This being Part 3 of our discussion about Blended Learning we are finally reaching the peak of this years Summer School.
One more day to go!
Mixed Contexts
Implicit in some of the definitions is the idea that what may need to be blended are different contexts within which learning takes place. The primary contrast drawn in the definitions is between instruction and work as contexts. The challenge to this position is essentially the same as the challenge to mixing media. The idea of a ‘context’ is hard to pin down, since it is in part psychological, reflecting individuals’ awareness of their situation. Even from an analytical perspective, problems arise, since the context in which someone learns (say, a classroom) is typically different from the context in which they might envisage applying what they have learnt (say, at home) or performing it (say, under exam conditions). The notion of imagination is important here, since even without access to another context learners are likely to envisage themselves using or performing what they learn in other situations (Wenger, 1998). And also, as before, in a case with any duration, it is unavoidable that multiple contexts will be experienced. Consequently, all learning can be argued to blend contexts, and the term once again becomes redundant.
Mixing Theories of Learning
One suggestion in the definitions of blended learning is that the mix consists of ‘pedagogical approaches’ (Driscoll, 2002), by which she means ‘constructivism, behaviorism, cognitivism’, etc. It is possible that the emphasis here is upon pedagogy (a possibility to be explored later), but on the face of it what is being proposed is a mix of theories of learning. This possibility is relatively easy to dismiss, since many theoretical positions have arisen out of oppositions. Cognitivism, for example, was an attempt to challenge Skinner’s position – which forms a central tenet of behaviourism – that we do not need a theory of mind to explain learning (Skinner, 1950).
Since such theories can be thought of as tools or as positions, it would be possible to argue that several such positions could be held. However, although it might be possible for one person to switch positions, even swapping between them, this does not imply that they can ‘mix’ them. At this general level such theories are irreconcilable and irreducible (de Freitas & Mayes, 2004); to take multiple positions is not ‘mixing’ but simply being inconsistent.
Mixed Learning Objectives
Another position proposed by the definitions involves blending different kinds of intended learning outcome. Driscoll (2002), for example, mentions blending skill-driven, attitude-driven and competency-driven learning.
This position maintains some consistency, but for design rather than learning. It is easily argued that what a teacher intends to be a learning outcome is distinct from what a student actually learns (e.g. Barnett, 1994). The teacher may be primarily concerned with skills, for example, but the learner will not ‘turn off’ their learning of attitudes and competences (on this classification) simply because the teacher does not deem them to be relevant. This rules out the term ‘blended learning’, but might permit the modified term ‘blended learning design’. However, instructional design and learning design both already exist as terms, and both are used to describe situations for which different (or multiple) learning outcomes can be designed (Beetham, 2004). The idea of ‘blending’ adds nothing to these perspectives; it is, again, redundant.
Mixed Pedagogics
The final blend that will be considered here concerns mixing pedagogic approaches. At a general level this, too, falls prey to the critique that cases of any duration will inevitably blend pedagogic approaches, leaving the term redundant. However, one position that is worth exploring more carefully is that advocated by Peters (1998). In his analysis of distance learning, he differentiates between physical distance and pedagogic distance. He refuses to classify distance learning as being all study where the tutor is geographically remote, since some pedagogies (such as lecturing) are similar whether the lecturer is present or being broadcast and others (such as a tutorial dialogue) can be recreated using technologies such as telephones. Instead, he distinguished between approaches where there is a ‘pedagogic distance’ between tutor and student. This position can be characterised as being about the intensity of interaction between the two roles. ‘Distance
pedagogics’ are differentiated from other forms of pedagogy by the infrequency of interaction. On this account a stereotypical lecture consisting exclusively of presentation is a form of distance pedagogics whether students are present or not.
It might be possible to challenge the boundary between these ‘forms’ of pedagogics in terms of the cut-off level of intensity that marks an approach as being of one type or the other. For example, even a book can be revised in response to readers’ comments. This possibility becomes important when considering whether a regularly updated course website is a form of distance pedagogics – how often does it have to be adapted in order to be classified as not distant? However, treating this as a continuum (rather than as a dichotomy) would preserve the distinction whilst avoiding this problem.
There are two consequences of this move, however. Firstly there is the question of why different intensities of approach should be blended. What is the purpose of seeking to incorporate low-intensity pedagogies? Is this to create space for reflection, or because they are cheaper? Secondly, there is the matter of terminology. This blending is not about learning per se; it is thus misleading to call it ‘blended learning’. Instead, if a term must be used, this should be abandoned in favour of ‘blended pedagogics’ or even ‘blended teaching’, or (to maintain a student focus) ‘learning with blended pedagogies’.
References:
Barnett, R. (1994) The Limits of Competence. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education/Open. University Press.
Beetham, H. (2004) Initial Positioning Report. JISC programme on pedagogies for e-learning.
Driscoll, M. (2002) Blended Learning: let’s get beyond the hype, E-learning, 1 March. Available at:
http://elearningmag.com/ltimagazine
de Freitas, S. & Mayes, T. (2004) Review of E-learning Theories, Frameworks and Models. Unpublished
project report, Essex University
Peters, O. (1998) Learning and Teaching in Distance Education. London: Kogan Page.
Skinner, B.F. (1950) Are Theories of Learning Necessary? Psychological Review, 57(4), pp. 193-216.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Donnerstag, 9. Februar 2012
Blended Learning Part 2
Welcome back right after your various internships!
I hope you made heaps of different and stunning experiences to guide you through everything that comes up.
We were talking about pros and cons of Blended Learning today and tried to sum up some of the contents. As last time this is based on one of the university papers we discussed earlier today. As we had an all-day lecture, I will post it in two parts...easier to read!
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!
This section explores the notion of blended learning, starting from the premise that such a term requires two or more different kinds of things that can then be mixed. The possible nature of those things, and of their mixing, will be explored through the various sections below.
Mixing E-learning with Traditional Learning
Perhaps the most common ‘blend’ discussed in research publications concerns the mixing of elearning
and traditional forms of learning. This is a particularly muddled definition, not least because what counts as ‘e-learning’ is notoriously hard to define. The Department for Education and Skills (2003), for example, recently provided the following definition:
If someone is learning in a way that uses information and communication technologies, they are
using e-learning. They could be a pre-school child playing an interactive game; they could be a
group of pupils collaborating on a history project with pupils in another country via the Internet
[… etc.] – it all counts as e-learning.
Providing a list, rather than a definition, is interesting: it points to a desire to include, rather than specify or exclude. Indeed, the excerpt suggests that almost anything that has had any connection with computers may count as e-learning, and that if in doubt the term can be stretched to include borderline cases. The problem with this is that the term is amorphous, lacking any kind of clarity. It is simply the accretion of cases, with no indication of how new examples should be included or rejected from the term. There are no principles underlying it.
As soon as a principled position is taken, the term ‘e-learning’ becomes problematic. From an activity theoretic perspective (Kuutti, 1996), for example, all activities involve a technology of some sort and there is no particular reason to distinguish between those with and without the ‘e-’ prefix. Equally, there is no definition of ‘traditional’ learning. This is typically assumed to refer to face-to-face teaching, often in the form of lectures and/or seminars; however, since forms of correspondence learning have existed for well over a century (Peters, 1998) there seems to be no reason for deeming some kinds of teaching as ‘traditional’ and others as not. Indeed, for lecturers who have begun their careers since the advent of the Internet, there is little reason to assume that web-based learning is not part of their ‘tradition’ of teaching. For these reasons, the idea of defining blended learning in terms of these two ‘types’ seems inappropriate.
Mixing Online Learning with Face-to-Face
A conceptually clearer position arises from descriptions of blended learning as involving a mix between online and face-to-face teaching. However, on closer inspection this is also problematic. Dreyfus’s critique of learning from the Internet (2001) provides a useful starting point to explore this mix. His argument is that learning on the Internet is impoverished, since it results in a disembodied experience and the production of fragmented, fractured ‘selves’. He contrasts this with the embodied, unified self that he believes is present ‘off’ the Internet. The important point of Dreyfus’s critique is that the Internet – or at least, learning online – is somehow special. His particular concerns are relatively easy to dismiss, resulting from inconsistencies in his position. Either learners are embodied or they are not: the Internet has no power to tear them from their bodies. They are no more disembodied sat at a computer than talking to a teacher, and the relevance of their embodiment to learning is no more problematic here than if they were watching a television broadcast or reading a book. Similarly, the notion of ‘self’ is either fragmented (in the postmodern sense of being distributed, contingent and multiply interpreted) or it is not. It is simply inconsistent to attribute special powers to the Internet, which is nothing more than an extension of file sharing networks. This highlights the central problem for this mix: why ‘online’? Arguably, there is nothing particularly special about the Internet per se. One possible way out of this might be to shift attention away from learning online and to mediated learning instead; this possibility will be explored below.
Mixing Media
To avoid the problem of treating online learning as a special case, it can be proposed that the purpose of blended learning is to explore the mixing of media. As well as being problematic, this definition is also unhelpful. The possibility of mixing media for pedagogic advantage is given relatively high profile within the research literature; Laurillard’s classic text (1993), for example, hinges upon this idea, providing tables that describe the characteristics of different media in terms of qualities that are mapped onto her conversational framework. The problem with this is that these tables ‘essentialise’ media; they present the media as types with fixed (essential) qualities. The result is that Laurillard preserves the clarity of her argument by dealing in stereotypes. This is in marked contrast to teachers’ experience of these ‘media’. For example, Laurillard portrays lectures as being primarily, or even exclusively, transmissive. A study that asked lecturers to describe their lecturing practice (Oliver & Conole, 2002) revealed that what the term ‘lecture’ denoted to them varied according to the topic being taught, the size of the group, the year students were in, students’ expectations, what else was happening in the course, and so on. What this illustrates is that pedagogy is a form of practice – a socially constructed experience, rather than an inherent quality of media. For this reason alone the idea of mixing media becomes problematic.
However, in addition, there is the question of whether such a definition is useful. Within any course – indeed, in any learning situation of any duration, formal or otherwise – multiple ‘media’ will be used. (This certainly applies to published work where sessions or courses are analysed; Martin Oliver & Keith Trigwell potentially, it might not apply to studies of a single particular action or interaction, but such studies are exceptional.) These may be largely taken-for-granted media such as speech, print and pictures, but nonetheless their diversity is inevitable in the media-rich society in which we are based. Consequently, all learning ‘blends’ media (if we are willing to accept the notion of media as ‘types’).
As a result, all learning is blended learning. The term does not rule anything out; it has no discriminatory power. Consequently it is redundant and unnecessary.
References:
Department for Education and Skills (2003) Towards an E-learning Strategy. Bristol: HMSO.
Oliver, M. & Conole, G. (2002) Supporting Structured Change: toolkits for design and evaluation, in
R. Macdonald (Ed.) Academic and Educational Development: research, evaluation and changing practice in
higher education, pp. 62-75. SEDA Research Series. London: Kogan Page.
Peters, O. (1998) Learning and Teaching in Distance Education. London: Kogan Page.
Kuutti, K. (1996) Activity Theory as a Potential Framework for Human Computer Interaction Research, in
B.A. Nardi (Ed.) Context and Consciousness: activity theory and human-computer interaction, pp. 17-44.
Cambridge: MIT Press
Dreyfus, H. (2001) On the Internet (Thinking in Action). London: Routledge.
Laurillard, D. (1993) Rethinking University Teaching. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
I hope you made heaps of different and stunning experiences to guide you through everything that comes up.
We were talking about pros and cons of Blended Learning today and tried to sum up some of the contents. As last time this is based on one of the university papers we discussed earlier today. As we had an all-day lecture, I will post it in two parts...easier to read!
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!
This section explores the notion of blended learning, starting from the premise that such a term requires two or more different kinds of things that can then be mixed. The possible nature of those things, and of their mixing, will be explored through the various sections below.
Mixing E-learning with Traditional Learning
Perhaps the most common ‘blend’ discussed in research publications concerns the mixing of elearning
and traditional forms of learning. This is a particularly muddled definition, not least because what counts as ‘e-learning’ is notoriously hard to define. The Department for Education and Skills (2003), for example, recently provided the following definition:
If someone is learning in a way that uses information and communication technologies, they are
using e-learning. They could be a pre-school child playing an interactive game; they could be a
group of pupils collaborating on a history project with pupils in another country via the Internet
[… etc.] – it all counts as e-learning.
Providing a list, rather than a definition, is interesting: it points to a desire to include, rather than specify or exclude. Indeed, the excerpt suggests that almost anything that has had any connection with computers may count as e-learning, and that if in doubt the term can be stretched to include borderline cases. The problem with this is that the term is amorphous, lacking any kind of clarity. It is simply the accretion of cases, with no indication of how new examples should be included or rejected from the term. There are no principles underlying it.
As soon as a principled position is taken, the term ‘e-learning’ becomes problematic. From an activity theoretic perspective (Kuutti, 1996), for example, all activities involve a technology of some sort and there is no particular reason to distinguish between those with and without the ‘e-’ prefix. Equally, there is no definition of ‘traditional’ learning. This is typically assumed to refer to face-to-face teaching, often in the form of lectures and/or seminars; however, since forms of correspondence learning have existed for well over a century (Peters, 1998) there seems to be no reason for deeming some kinds of teaching as ‘traditional’ and others as not. Indeed, for lecturers who have begun their careers since the advent of the Internet, there is little reason to assume that web-based learning is not part of their ‘tradition’ of teaching. For these reasons, the idea of defining blended learning in terms of these two ‘types’ seems inappropriate.
Mixing Online Learning with Face-to-Face
A conceptually clearer position arises from descriptions of blended learning as involving a mix between online and face-to-face teaching. However, on closer inspection this is also problematic. Dreyfus’s critique of learning from the Internet (2001) provides a useful starting point to explore this mix. His argument is that learning on the Internet is impoverished, since it results in a disembodied experience and the production of fragmented, fractured ‘selves’. He contrasts this with the embodied, unified self that he believes is present ‘off’ the Internet. The important point of Dreyfus’s critique is that the Internet – or at least, learning online – is somehow special. His particular concerns are relatively easy to dismiss, resulting from inconsistencies in his position. Either learners are embodied or they are not: the Internet has no power to tear them from their bodies. They are no more disembodied sat at a computer than talking to a teacher, and the relevance of their embodiment to learning is no more problematic here than if they were watching a television broadcast or reading a book. Similarly, the notion of ‘self’ is either fragmented (in the postmodern sense of being distributed, contingent and multiply interpreted) or it is not. It is simply inconsistent to attribute special powers to the Internet, which is nothing more than an extension of file sharing networks. This highlights the central problem for this mix: why ‘online’? Arguably, there is nothing particularly special about the Internet per se. One possible way out of this might be to shift attention away from learning online and to mediated learning instead; this possibility will be explored below.
Mixing Media
To avoid the problem of treating online learning as a special case, it can be proposed that the purpose of blended learning is to explore the mixing of media. As well as being problematic, this definition is also unhelpful. The possibility of mixing media for pedagogic advantage is given relatively high profile within the research literature; Laurillard’s classic text (1993), for example, hinges upon this idea, providing tables that describe the characteristics of different media in terms of qualities that are mapped onto her conversational framework. The problem with this is that these tables ‘essentialise’ media; they present the media as types with fixed (essential) qualities. The result is that Laurillard preserves the clarity of her argument by dealing in stereotypes. This is in marked contrast to teachers’ experience of these ‘media’. For example, Laurillard portrays lectures as being primarily, or even exclusively, transmissive. A study that asked lecturers to describe their lecturing practice (Oliver & Conole, 2002) revealed that what the term ‘lecture’ denoted to them varied according to the topic being taught, the size of the group, the year students were in, students’ expectations, what else was happening in the course, and so on. What this illustrates is that pedagogy is a form of practice – a socially constructed experience, rather than an inherent quality of media. For this reason alone the idea of mixing media becomes problematic.
However, in addition, there is the question of whether such a definition is useful. Within any course – indeed, in any learning situation of any duration, formal or otherwise – multiple ‘media’ will be used. (This certainly applies to published work where sessions or courses are analysed; Martin Oliver & Keith Trigwell potentially, it might not apply to studies of a single particular action or interaction, but such studies are exceptional.) These may be largely taken-for-granted media such as speech, print and pictures, but nonetheless their diversity is inevitable in the media-rich society in which we are based. Consequently, all learning ‘blends’ media (if we are willing to accept the notion of media as ‘types’).
As a result, all learning is blended learning. The term does not rule anything out; it has no discriminatory power. Consequently it is redundant and unnecessary.
References:
Department for Education and Skills (2003) Towards an E-learning Strategy. Bristol: HMSO.
Oliver, M. & Conole, G. (2002) Supporting Structured Change: toolkits for design and evaluation, in
R. Macdonald (Ed.) Academic and Educational Development: research, evaluation and changing practice in
higher education, pp. 62-75. SEDA Research Series. London: Kogan Page.
Peters, O. (1998) Learning and Teaching in Distance Education. London: Kogan Page.
Kuutti, K. (1996) Activity Theory as a Potential Framework for Human Computer Interaction Research, in
B.A. Nardi (Ed.) Context and Consciousness: activity theory and human-computer interaction, pp. 17-44.
Cambridge: MIT Press
Dreyfus, H. (2001) On the Internet (Thinking in Action). London: Routledge.
Laurillard, D. (1993) Rethinking University Teaching. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
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