TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

The pedagogy of blended learning

Blended learning can support a range of pedagogical approaches and in this section three are highlighted and summarized below. There is an emphasis in all three case studies on the use of mobile devices, particularly tablets for teachers and smart phones for students. The video and audio recording features of such devices are illustrated as well as content browsing and finger input. Interestingly pen input and keyboard input is not emphasized but in my experience these are weaknesses of the current generation of tablet and smart phone devices.

Constructivism illustrated by blended learning and mobile learning. In the illustration, students are doing the activity and the teacher is recording and making comments based on the learning outcomes as the activity is videoed . The students then get formative feedback by watching their performance and presumably are able to make comments and sign off the video as a true record. It is claimed that the need for written reflection and recording of paper witness statements is reduced or eliminated. The tool illustrated  is proprietary and seems specific to a particular form of vocational assessment. It’s not clear from the example how one could generalize the approach.

Social constructivism illustrated by blended learning and mobile learning. It is claimed that the Blended Learning Essentials is an example of this mode of pedagogy. The participants in the forums are giving the reflections and commenting on others: but this begs the question ; just how many BLE participants are participating in the forums? And are those who do not not learning? Or are they just not optimizing their learning? The video illustration has students gathering images and videos on their mobile devices (phones again), sharing them through Flickr and commenting on them in Facebook on in Moodle. Again I can see that this is useful, but how do you ensure that all students are engaged in this way?

Problem based learning illustrated by blended learning and mobile learning. In the illustration, the students, art or design at a guess, are using mobile devices as the medium. I can see it’s authentic and problem-based, although I’d have to say the the input still has a long way to go to beat paper and pencil. The claimed benefit is that it encourages the students to use their existing skills on using devices for social activities into their learning and presumably future professional lives.