How to Decide Which Technologies Will Boost Blended Learning in the College Classroom

Dan Lim says college instructors can sometimes get too caught up on the term “blended learning.”

However, he says whether those instructors realize it or not, they are already blending their teaching methods – the trick is to find the right way to blend.

“Faculty can be fixated on their interpretation [of blended learning],” says Lim, Vice President for Educational Technology and Distance Learning at theAdventist University of Health Sciences. “I told them, however you teach, you are blending in some form. I told them, before someone tells you how to blend, you have to figure out the best way to blend in your classroom in terms of technology, modality, format and levels.”

Lim says many instructors teach distance learning students at the university. For example, he says some physically teach classes on the Orlando campus, and combines these classes with students located on the school’s Denver campus.

In this example, Lim says one of the biggest challenges for these instructors was finding a way to keep the distance learning students engaged with lessons, and using a blended learning strategy to support them.

“In the offsite location in Denver, both faculty and students are more sensitive of being excluded and ignored because they are not physically here,” he says. “The instructors aren’t physically there, they only show up on the screen. Because of the faculty variations, some are more engaging than others. Some of those were not engaging, and inadvertently, caused the student to feel ignored and excluded.”

Lim says the blended learning strategies that solved his problem were clickers and Turning Technologies’ clear visuals.

“The clickers are one of the tools we use to connect them to another location,” he says. “When we use clickers, we use the virtual version so the students in Denver see the same thing [that the Orlando class sees]. Even if a particular instructor isn’t engaging, it doesn’t matter because the bar chart is on the screen, the student is contributing to that poll, they see the visuals and clickers and are more compelled because of the graphics.”