Blended Learning
26 Next Steps
We hope that this section provided a good opportunity to explore more about the models, design, and pedagogical details of blended learning and to navigate the current discussions on the topic.
We also hope that the information and resources that we’ve provided during this section have enabled you to rethink elements of your course as needed; this could be one 10-minute activity, one lesson, one week, one course module, or the entire course. The goal was not only to provide a good foundation for developing a blended learning activity but also to reinforce that this does not have to be an altogether daunting task. You can start small with blended learning and incorporate blended learning concepts into your course in many scalable and modular ways so that, over time, you rely more and more on blended learning principles to engage students with the course materials, to make good use of the in-class and out-of-class time for the instructors and the students, to design courses and syllabi based on learning goals and outcomes that you hope the students will achieve, and to provide outlets for doing and sharing that effectively help the student reach these learning goals.
Since the possibilities of the blended learning environment are endless and in constant development, you might be wondering “where do I go from here?” If you didn’t get a chance to work through all of our resources and activities, that might be a good starting point or a refresher. If you’re hoping to move forward with an expanded scope for blended learning activities or even an entire module or course design, we’ve provided some extra resources and guidance here:
Consultation Opportunities
If you are in the College of Letters & Science, we would be happy to consult with you. You are welcome to contact us with any blended learning questions, activity or course design plans, or for other general instructional technology & support questions.
If you are not in L&S, you may prefer to consult this contact list of instructional technology support staff across campus to find your support unit on your own.
Online course design manuals
We have incorporated many other great course design guides into this section on blended learning, including portions of these two here below. If you’d like to follow an online course design step-by-step guide, these resources are both very helpful:
Checklists
Once you get far enough with your course or module redesign, these checklists can help ensure that you’ve accounted for all of the key elements that you (and your students) will need to make your blended learning unit successful:
- Course design checklist (Simmons College)
- Teaching checklist (Simmons College)
Quality certification & peer review
You can also consider learning more about quality certification for your blended course via a program like Quality Matters, a peer-based quality assurance program that supports quality and continued improvement for online and blended courses. Among many other tools, Quality Matters offers an excellent rubric for instructors to use as a guide in the design process.
Your department, unit, or institution might also have well-defined standards for blended or fully-online courses.