Is Student Transition to Blended Learning as easy as we think (and what do they think)?

Abstract

This is about the students. In the move to ‘flipped’ or blended modes of delivery, universities are spending all of their energies focusing on course design and upskilling academics, and assuming that students will easily embrace the new methodologies that are integral to blended learning approaches. We make this assumption based on the belief that they are au fait with all things technology when that may not be true. What we are doing is radically changing what they are experiencing as learning delivery methods, compared to what they had expected. Through implementation of these new blended learning delivery models, we have fundamentally changed what they are expected to do as students. We do this without sufficient warning and support mechanisms for this radical new way of learning. We must engage the students in this discussion and really LISTEN to what they want and need. We must conduct robust research that will inform our course design and teaching practices, our student advising and support, and we must begin now.