Teaching a blended learning course: What did we learn?

By Anne Harley and Britt Baatjes

Introduction

Early in 2023, we - Anne Harley (a senior lecturer in adult education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and Britt Baatjes (a long-time worker in the adult education field) - ran a project to redevelop the Studies in Adult Education and Learning course, part of the Masters in Education (Adult Education) programme at UKZN, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The aim was to shift the course to a more blended approach (face-to-face and online combined), whilst keeping the participatory pedagogy that had always been used. The project was funded by UKZN’s Teaching and Learning Office. We hope that by sharing what we learned, others in both formal and non-formal adult education spaces may find some things of use.

Both of us have many years’ experience of using radical adult education within both formal and non-formal spaces. In our experience of ‘going online’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, we found online learning in the formal space did not work particularly well in fostering the participation and dialogue necessary for learning in a radical perspective. Our teaching in non-formal spaces, however, appeared to work somewhat better. Further below, we discuss why this might be so. Anne has been part of a collaborative project, Deepening Translocal Leadership through Social Movement Learning and Knowledge Exchange, which involves a number of movements and organisations in Canada, Ghana, South Africa, and Guatemala. As part of this process, the various movements have run regular online sessions, via Zoom, to share their struggles and experiences. Participation has been active, and there has been excellent transfer of learning as well as collective knowledge creation. Britt was involved in co-designing and teaching an online non-formal course working with a group of informal workers (domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors, and waste pickers) from 10 African countries from February to July 2022 for Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organising (WIEGO). In the WIEGO online School, there was active participation and sharing of experiences by the participants, who reported high levels of satisfaction, as well as learning, from the experience.

Using radical adult education in the blended space

Like other universities around the world, UKZN is also planning to include more online learning and teaching in the future, in a blended mode. We wanted to see what we could draw from our non-formal online experience, and the radical tradition, to help redevelop a course that Anne teaches. In radical adult education, no education is ever neutral; and the educator has an ethical responsibility to take the side of the poor and oppressed. This impacts not only on what is taught, but also how it is taught. In the radical adult education approach, learners, in dialogue with each other and with educators, make sense of the problems they are facing and decide how to act on them. Generally, learning and teaching follow a cycle, which always starts with the learner’s experience, which is then reflected on. The point is to move towards action for change:

Image Source: Arnold et al. (1992)

Using the Community of Inquiry framework

We also wanted to use the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, which was specifically developed to draw on the different strengths of online and face-to-face learning and teaching, and which seemed in keeping with our radical adult education practice. Community, in this framework, recognises the social nature of education. Inquiry emphasises the need for meaning to be shared, explored and enriched, in order for learning to take place, rather than the delivery of large amounts of content. Practical inquiry happens in a cycle, as portrayed in the following diagram:

1 Arnold, R., Burke, B., James, C., Martin, D., & Thomas, B. (1991). Educating for a change. Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action.  

Practical inquiry thus moves from a triggering event, in which an issue or problem is identified and defined; to the exploration of the problem, including finding relevant information related to the problem; to a process of integration, during which the learners make sense of the information, and identify and debate possible solutions to the problem or issue; and finally, to resolution, where the proposed solution is applied and tested. The resolution may trigger another cycle of inquiry. For a successful CoI to be established, maintained, and developed, three elements are vital – social presence; teaching presence; and cognitive presence (practical inquiry):

What we did

The redeveloped blended course consisted of six face-to-face all-day sessions on Saturdays, spread over the 13 weeks of the semester; a synchronous (i.e. everyone at the same time) component, which was made up of hour-long Zoom sessions on Friday afternoons; and an asynchronous (i.e. students did them in their own time) component, made up of a WhatsApp group, a Moodle site, and online and offline tasks.

In the face-to-face sessions, we used the usual participatory pedagogy, with a lot of learner-centred activities. There was thus a lot of collaborative and/or group work, and dialogue was very strongly encouraged. This helped create the social presence as required for a CoI. In terms of the cognitive presence, we used the radical adult education learning cycle coupled with the practical inquiry cycle – either drawing on students’ own experiences and using this as, or creating, a ‘triggering event’. The format of this varied. Here are some examples: we asked students to recount their own learning experiences; write down their own definition of learning; draw pictures of one of their classrooms when they were at school; draw pictures of a group that they had been part of and from whom they felt they had learned a lot. We also showed films; gave examples of adult education materials; and asked students to fill in as many countries as they could on a blank map of Africa, amongst other things. These ‘triggering events’ were then always reflected on/explored before new content was added. For example, their definitions of learning were displayed on the lecture room wall, and similarities and differences identified and discussed. In the radical tradition, the purpose of reflection is to recognise underlying power dynamics. With the drawings of their school classroom, we asked students to present these to the rest of the class, and asked a series of questions about each drawing, and then about the set of drawings, phrasing the questions always as ‘why’ questions, to uncover issues of power displayed in their pictures. We used this exercise to introduce students to the work of Paulo Freire and the radical adult education tradition. The blank map of Africa activity was used to discuss the issue of who decides what people need to be taught, and why.

In terms of the CoI framework, the triggering event and exploration of it is followed by integration, application and testing. Within a radical approach, this must lead to action towards social justice. After the face-to-face sessions on philosophies of adult education, and on key learning theories, we encouraged the students to reflect on where and when these emerged, prompting them to identify that they were developed in the West, where learning is largely seen as individual. We told them that there is a growing critique of this, and that there are proposals for an African philosophy and theory of learning. We divided the students into two groups and gave them a task to create a podcast on the African philosophy of (adult) education, and an African theory of (adult) learning. They were given two readings to help them with this. They were given detailed instructions on how to make the podcast and were helped to find and set up the (free) Spotify for Podcasters app in class. The app allows someone to create a podcast by simply calling other participants on their cell phones and recording the ensuing conversation. Basic editing, such as adding incidental music, or editing out sections of the conversation, is also possible (although they did not need to do this). Both groups successfully completed the task, creating really interesting podcasts discussing an African understanding of adult education and learning. 

We started each online synchronous Zoom session with a poll to check in with the students about how they were feeling about the course (to foster social presence). We consciously used the Zoom sessions in different ways, to provide input on or explore content knowledge, or to discuss and demonstrate specific skills (cognitive presence). We tried to ensure that the Zoom sessions were obviously integrated into the learning process as a whole – drawing on tasks done during the week or linking to what was to be done in the face-to-face session when this was happening the following day.

We used the asynchronous WhatsApp group to stay in contact with the students, thus fostering social presence; but we also consciously explored how to use WhatsApp as a learning tool. Most weeks, students were given a task via the group to develop or consolidate both content knowledge and academic literacy skills. For example, students were asked to ‘interview’ another adult about the most important thing they had ever learned, and how they had learned it, and send this to the group in a voice-note. We asked them to read an article critiquing sustainable development, and make notes on it, which they then had to use to write a one-page summary. We sent them information on a number of alternatives to dominant ideas of ‘development’, deliberately providing these in different formats - a very brief video on Trade School; a link to a Wikipedia page and a 7-page popular article on the Zapatistas; a link to a website on alternative food systems; and a PDF toolkit for setting up a food co-op. We asked them to undertake an internet search on the Behaviourist philosophy of adult education. These asynchronous tasks were used as triggering events, or as part of the exploration or integration stages of practical inquiry; and also exposed students to critiques of dominant ideas and radical alternatives. Many of the tasks were then drawn on in the Zoom sessions.   

2 Bangura, M.B. (2005). Ubuntugogy: An African educational paradigm that transcends pedagogy, andragogy, ergonagy and heutagogy. Journal of Third World Studies, 22(2), pp. 13-53.

3 Ramose, M.B. (2004). In search of an African philosophy of education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 18(3), pp. 138-160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4314/SAJHE.V18I3.25487

See https://open.spotify.com/show/0w1pstIg1VLnbwHbG117tk

What we learned

We found that participation in face-to-face sessions was very good. This was not surprising – our collective teaching experience confirms that this is always the case with participatory pedagogy. Participation in weekly tasks was good (both online and offline). Participation in Zoom sessions, however, was not particularly good (although attendance was fairly high). Some of this was related to the synchronous nature of these sessions (affected by late joining/connectivity issues, etc.). Attempts were made to increase participation, but with little real success.

Zoom sessions worked very well for ‘checking in’; and potentially for triggering learning – but we suspect that the low participation means that this component was limited in terms of deeper exploration, integration and resolution. As mentioned above, both our experiences with online learning and teaching prior to redeveloping and teaching this blended course suggest that in non-formal spaces the idea of ‘coming together,’ even if only virtually, carries much greater meaning and value for participants than in a formal space. We surmise that this could be because participants are involved in some sort of struggle – they are activists and recognise the importance of being part of a collective. Two WIEGO participants state this as such: “We do not have a common voice; togetherness is required to amplify our labour rights” (Joan Cherop Gloria, Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers) and “At the end of the training, it was evidently clear that informal workers have common needs regardless of boundaries or location” (Batte Charles Sseruyidde, Uganda Markets and Allied Employees Union). This is clearly different from the identities and goals that many formal students bring. We cannot, however, claim that students did not learn from the Zoom sessions; and we think they remain an important part of a blended course.

The Moodle site for the course was even more underused than usual. We suspect that the WhatsApp group largely replaced it. WhatsApp is familiar to most people and used daily with ease, something which research shows is important in blended/online learning. Moodle, in contrast, is not part of the daily lives of the students; and is not as interactive and collaborative as WhatsApp (despite our best efforts). Therefore, WhatsApp is a useful tool but, as with all the other components of a blended learning programme, should be used for the specific ‘things’ that ‘fit’ well with the platform. 

Our learnings from this experience include that face-to-face learning and teaching continues to allow the best opportunities for radical adult education pedagogy; that there are real limitations with making synchronous online learning and teaching participatory; and that asynchronous online tasks can be used in creative, innovative and participatory ways to enhance learner participation and learning. Integrating academic skills with content across face-to-face and online spaces worked well. 

The CoI framework is an extremely useful model for designing (and redesigning) formal learning programmes. However, our experience shows some differences from what the model argues in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the different modes of delivery. For example, we did not find the online space better for deeper reflection (as the CoI model suggests); and we found the WhatsApp group quite good for building and maintaining social presence. 

Overall, we found this blended learning and teaching experience to be successful. This was echoed by students who, in their evaluations, provided positive feedback about both the content and methodology.

Conclusion

With so much emphasis on online learning, it seems inevitable that this is what the present and future holds. Our collective experience teaches us that a blended learning and teaching approach can work; however one needs to be mindful of what component (or platform) works best for what. For example, as stated above, face-to-face is the best space for participatory engagement and, therefore, something like Zoom should not try to replace it for this purpose. The online space should complement the face-to-face space and be used for what works appropriately and best on the particular platform.

4 Trade School Everywhere: https://vimeo.com/41996790

Zapatistas Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation

7-page popular article on the Zapatistas: http://www.johnholloway.com.mx/2014/03/10/zapatismo-urbano/ 

Alternative food systems: https://prattlis.libguides.com/c.php?g=1195998

Setting up a food co-op: https://www.sustainweb.org/foodcoopstoolkit/