Blended Learning Pilot Project for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005

Since the start of blended learning at RIT in fall 2003, the Online Learning department has supported and solicited faculty feedback in three ways: informal luncheons, narratives or reflective writing, and structured interviews. As this data has suggested and continues to suggest, the major theme is that faculty are attracted to blended learning by the prospect of increased interaction.

Though not always expressed in negative terms (i.e., as an instructional problem in search of a solution), faculty clearly desire more and better interaction, discussion, dialogue, participation, engagement, and so forth in their courses, and they clearly think that blended learning promotes such interaction. In particular, faculty teaching primarily lecture-based courses said that their new blended course(s) produce more interaction; and faculty teaching primarily discussion-based or seminar-style courses said that their new blended course(s) deepen or intensifies the discussions.

Four additional themes—all sub-themes on the major theme that blended learning fosters more and deeper interaction—can be discerned. These include:

  • Blended learning offers multiple modes of communication.
    "This class is typically attended by both deaf and hearing students who have various levels of proficiency in sign language and in spoken and written communication. Both face-to-face and online interactions present some communication barriers for different students. Therefore, it is important to have options for communication with peers that include efficient sharing of text as well as more traditional face-to-face interaction during class using signing and speech."
    ~NTID Instructor
  • Blended learning levels the playing field or otherwise promotes widespread and even participation.
    "Often students are fearful of introducing, in the classroom format, a perceived ‘different’ way of viewing the world. Moreover, deaf students may not always interact with those students who do not use ASL. The online interactive discussions offered the opportunity for all persons to be ‘heard’ and for peer learning to unfold."
    ~Social Work Instructor
  • Blended learning encourages peer-to-peer teaching and learning.
    As one art history instructor put it, "The students within the [online] groups were ‘talking’ to each other, not at me or at the authors of the readings. In responding to other postings within their groups, they would write things like, ‘I never thought of that before…” or ‘What the author really meant was..."
    ~History Instructor
  • Related to the above sub-theme, blended learning shifts the faculty role from imparting knowledge to facilitating learning.
    "While in the past I often felt the weight of encouraging the students to do their studies, the students took this responsibility on themselves in the blended course, and I felt more like the facilitator of their language study."
    ~Foreign Language Instructor