Blended Learning

What is blended learning?

Blended learning means that part of the educational activities takes place in the classroom and part online. Partly due to the necessary adjustments as a result of COVID-19, there is sometimes confusion about the concepts of Blended Learning, Online Learning and Hybrid Learning. They are three different educational approaches - the differences are explained on the Edusupport website.

Blended learning is not just a mix of separate face-to-face and online activities. On the contrary, the activities are carefully designed to reinforce each other. This is in sharp contrast with Emergency Remote Teaching, a label that aptly describes the enforced online education of the first months of the pandemic. During the design period, starting with the learning outcomes, a choice is made as to which activities will be done online and which will be done in the classroom. Constructive Alignment, defined as "coherence between assessment, teaching strategies and intended learning outcomes in an educational programme" helps in aligning the learning activities with (formative and summative) assessment.

What do we want?

As stated in the Strategic plan, blended learning will become the norm for courses of the faculty. At the moment, we are still waiting for the plans that the clusters will submit, due February 1, 2022. We expect that after that we will train several groups of teachers from the different programmes in redesigning (existing) courses with a blended learning approach. Pedagogical support will be provided by ESI (Educational Support and Innovation).

Examples of blended learning

One of the best-known examples of Blended Learning is the Flipped Classroom. The UG has produced the video below explaining this concept.

Examples from the Faculty of Arts:

Instagram as a tool in the language course by Alsu Buiting

Making knowledge clips in the DIY Studio by Merel Keijzer