Page 205 - BLENDED LEARNING

Moreover, as a result of increased political tension in Egypt, and the resultant
disruption to classes and learning, there was a general advantage in enabling the
students to participate in flexible online collaborative learning. This meant that if
students were unable to attend classes, having material online would enable them to
study independently and help maintain motivation in between face-to-face lessons.
Therefore, rather than falling behind and losing momentum, they could return to
classes having made progress.

The course
The optional blend combined 53 hours of soft skills classroom learning with online
provision and was separated into two parts. The first worked in conjunction with a
Presentations course of nine lessons and the second a Lecture Listening course of
eight classes. After each class, students were advised to spend between 30 minutes
and an hour on the web-based resources. At the start of each lesson, students were
encouraged to share what they had discussed and learned online, or any learning
difficulties they had experienced with the material. This was to consolidate the web-
based study, encourage participation and establish a link between the two parts of
the blend.

Every class focused on a particular element of presentations, such as introductions,
signalling and concluding. The web-based resources were structured in the same
way, following a consistent format to enable the students to access and interact
with them simply (Niles, 2008). After each class, a clearly-labelled page was added,
containing lesson materials and supplementary resources, such as YouTube clips
and links to presentations advice. This was done so that absent students could
easily obtain missed material and to allow further independent study.
Within each lesson page was a discussion activity that the students were encouraged
to participate in. This allowed them to digest content, ask follow up-questions and
collaboratively extend their knowledge. As Singer and Stoicescu (2010: 1531) say,
‘the online forum is a very important piece of the blend. It supports the students to
go deeper into the understanding of a concept that was presented in face-to-face’ .

At the end of the course, presentations were filmed and uploaded, enabling students
to re-watch themselves, learn from each other and comment on one another’s work.
According to students, being able to do this increased their confidence and blended
learning motivation.

The Lecture Listening course followed a similar format on NG with each themed
lesson focusing on a comprehension and note-taking skill and the online materials
linking to this. Nonetheless, images were added to the text to increase aesthetic
appeal. This was as a result of informal feedback after the Presentations course,
saying the material ‘didn’t look interesting’. Another difference was related to
copyright. As the ‘Lecture Ready’ coursebook and audio were used, it was impossible
to upload these. Nevertheless, supplementary resources were added, which included
lesson-related talks from YouTube. For example, a TED talk on consumerism was
used for the first lesson theme of spending. Participants were encouraged to
watch the clips, take notes, utilise the listening strategies from the face-to-face

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