Page 231 - BLENDED LEARNING

Reasons given in the literature Supporting statements from the case studies
for blending
Ministry of Education It was a vertical decision from the administration, but was
(or similar) directives favourably received by EFL instructors (Pardo-Gonzalez,
Chapter 4)

In addition to these reasons, the authors provide the following rationale for
incorporating technology into their courses: motivation, autonomy, collaboration,
market reach and experiential learning (see Table 3). What is noteworthy is that
the majority of the reasons given indicate that a blended approach is adopted for
practical or financial reasons rather than pedagogic or because it is considered
to be more effective than traditional face-to face teaching. Maybe the underlying
assumption is that it is more effective, or as effective, but this is not articulated.

Table 3: Additional reasons for employing a blended approach
Additional reasons for blending Supporting statements from the case studies
Motivation Improve motivation by integrating the use of ICT into the
learning process; develop skills for autonomous learning…
(Sokol et al., Chapter 17)
Autonomy ... to foster more independent and collaborative learning…
Fleet (Chapter 18)
Collaboration To make the course more interactive and provide more
opportunities for collaboration (Eydelman, Chapter 3)
Market reach A blended model increases the market reach of the course,
by appealing to teachers who may be concerned about
embarking on a fully online training course (Dudeney and
Hockly, Chapter 6)
Experiential learning Participants will have the opportunity to experience the
kinds of methods, approaches and problems that their
students will encounter and this should help to give them
deeper insights into the process and systems that should
help to support the students they construct their own
courses for (Peachey, Chapter 5)

In the Bosnia and Herzegovina blend that I describe in Chapter 16 there were four
reasons (or drivers for change as we termed them) for redesigning our original blend:
1. a change in goal direction
2. the need for the long-term sustainability of the course (particularly in terms of cost)
3. user feedback (teachers and learners) on the shortcomings of the original blend
4. personal beliefs on how to design a blended learning course that would provide
an optimal learning experience in our context.
These reasons influenced all the decisions that we took and helped ensure that the
final blend was suitable for and therefore worked in our context. This supports Shaw
and Igneri’s (2006: 3) belief that there is ‘…no single optimal mix. What configuration
is best can only be determined relative to whatever goals and constraints are
presented in a given situation’.

228 | Conclusion