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About This Unit
About This Unit
The key to a successful blended course is planning and good design. This Unit is divided into four phases of blended course creation: design, develop, deliver, and evaluate. They have been created to help those new to the idea of blended learning and those who prefer to learn independently become oriented to ideas and concepts related to blended learning.
Be a Learning Designer
Be a Learning Designer
Backward Design
Backward Design
The premise of backwards design is simple: planning starts with the focus on the end product. As educators, we cannot decide which materials or methods to utilise during instruction until we have pinpointed specific concepts and skills we want our students to learn. By focusing on the required end result, Backwards design allows the educator to address what the student needs to learn and what data can be collected to show that the “end goal” has been achieved while thinking about how to ensure students learn effectively.
The process is logical – if teachers focus on the desired learning then the appropriate teaching methods will follow. With Backwards design, teachers shift their thinking from a content-focused design to a result-focused approach. In this way, the integration of different subject matter and the use of technology becomes organic in the design of the unit. Backwards design focuses on the destination and then plans the route, rather than the other way around.
Course Goals & Learning Outcomes
Course Goals & Learning Outcomes
Download the templates below:
Assessing Learning (Evidence of Learning)
Assessing Learning (Evidence of Learning)
Read this article, Ten questions to ask when designing a blended course. It's a good starting point to start designing a blended course.
Course Mapping & Lesson Plan
Course Mapping & Lesson Plan
Curriculum mapping is a process for recording what content and skills are actually taught in a classroom during a longer period of time (e.g., the whole semester or academic session). The data provide an overview, rather than a daily classroom perspective, of what is actually happening over the course of the semester.
Curriculum mapping can serve as both an instrument and a procedure for determining what the curriculum is and monitoring the planned curriculum.
How is curriculum mapping different from lesson planning? Lesson plans describe in detail what and how a teacher intends to teach on a day-to-day basis—the sequence of activities, student grouping, and resources used.
In other words, a lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during class time.
Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class session. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning.
A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:
Objectives for student learning
Teaching/learning activities (learn more in this module and this book)
Strategies to check student understanding (learn more in this module)
Start by mapping the content of the course. Which part will be conducted in face-to-face class and which part can be assigned to asynchronous online learning.
This is an example of my weekly lesson plan showing the structure of the weekly blended learning lesson plan.
Your Task
Your Task
Set up a Curriculum Map
Download the sample of a curriculum map. Using the same format, set up a curriculum map for your own course in Google doc. Share the link in the Comments section below.
Designing the Online Portion of Blended Learning
Designing the Online Portion of Blended Learning
The presentation below (43 slides) provides useful tips to plan and design the online portion of your blended learning.
Study the presentation provided above. Consider your current practises for designing and implementing blended learning and online instruction. What is ONE THING that you can change (it could be a minor adjustment) that could have a significant impact on students' learning experiences? Submit your response here.
Theoretical Framework for Online Learning
Theoretical Framework for Online Learning
Are you familiar with the Community of Inquiry Framework for online learning? Submit your response here.
Read about the following models for designing your online course.
Learning Activities & Students Engagement
Learning Activities & Students Engagement
Refer to the following module for details of learning activities and students engagement.
I have written an ebook below to help educators to design learning activities for their class.
What strategies do you use to effectively engage your students' cognitive abilities? Teachers face a constant uphill battle when it comes to engaging students in critical thinking. Numerous teachers are struggling to come up with innovative ideas for how to design learning activities that will encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking.
What strategies do you use to effectively engage your students' cognitive abilities? Teachers face a constant uphill battle when it comes to engaging students in critical thinking. Numerous teachers are struggling to come up with innovative ideas for how to design learning activities that will encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking.
The purpose of this book is to provide teachers with a variety of higher-order thinking (HOT) learning activities that they can incorporate into their lesson plans in order to promote and strengthen their students' higher-order thinking abilities (HOTS).
The purpose of this book is to provide teachers with a variety of higher-order thinking (HOT) learning activities that they can incorporate into their lesson plans in order to promote and strengthen their students' higher-order thinking abilities (HOTS).
What does this book have in store for you and your students? This book is written with busy teachers in mind. Therefore, I strive to write the book to make it simple and practical— hence, a 'cookbook' format—so that teachers can simply choose the technique and apply it directly in the lesson design. There will be plenty of useful resources for teachers to get them up and running in no time.
What does this book have in store for you and your students? This book is written with busy teachers in mind. Therefore, I strive to write the book to make it simple and practical— hence, a 'cookbook' format—so that teachers can simply choose the technique and apply it directly in the lesson design. There will be plenty of useful resources for teachers to get them up and running in no time.
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