Мурасова Г.Є.

Київський національний торговельно-економічний університет, Україна

HYBRID COURSES: A COMBINATION OF ON-LINE AND TRADITIONAL TEACHING

Distance learning is becoming increasingly more popular on college campuses. It includes courses that are taught at satellite campuses, through instructional television, as hybrid courses, and fully online. In the 2000-2001 academic year, 89% of 4-year public institutions offered some form of distance learning [12]. During the 2006-2007 academic year, the percentage of distance education courses offered remained unchanged, but the percentage of hybrid courses increased from 35 to 64%. Another study reported that professors, already using blended learning, expected to offer more than 40% of their courses in the blended format by the year 2013 [2].

Hybrid, or blended, courses are a combination of online and traditional, face-to-face courses. The goal of hybrid courses is often to combine quality features of traditional classroom teaching with quality features of online courses in order to promote active, independent learning and reduce time in the classroom. However, a common criticism of technology-based course design is that “online components are bells and whistles tacked onto traditional courses, which are costly to add and only minimally enhance the course content” [11]. This criticism may well have merit when online delivery focuses solely on providing course content but fails to create a learning environment that supports the growth of a community of learners and shared knowledge. If courses are nothing more than content, then all students would need is their textbook. Faculty members, however, view the learning community as essential for cognitive growth and the development of critical thinking skills. Similarly, online and hybrid educators recognize the importance of creating a learning environment that fosters interaction, dialogue, and mentoring in an effort to produce learning outcomes similar to those in traditional courses.

A common concern for hybrid students and faculty is the quality of communication between the student and the professor [10]. Reduced classroom time means fewer opportunities for traditional learning; therefore, both students and professors have to learn how to have meaningful online communication. However, few faculty members have the training in instructional design or learning theory needed to create a well-designed hybrid course [6], which should foster a collaborative learning environment that encourages students’ interactions with the course content, the professor, and fellow classmates [5]. Technology alone cannot create an effective learning community without the support of theory to fortify the course design.

 A study found that, when compared with traditional courses, the hybrid delivery mode can result in higher grades and improved learning outcomes [3], as well as students’ perceptions of greater learning and motivation. Students in hybrid courses also feel a stronger sense of community with their classmates and professor when compared with both traditional and online students [9].

Benchmarking is a method for developing requirements and standards in e-learning and thereby measuring performance [7]. The seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education, which includes contact between faculty and students, cooperation among students, active learning, prompt feedback, time on tasks, high expectations of students, and respect for diverse student learning styles. More than half of the benchmarks involve effective professor-student and student-student interaction.

These seven principles have been found to be adaptable to distance education courses. It was recommended that, in order to apply Chickering and Gamson’s principles, distance instructors should: provide clear guidelines for interactions with students; create well-designed discussion assignments that require participation, engagement, and feedback; require student-presented projects; provide feedback on both assignments and inquiries; establish deadlines; communicate high expectations through challenging assignments and praise; and allow students to express their own interests and points of view by choosing project topics.

Effective student-student and professor-student interaction is impossible without establishing social presence in the online forum. Social presence is “the degree to which a person is perceived as ‘real’ in computer-mediated communication” and studies have shown that students perceive their classmates and professors to be both real and accessible in online forums. According to Pelz, social presence can be: affective, in which students express emotions and feelings; interactive, which occurs when students effectively comprehend others’ responses; and cohesive, which results in a sense of commitment and belonging.

Teaching presence can be created in three ways: through facilitation of discussion by both the student and the professor; through direct instruction by the professor; or through instructional design [4]. Facilitation of discussion and instructional design seem to be particularly important in establishing a sense of connectedness and learning in distance courses, as well as course satisfaction.

Immediacy is related to presence in that it refers to verbal and nonverbal behaviors that create interaction and a feeling of closeness. Students should perceive a small social distance between the professor and the student and this can be accomplished through use of humor and encouragement in online and traditional interactions, and eye contact and hand gestures in the traditional classroom.

One common student complaint with fully online courses is the lack of prompt feedback from the professor to the student. Because professor-student interaction is correlated with learning and achievement, it is important to provide prompt and effective feedback to students who have less traditional class time. A large proportion of feedback in traditional classrooms occurs through non-verbal cues such as body language, gestures, and facial expressions, which are not possible in online forums [9]. Therefore, prompt responses to student questions, clear communication about assignments, high expectations for student performance, and professor immediacy are important features of professor-student feedback in hybrid courses.

Those currently teaching hybrid courses or faculty who intend to teach hybrid courses should employ the benchmarks when designing their hybrid class, as this research and previous studies have demonstrated the utility of the benchmarks in predicting student learning outcomes and satisfaction. In addition, faculty should design courses to provide students with ample opportunity to converse online about the material as students’ satisfaction was related to positive interactions with classmates. Lastly, professor communications should be timely, effective, and express high expectations of student performance [1].

The list of references:

1.      Babb Stephanie, Cynthia Stewart, Ruth Johnson, Constructing Communication in Blended Learning Environments: Students’ Perceptions of Good Practice in Hybrid Courses. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. Vol. 6, No. 4, December 2010, 737.

2.      Bonk C. J. & Kim K.. (2006). Future directions of blended learning in higher education and workplace learning settings. In Handbook of blended learning: Global perspectives, local designs, C.J. Bonk and C.R. Graham, eds. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer Publishing.

3.      Dowling C., Godfrey J.M. & Gyles G. (2003). Do hybrid flexible delivery teaching methods improve accounting students’ learning outcomes? Accounting Education, 12(4), 373-391.

4.      Garrison D.R., Anderson T. & Archer W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

5.      Hostetter C. & Busch M. (2006). Measuring up online: The relationship between social presence and student learning satisfaction. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 1-2.

6.      Oblinger D.G., & Hawkins B.L. (2006). The myth about online course development. Educause Review, 41(1), 14-15.

7.      Oliver R. (2005). Quality assurance and e-learning: Blue skies and pragmatism. Research in Learning Technology, 13(3), 173-187.

8.      Pelz B. (2004). Three principles of effective online pedagogy. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3), 33-46.

9.      Rovai A.P., & Jordan H.M. (2004). Blended learning and sense of community: A comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5(2). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/192/795.

10.  Shedletsky L. & Aiken J. E. (2001). The paradoxes of online academic work. Communication Education, 50(3), 206-217.

11.  Stewart C., Bachman C. & Babb S. (2009). Replacing professor monologues with online dialogues: A constructivist approach to online course template design. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 5(3), 511-522. Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no3/stewart_0909.pdf

12.  Tallent-Runnels M. K., Thomas J. A., Lan W. Y., Cooper S., Ahern T. C., & Shaw S. M., et al. (2006). Teaching courses online: A review of the research. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 93-135.