discuss and note on the padlet
Who might use this resource, when and how?
What format(s) would make these ideas most useable?
bit.ly/JiscBeyondBlended
15
16. Discussion
How might these ideas and resources be useful:
In a curriculum and learning design setting?
To guide the development of digital capabilities?
In learning space design?
To inform workload modelling, timetabling and other systems?
Other ideas and feedback
bit.ly/JiscBeyondBlended
16
17. help@jisc.ac.uk
jisc.ac.uk
Get in touch …
Sarah Knight
sarah.knight@jisc.ac.uk
@sarahknight
Simon Birkett
simon.Birkett@jisc.ac.uk
@simonbirkett
Elizabeth Newall
Elizabeth.newall@jisc.ac.uk
@elizabethnewall
Except where otherwise noted,
this work is licensed under CC-BY
Notas del editor
Note that Sheila is leading another workshop
Note that many universities or parts of universities were moving in this direction pre-pandemic, but that there was a wholesale shift. And despite the ‘return to campus’, there has still been a massive uplift in awareness, platform availability and digital skills among teaching staff and students, which means these considerations remain live
Thinking about our first deliverable, the process model we built out from the survey conducted in phase 1 is not intended as a new model or framework. It describes what universities are already doing in this space, in a reasonable general and systematic way. However, it might be helpful for universities to review their approach to curriculum design to ensure that all these phases are covered.
In phase 2 we produced a slide deck of guidance to support universities using the process model.
Most of our work has focused on modes of learning. We have called this ‘beyond blended’, to add nuance to the terms being used, and also to avoid being driven by investment decisions. To do this we need to think about what the alternatives are, that we are choosing from when we construct a particular blend, and what the pedagogic reasons are for choosing or combining them. There are many aspects of learning that have been described as ‘blended’ but we found four main ones, of which the first two are the most consistently used – that is time, pace and timing, and space (whether online or what we are calling ‘in place’)
Of the four modes this gives us, in place and asynchronous is not often commented on. Or asynchronous learning is all considered as one mode, without any reference to where learners are when they are learning – that is their choice. But spaces on campus that students can either book for themselves or drop into when they want are critical to their study practice, and providing them is important to equity and wellbeing. Also we need to rethink campus spaces around new assumptions and realities of how students will be learning.Also note there are a variety of hybrid forms e.g. augmented reality which combines in-place and virtual aspects, and various ways that digital can time-shift learning or blur the boundaries of shared and own-time learning. This does not undermine the need for pedagogic thinking about how real world places as well as online platforms shape learning, or how time, timing and pace support learners in different ways. In fact our approach allows these emerging forms to be considered through a pedagogic lens rather than treating them as some new mode of learning.
So our first conclusion is:
As always, these principles can be more clearly represented with some visual thinking. These first two images explore the ways that two real-world places can give access to many virtual ‘elsewhere’ s
And these images explore how a specific use of digital, such as an online design board or lecture recording, can change students’ pathways through and use of time.
These principles (happily) were confirmed by the findings of the recent OfS report on blended learning:
Check your digital and real estate
Check your choices
Check your skills provision