I took a graduate course to find out what “blended learning” is, and I still don’t know
The shrinking circle
Okay so in the process of moving districts and jobs after 19 years in a single building, I needed a few graduate hours to help make the transition a little financially less painful. (The non-financial benefits are already paying off in spades, but everybody has bills.) I chose a particular course for a few reasons, but among them was I wanted a view of blended learning outside my own circle. I think it is important to remember that as we move through our professional and ideological paths we inevitably gravitate to people we enjoy and that inspire us. So often that circle tends to shrink rather than grow and I wanted to make a conscious choice to step outside my circle. This course has allowed me to view blended learning from a different perspective and that has been beneficial.
Definition?
I was also hoping through this course to get a firm definition of blended learning. I don’t know what it is about education, whether it is the entrepreneurial spirit, or just an unwillingness to standardize until the politicians do it poorly, but how to define blended learning has always been a challenge. For three years I worked with two teachers from Chicago and we put on a flipped and blended learning conference. For us, blended learning was characterized by learning time that was formally used as a replacement for in person learning through digital means. This meant the kid didn’t come to the classroom for x number of days or hours but was allowed to learn digitally. Others have defined blended learning more in line with the Christiensen definition given in the course text where learning is happening both inside and outside the classroom but the formal time remains sacrosanct. To be fair, the a la carte model at the end of the course text expands the definition used in the beginning a bit and muddies the water. In the end, I still didn’t have a definition.
Definition creep
I have found this definition creep in similar but different organizations. The flipped classroom was popularized by Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, and the definition grew and adapted for them as they worked with the community that sprung up around this method. In the course I just took, flipped learning is limited to the earliest of definitions: “Instruction at home, homework at school” but Jon, particularly through his current Flipped Learning Global Initiative (FLGI) uses “flipped” as a broad umbrella. In fact, I recently spoke with him on the phone and FLGI is finishing work on a training series about blended and hybrid learning right now so keep an eye out for that. Aaron on the other hand has grown with the definition well beyond the first iteration definition given above and both Aaron and Jon helped write the definition used by the Flipped Learning Network utilizing F-L-I-P given here. In his keynote at FlipTech2018 he stated that he prefers the definition of Robert Talbert or a new amalgamation as time and flipped learning has progressed. Not everyone likes the term “flipped” exactly for the constraining nature of the term.
Bureaucrats have begun drawing lines
I just finished putting together a full online math course for the college at which I adjunct and wanted to schedule one mandatory video conference meeting for the semester to ensure students understood the procedures and processes we were going to use, and also to spend a few moments digitally face to face with them. This was not allowed because since the course is listed as “online” and mandatory synchronous time was not allowed by that definition. To require mandatory synchronous time for any reason or amount made it a “hybrid” course. Likewise my state of Illinois labeled the days during COVID-19 “remote learning days” because the term “e-learning” was ensconced in other legislation. What teachers are providing for students will certainly include online learning, blended learning, flipped learning, digitally integrated learning, and many other terms and methods, but because the educational community has no consistent term use, the politicians have taken it upon themselves to define it.
A virus may define us
It is this educational upheaval caused by this pandemic that has motivated me to shift my employment. I am excited about moving forward with a group of educators and leaders that understand the importance and role of whatever we want to call the blended learning this course revolves around. Something that I am taking away from this course has been the opportunity to reflect on my own journey and the times in my journey where I witnessed the various steps of implementation. I can reflect on the times that I have been involved in good implementation and the times that I have been party to poor implementation. What faces us now is a strange situation where the best planned definitions and class timeline in the world will inevitably be moved by the weight of this virus in the world. I do think that what cannot be moved, avoided, or downplayed is the intentional communication and addressing of concerns of many stakeholders that are being pushed into this new education model from teachers, to parents, to community leaders, to students. Regardless of starting point or timeline, we must provide relevant and quality education to students.
What is the definition of “blended learning”? I still don’t have a definitive answer, but I do know that the tools and methods I have been refining and practicing for eight years now are needed more than ever to help my colleagues and help parents and kids address new and profound learning challenges. Call it what you will, I call it necessary.
The Flipped Learning Network, a non-profit community of educators focused on sharing and supporting ideas and good practice in flipped, blended, and flexible learning environments that reflect the four pillars that help define F-L-I-P.
We are also a community built on collaboration and sharing. If you would like to share your thoughts, ideas, blogs, vlogs, tweets, toks, papers, questions, or comments with us we would love to hear from you via the comment discussions in our posts, through our contact page (https://flippedlearning.org/contact), or via Twitter (we are @FlippedLearning) or Facebook.
