Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning

 

During this session we shared our ideas and experiences of online and blended learning, especially during 2020 with the Covid 19 pandemic.  All members in the group mentioned the change and transition for Face-to-Face classes to online classes and how we need to support our academic staff and students with these changes. We need to create a blended learning experience to meet the requirements and time constraint of today’s students.

We used the Community of Inquiry framework for online learning as the starting point to manage the change. To achieve social, cognitive, emotional, and teaching presence we need the buy in of the institution, the lectures, and students.

To go online with teaching and learning, we firstly need the support of the institution.  Online teaching should be organised and managed by the institution. Institutions are responsible to follow the regulatory frameworks and requirements. The institution is required to maintain technical support, data supply to staff and students and most important to develop the online skills of both staff and students through regular and continuous training and development.

Secondly, we need the student to actively participate in the online space. They need to prepare for all the online classes, and therefore “Flipped the classroom” can be used as teaching strategy.

Lately we need the online lecturer as a subject matter expert to present the online sessions. Lecturers can break the learning journey down into phases.

a)       Excite phase: This is an introduction to the subject area, explain the “what we are going to learn”, creates excitement and sets some exercises to challenge the way the students is thinking about the subject area.

b)      Engage phase: Students take a deep dive into the subject are through the blended learning approach.

c)       Embed phase: This is a crucial step to ensure that students are going to link the content to the workplace. This will then transition into Work integrated learning.

It is also vital to create a strong look for the learning experience to allow the students to explore the content in a visual way that allows the brain to retain the learning, through reading and seeing. Break information down into smaller pieces and images will have a lasting impact on the students and enable them to feel confident in what they have learned.

So, let us take hands and work together to create an online space that lectures and students will enjoy while teaching and learning.

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