Anna Kirakosyan

Oles Honchar National University of Dnipropetrovsk

The Concept and Implementation of Blended Learning

Teaching experience of contemporary methodists shows that melding the traditional with the technological is a way of increasing the quality of teaching and learning.

The term blended learning has become extremely fashionable nowadays, particularly in corporate and higher education settings. But what does it actually mean? Blended learning is quite difficult to define since the term is used in diverse ways by different people. Overall, the three most common meanings are as follows:

1) the integration of traditional learning with web-based online approaches;

2) the combination of media and tools (eg. textbooks) employed in e-learning environments;

3) the combination of a number of teaching and learning approaches irrespective of the technology used.

As famous methodists Curtis Bonk and Charles Graham claim, blended learning is part of the ongoing convergence of two archetypal learning environments. On the one hand, there is the traditional face-to- lace learning environment that has been around for centuries. On the other hand, there are new learning environments which have begun to grow and expand in exponential ways as new technologies have increased the possibilities for distance communication and interaction. In this article, we shall follow Andrew Littlejohn in perceiving blended learning as an integration of face-to-face teaching and learning methods with online approaches.

So why to blend? In the literature on blended learning, the most common reason given for its implementation is that it combines the best of both words. Charles Graham and his colleagues cite three main reasons why blended learning should be chosen:

• improved pedagogy;

• increased access/flexibility;

• increased cost effectiveness.

So from the point of view of pedagogy blended learning undoubtedly contributes to the development and support of more interactive strategies, not only in face-to-face leaching but also in distance education. Developing activities linked to learning outcomes places the focus on learner interaction, rather than content dissemination. In addition, distance learning can offer more information to students, better and faster feedback and richer communication between a tutor and a student with more opportunities for both face-to-face and online communication.

Access to learning is one of the key factors influencing the growth of distributed (computer-mediated) learning environments. Students can access materials at any time and anywhere. Furthermore, they can proceed at their own pace. Consequently, blended learning can create higher motivation and give greater stimulation to students.

An increase in cost effectiveness is particularly noticeable in corporate environments where people are permanently busy and can hardly ever afford the time to attend full-time, face- to-face classes. Blended learning enables them to start learning after fulfilling their work, family and other social commitments. Blended learning is also popular with universities, which are always looking for quality enhancement and cost savings, and is particularly appropriate to distance learning courses.

Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks to blended learning. There is no doubt that it is time-consuming and makes great demands in terms of creation, preparation and evaluation. The possibility of randomly-occurring problems with technology also needs to be taken into consideration.

Now let us have a close look at a blended language course model. A blended learning approach is particularly suited to language learning, where conventional face-to-face teaching is sometimes necessary for developing speaking communication skills. For this reason it is used for language courses at the Faculty of Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Kralove in the Czech Republic. Students here undertake reading and writing tasks on their own, which enables the teachers to concentrate more on listening and speaking activities in i face-to-face classroom teaching.

E-learning has been an important feature of courses at this faculty since 1999 and is seen by teachers as a useful tool for improving the quality of their teaching. It has been found to be both effective and efficient in delivering the desired results. In 2001 the administrators of a few selected courses for part-time students created a virtual learning environment for their courses and web communication tools were introduced for the students. By 2002 online courses were also beginning to be used to support the teaching of full-time students. At present, more than 90 e-courses are being fully exploited in teaching at the faculty, 40 of these in the teaching of English. Some of the English courses, such as those teaching written business English, can be taught completely online. However, most of them are blended as there is a need for some tutorial work. At face-to-face tutorials, students have the opportunity to discuss the problems they cncountcr when they are doing various types of tasks and writing assignments. This method is particularly suitable for distance students and those involved in an inter-university study project. In addition, e-courses are used as reference sources for regular classes. Students can go online to read again information that has been given in class, and they can do further online activities to practise what they have learnt. These online courses are also very useful for revision.