The productive blend

Image retreived from Pixabay under CC0  licence

The topic 4 from ONL course raised up lively discussion in our PBL13 group. All of us had some slightly different ideas of what blended learning actually is. Similarly, if we look through the literature, we can find many ambiguous definitions. The one that appealed to me the most, was quoted by Driscoll (2002): blended learning is - “To combine various pedagogical approaches…to produce an optimal learning outcome…”. So, the cycle of blended learning does not necessarily incorporate digital tools, however, web-based technology is often inseparably identified with this way of learning. That was the first surprise. I guess the other was, that when we took a look at our teaching methods used so far, it turned out that all of us use different models of blended learning! We just didn’t know that at the time.

I don’t need being convinced, that blended learning is beneficial. But for the doubtful ones I gathered two examples from the biological sciences. 

The first example comes from Malysia [2]. 140 biology Students from secondary schools were divided into two groups: control and experimental. For three weeks control group was taught by teacher in the classroom according to sylabus, involving only face to face contact. The experimental one learnt using Edmodo – educational networking application. The study showed, that experimental group had better results in understanding direct, simple and complex concepts in biology. The Investigators put efforts to find the reasons of better results of the experimental group. The Students indicated, that above all, they appreciated self-paced learning. Moreover they were less bored, more motivated  and  liked the idea of interactivity and enhanced communication. 

The second example is about using gamification, in teaching process of over 100 medical Students about the antibiotics [3]. The Authors created a board game, which was called ‘AntimicroGAME’ and was based on the sylabus valid for a given class. The game was modified using the feedback obtained from the first group of Students (20 people). Short-term and long-term knowledge retention were compared among Students that used board game and Students who just attended the lectures. Generally, the topic of antimicrobial resistance is perceived as difficult, and Students found the game to be very helpful. The combination of traditional lecture and game application improved long-term knowledge retention among Students. 

We all have different Students, when it comes to their potential or suitable ways of absorbing new knowledge. It’s not surprising for me, that the use of different methods- the use of blended learning is so productive! 

 References: 

Driscoll M., (2002), Blended Learning: let’s get beyond the hype, E-learning, 1 March. Available at: http://elearningmag.com/ltimagazine

Nee C.K., (2014), The Effect of Educational Networking on Students’ Performance in Biology, International Journal on Integrating Technology in Education (IJITE) 3 (1), DOI: 10.5121/ijite.2014.3102

Karbownik M.S., Wiktorowska-Owczarek A., Kowalczyk E., Kwarta P., Mokros Ł., Pietras T., (2017), Board game versus lecture-based seminar in the teaching of pharmacology of antimicrobial drugs—a randomized controlled trial, FEMS Microbiology Letters 363(7), DOI: 10.1093/femsle/fnw045