by
ikudu Blogger
| Sep 22, 2020
Written By Johann Möller, Director IDEAS LAB: South Campus, University of the Free State
IntroductionWhile education (teaching and learning) is still conducted as if we are in the Middle Ages, several waves of learning theories, fashionable acronyms, and technology have swept over the educational landscape. These acronyms, technological solutions, and
ideas create the impression that the educational landscape is changing rapidly and is getting ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. According to a tweet by Leonard Gentle in the online daily newspaper, the Daily Maverick on 1 April 2019, “We
need to spread the benefits of the First and the Second before we divert resources into the hype associated with the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.” Looking at the education landscape, this is very true. In education spheres, one
also finds a race to accommodate and chase the hype cycles without getting the basics right.
When trying to make sense of all these developments, one often finds that the new is placed in opposition to the old. A comparison between the one and the other. Online vs e-learning, e-learning vs blended, flipped classroom, digital learning, face-to-face,
virtual learning, and the list goes on. Added to this variety of terminologies, we find a new one, namely COIL exchange. Jon Ruben, Director of COIL Consulting (http://www.coilconsult.com/welcome.html), defines COIL or collaborative online
international learning as a means to connect accredited courses, linking the classrooms of two or more higher-education institutions, each located in a different country or cultural setting. “The COIL model does not merely promote students from
different countries sharing an online classroom. Rather, COIL creates equitable team-taught learning environments where faculty from two cultures work together to develop a shared syllabus, emphasizing experiential and collaborative student learning.”
It is really important for educational practitioners to come to grips with all these terms and acronyms. Educators, in their quest to improve teaching and learning – and commerce trying to make money – good teaching and learning could
be held hostage because different meanings are married to certain catchphrases.
Difficulty with terminology in literature
I believe that everyone who is trying to understand the process of teaching, learning, and instruction, is ultimately attempting to bring a definition or concept forward that is easy to define a specific phenomenon. Sometimes they coin a catchphrase
to define their work, which becomes such a popular phrase that it will make them famous.
While these definitions attempt to make long descriptions easier to grasp, it is true that before a single definition describes a concept, each researcher still has to define their particular meaning of this term. While the popular term or acronym
is used in discussions, confusion creeps in due to different understandings attached to the same term. Normally, people do not define in discussions what meaning they attach to that term. I believe one such term is ‘blended learning’.
Blended Learning
Because ‘blend’ can have so many meanings, it is difficult to get one single meaning for blended learning or blended teaching. I would like to encourage responsible educational practitioners to be very careful when using the term
‘blended learning’.
I propose a model where a blending space is created and several things could be blended, but let’s not coin it ‘blended learning’.
When one places asynchronous teaching and learning opposite synchronous teaching and learning on one axis, and high tech versus low tech on a second axis, one creates a blending space where different technologies, low and high tech, can be blended.
One can then also blend synchronous with asynchronous. This is the purest form of teaching and learning practices, which allows for all the new terms, such as e-learning, online learning, etc.
Ultimately, all good teaching and learning should be some sort of blend of many things, be it clay, crayons, computers, animations, models, computer simulations, synchronous, and asynchronous, etc.
Because so many things can be added to the blend, it is difficult to give it one meaning; many people believe that it is blended learning only when you add technology, while it is but one form of blended learning.
The model below shows how one can position several of these freely used terms somewhere on the map, depending on what is being blended. In the end, I believe all quality teaching and learning endeavours must be a blend of many things. Provision
must be made for visual, auditive, and haptic learning experiences using low as well as high tech. Referring to a teaching and learning event as blended learning when technology is added, might cause misconceptions that could have been avoided.
If the COIL-type of interventions are considered, it can also be seen as some sort of BLEND. It is a blend of international views and stimulates international collaboration.
Depending on whether the students meet face-to-face or whether technology is used to facilitate collaboration, it remains some sort of blend on the two axes of synchronous vs asynchronous and low-tech vs high-tech.
COIL exchange could be placed in the top left quadrant because it is online (high-tech) and will be asynchronous most of the time due to practicality conversations among students.