insights on the new normal education essay

Designing the New Normal: Enable, Engage, Elevate, and Extend Student Learning

The pandemic has provided educators with unprecedented opportunities to explore blended learning and identify the practices and approaches that provide real and lasting value for students.

Students and instructors have returned to classrooms on campuses across the country, with a strong desire to rediscover some normalcy following more than a year filled with Zoom meetings and learning apart. At the same time, instructors and students have changed during the pandemic and are coming back to the classroom with new skills and different perspectives. As a result, rather than resuming business as usual, instructors should take inventory of what went well during emergency remote teaching, as well as what they missed most about in-person teaching when they were apart from their students, and begin to blend the two to design the new normal. To help instructors through this process, we have developed a framework to draw their attention to important advantages of blended learning that they should consider as they evaluate what is possible moving forward. Specifically, we have built on previous research and frameworks—such as David Merrill's e 3 approach and Liz Kolb's Triple E Framework Footnote 1 —to develop the 4Es framework (see figure 1) that asks instructors whether their blended learning strategies:

• ENABLE new types of learning activities;
• ENGAGE students in meaningful interactions with others and the course content;
• ELEVATE the learning activities by including real-world skills that benefit students beyond the classroom; and
• EXTEND the time, place, and ways that students can master learning objectives.

Do Your Blended Learning Strategies ENABLE New Types of Learning Activities?

Royce Kimmons, Charles Graham, and Richard West used the RAT framework to explain that blended learning strategies can use technology in ways that replace, amplify, or transform learning activities (see figure 2). Footnote 2

Instructors have a long history of using technology to simply replace or digitize learning activities that were previously done without technology. For example:

• In-person lectures are replaced with Zoom lectures.
• Writing an essay by hand is replaced by typing an essay.
• Writing on a chalkboard is replaced by writing on a digital whiteboard.
• Chalk on a board is replaced by pixels on a screen.
• Reading a textbook is replaced by reading an e-book.

These replacements can be a fine use of technology. Digitizing learning activities can reduce costs and improve access. Additionally, replacing a learning activity by using technology can make some learning activities more efficient than they would be without technology. For instance, an essay typed in a word processor can be revised more easily and quickly than a handwritten essay. However, simply replacing an activity will not improve learning outcomes. In a best-case scenario, students will achieve the same learning outcomes, only more quickly and/or cheaply.

To enable new types of learning that improve learning outcomes, instructors need to use blended learning strategies that move beyond replacing in-person activities with online activities to using strategies that amplify or transform learning activities from what could be accomplished without technology.

Amplifying a learning activity requires instructors to introduce technology in ways that enable incremental improvements, even as the core of the activity remains largely unchanged. For instance, when they read students' essays, instructors may find that many of their students have met the target learning outcomes. As a result, the instructors may choose to amplify the essay-writing process by having students work in a shared document that enables better collaborative opportunities, peer reviews, instructor feedback, and editing. Students can also include multimedia elements to enhance what is written in the essay. Or instructors might use technology to allow students to publish and share their essays in authentic ways. Instructors might also use technology to improve pre-writing activities by engaging students in an online discussion activity to brainstorm and formulate ideas for their essays. What's important to recognize is that although the core activity—writing an essay—remains the same, technology enables incremental improvements, some of which could impact learning outcomes.

Transforming a learning activity is different from amplifying because the goal isn't to improve the activity but to use blended learning strategies in ways that introduce a new learning activity that wouldn't be possible without technology. For instance, rather than making improvements to the essay, instructors could choose to transform the learning activity by tasking students with writing a script, editing a video, and "premiering" their videos to those in the course and others who are invited to participate.

Do Your Blended Learning Strategies ENGAGE Students in Meaningful Interactions with Others and the Course Content?

"Engagement" is a term that is used frequently to mean a lot of different things. A 2020 review of research identified three dimensions of engagement: Footnote 3

• Behavioral: the physical behaviors required to complete the learning activity
• Emotional: the positive emotional energy associated with the learning activity
• Cognitive: the mental energy that a student exerts toward the completion of the learning activity

Instructors often refer to these three dimensions of engagement when they talk about engaging students' hands, hearts, and heads (see figure 3).

Of the three dimensions of engagement, behavioral engagement is the easiest to observe and categorize. Specifically, Kimmons, Graham, and West used the PIC framework to identify three types of behavioral engagement: passive, interactive, and creative (see figure 4). Footnote 4

Passive learning examples include students watching a video, listening to a podcast, and attending a lecture. In some ways, these passive learning tasks represent a lack of engagement because they don't require or even allow students to make meaningful contributions to the learning activity.

Interactive activities are dynamic and require students to actively participate. Interactive activities include tasks in which students interact with online content and tools. Interactive activities can also include opportunities for students to communicate with others such as the instructor, other students, and those outside the classroom (see figure 5).

Creative activities go beyond participation to actually creating something original such as a blog post, edited video, or website. Table 1 identifies some additional examples of online passive, interactive, and creative activities.

Table 1. Examples of Passive, Interactive, and Creative Activities

It's important to note that each type of behavioral engagement is important at different stages of the learning process. For instance, students may passively listen to a short lecture or watch a video before interacting with their peers regarding their thoughts about what they learned during the passive activity. Similarly, if students are tasked with creating a video essay, they will likely start with passive activities to develop a background understanding of the topic or to learn how to use the video-editing program. Students could then interact with their peers to collaboratively create the video. Instructors can also consider when and where passive learning activities occur. For example, sometimes a flipped classroom requires having a passive video-watching experience online to make time and space for an interactive/creative learning experience in person.

An important part of evaluating your blended teaching is to see the value of passive learning activities while also understanding that these types of activities are limited in terms of deepening students' learning. Passive activities such as watching a video or reading an article alone do not require students to demonstrate their comprehension of content or encourage higher levels of cognitive engagement, such as applying, evaluating, or creating. Because too much time spent in passive learning activities will limit students' engagement, instructors should be sure to leave ample time for interactive and creative activities.

Kimmons, Graham, and West combined the PIC and RAT frameworks to form the PICRAT framework and matrix, which allow instructors to chart how technology is being used in their blended learning strategies. Footnote 5 Figure 6 is an adaptation of Kimmons, Graham, and West's original matrix. The matrix is a helpful tool for instructors to consider what the technology adds to the activity and how students are interacting with that technology. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the technology being used to increase student engagement by making learning activities more interactive and/or creative?
• Is the technology being used simply to replace activities or to amplify and transform them?

When planning new blended or online activities, we recommend starting by focusing on the learning objective(s) and then pulling out a piece of paper or pulling up a word processing document and filling out the PICRAT matrix (see figure 7) with various ways that technology could be used to teach the learning objective(s).

Moving up and across the matrix will likely improve the learning activity by leveraging technology to make the experience more interactive or engaging and introducing new ways of learning, but note that the PICRAT matrix doesn't actually measure the quality of the learning activity. Instructors could transform a learning activity by having students create something that wouldn't be possible without technology, but that change might not actually improve students' learning or experience. In fact, students' learning can be transformed for the worse. For instance, using the example shared above, an instructor could transform an essay writing activity so that students create an edited video instead. Although this change may be positive for many students, some students might detest making an edited video and refuse to participate. Similarly, an instructor might transform a passive learning activity into a creative learning activity that isn't as aligned to the learning outcomes. As a result, when amplifying or transforming a learning activity to increase students' behavioral engagement, consider the other two dimensions of engagement—emotional engagement and cognitive engagement. Students will perceive the activity as "busy work" if instructors only engage their hands but fail to also engage their hearts and minds (see figure 8).

Do Your Blended Learning Strategies ELEVATE the Learning Activities to Include Real-World Skills That Benefit Students Beyond the Classroom?

In addition to creating learning activities aligned with the course learning objectives, blended learning strategies can elevate students' learning to also include real-world skills that benefit students beyond the classroom. For example, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning stresses the need for students to develop the 4Cs—communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity skills. Footnote 6 While widely referenced and important, the 4Cs model takes a somewhat narrow view of the skills that students need to succeed beyond the classroom. For Ontario's education agenda, Michael Fullan expanded on the 4Cs to include character education and citizenship. Footnote 7 Social-emotional learning is also critical for human development. These skills are best developed in a social learning environment. Of course, students are unable to develop communication, collaboration, and citizenship skills in isolation. Even critical thinking and creativity skills are best developed when working with others. This reality provides more support for balancing passive activities with interactive and creative activities while urging instructors to elevate their instruction.

Learning activities are also best elevated when they are situated in authentic tasks and projects. Three levels of authenticity should be considered when choosing the problems students will be working on and the stakeholders that students will be working with (see figure 9):

• Unrealistic: These scenarios and problems can be out of this world—literally! Stakeholders and problems can be science fiction and include anything from time traveling to establishing a colony on Mars. They are intended to make the unit more exciting and emotionally engaging while still requiring students to demonstrate important knowledge and real-world skills.
• Realistic: These are scenarios and problems that feel like they are real but aren't. Real people can even serve as stakeholders, but they are just acting. For example, students might simulate creating a new business by coming up with a new product and working in groups to come up with the name of the product, a business plan, and a marketing plan. It is completely realistic, but they won't be really starting a new business.
• Real: This is the gold standard because you have real people who are genuinely interested in students' work and will benefit from it. These stakeholders can be of any age and in or out of the institution. For example, pre-service instructors in a course on teaching with technology may collaborate to develop a workshop on blended teaching for a local school district. Art students could also curate an actual art gallery showcasing works from local artists.

Authentic assessments are often renewable rather than disposable. As David Wiley explained, "A 'renewable assessment' differs in that the student's work won't be discarded at the end of the process, but will instead add value to the world in some way." Footnote 8 Consider the target audience of most assessments—for whom are students completing assessments? Themselves? Their community? The instructor? Often assessments are completed for an audience of one, the instructor. The instructor then evaluates the assessment, provides the student with some feedback, returns the assessment to the student, and hopes that the feedback enriches the student's learning before the assessment is thrown in the physical or digital trash can. David Wiley referred to these assessments as disposable assessments . They are meant to be used and then discarded without retaining any real-world value.

A movement toward assessments that can exist in a world larger than the four walls of a singular classroom can make learning more authentic and elevate what students learn and do beyond the content-based curriculum and contexts. For example, a community college instructor who worked with one of the authors found that having her students write an openly licensed textbook that would be shared with other students instead of traditional essays prompted them to submit higher quality work than they previously had. Students want to know that their work matters and is destined for more than the nearest trash can (see table 2 and the sidebar "Additional Resources about Assessments").

Table 2. Examples of Renewable and Disposable Assessments

Additional Resources about Assessments

Christina Hendricks, "Renewable Assignments: Student Work Adding Value to the World," Flexible Learning , University of British Columbia, October 29, 2015.

Christina Hendricks, "Non-Disposable Assignments in Intro to Philosophy," You're the Teacher , University of British Columbia, August 18, 2015.

"From Consumer to Creator: Students as Producers of Content," Flexible Learning , University of British Columbia, February 18, 2015.

David Wiley, "What Is Open Pedagogy," Improving Learning , October 21, 2013.

Do Your Blended Learning Strategies EXTEND the Time, Place, and Ways That Students Can Master Learning Objectives?

Another way that blended learning strategies can improve learning activities is by extending the time, location, and ways that students can complete them. Attempting to extend students' learning time and location is nothing new. For instance, students have long had flexibility in the time and location that they completed assignments. However, too often students are tasked with completing assignments outside class without adequate support, resulting in frustration and stress.

Using technology, instructors can not only provide students with more sensory-rich learning materials, but, within a learning management system (LMS), they can also provide digital scaffolding and direction to successfully complete learning activities using those materials. For instance, it is relatively easy for instructors to create short instructional videos that can help students learn new concepts or complete learning tasks. Kareem Farah explained that creating instructional videos allowed him to "clone" himself so students could receive his help the moment they needed it, not when he was presently available to help them. Footnote 9 Once instructors feel comfortable making quick videos, they can use them to provide targeted support anytime students find something confusing or difficult. This allows instructors to tailor lessons to specific students or course sections.

Instructors can also extend the ways in which students complete learning activities. For instance, instructors might provide multiple learning paths for students to choose from. Creating multiple activities that all lead toward mastery of learning objectives allows students choice in the learning path—hopefully with choices that will motivate them and inspire them to do their best work. Once learning has been extended, instructors can also provide students with opportunities to form their own learning path and/or set their own learning goals. The taxonomy of learner agency presents a scaffold for moving students from a "one size fits all" learning approach to an instructional approach that provides learners with guided choices for their own learning. Footnote 10 These choices could include setting performance or learning behavior goals related to learning objectives, choosing how to demonstrate learning and understanding, or choosing specific resources to use or topics to study within a given learning objective. At the highest levels of extending learner autonomy, learners may even create their own learning outcomes, assessments, and activities related to the goals of a course.

Combining in-person and online instruction doesn't mean that the blended learning will be high quality—or even good. As you begin to blend your students' learning, you will likely find that some lessons or even entire instructional units don't work as well as expected. The opposite will also be true, however, and you will find that some blended lessons and modules go incredibly well. It's important to carefully evaluate what works and what needs to be improved or even replaced. A J-curve should be expected anytime instructors try something new. Footnote 11 The 4Es framework can help you recognize quality blended teaching and learning. Specifically, as you plan new blended instructional units or evaluate previous blended instruction, ask if your instructional unit would or did:

• ENABLE new types of learning activities?
• ENGAGE students in meaningful interactions with others and the course content?
• ELEVATE the learning activities by including real-world skills that benefit students beyond the classroom?
• EXTEND the time, place, and ways that students can master learning objectives?
• M. David Merrill, "Finding e³ (effective, efficient, and engaging) Instruction," Educational Technology 49, no. 3 (May–June 2009): 15–26; Liz Kolb, Triple E Framework . Jump back to footnote 1 in the text. ↩
• Royce Kimmons, Charles R. Graham, and Richard E. West, "The PICRAT Model for Technology Integration in Teacher Preparation," Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 20, no. 1 (2020). Jump back to footnote 2 in the text. ↩
• Jered Borup, Charles R. Graham, Richard E. West, Leanna Archambault, and Kristian J. Spring, "Academic Communities of Engagement: An Expansive Lens for Examining Support Structures in Blended and Online Learning," Educational Technology Research and Development 68 (February 14, 2020): 807–32. Jump back to footnote 3 in the text. ↩
• Kimmons, Graham, and West, "The PICRAT Model." Jump back to footnote 4 in the text. ↩
• Ibid. Jump back to footnote 5 in the text. ↩
• See "P21 Framework Definitions." Jump back to footnote 6 in the text. ↩
• Michael Fullan, Great to Excellent: Launching the Next Stage of Ontario's Education Agenda , Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013. Jump back to footnote 7 in the text. ↩
• David Wiley, "Toward Renewable Assessments," Improving Learning , July 7, 2016. Jump back to footnote 8 in the text. ↩
• Kareem Farah, "Blended Learning Built on Teacher Expertise," Edutopia , May 9, 2019. Jump back to footnote 9 in the text. ↩
• Charles R. Graham , Jered Borup, Michelle A. Jensen, Karen T. Arnesen, and Cecil R. Short, "K–12 Blended Teaching Competencies," (Provo, UT: EdTechBooks.org, 2021). Jump back to footnote 10 in the text. ↩
• Charles R. Graham, Jered Borup, Cecil R. Short, and Leanna Archambault, K–12 Blended Teaching: A Guide to Personalized Learning and Online Integration (Provo, UT: EdTechBooks.org, 2019). See, specifically, section 6.5 of "Blended Design in Practice." Jump back to footnote 11 in the text. ↩

Jered Borup is an Associate Professor in the Division of Learning Technologies at George Mason University.

Charles R. Graham is a Professor in the Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University.

Cecil Short is an Assistant Professor of Practice of Blended and Personalized Learning in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University.

Joan Kang Shin is an Associate Professor in the Division of Advanced Professional Teacher Development and International Education at George Mason University.

© 2022 Jered Borup, Charles R. Graham, Cecil Short, and Joan Kang Shin. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 International License.

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Navigating the new normal: adapting online and distance learning in the post-pandemic era.

1. Introduction

1.1. background, 1.2. purpose of the review.

• Highlighting the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on education, including the disruptions caused by school closures and the subsequent shift to remote learning [ 1 ].
• Exploring innovative approaches and strategies employed by educators to ensure effective online teaching and learning experiences [ 2 , 4 ].
• Examining the role of technological solutions and platforms in facilitating remote education and their effectiveness in supporting teaching and learning processes [ 4 ].
• Investigating strategies for promoting student engagement and participation in virtual classrooms, considering the unique challenges and opportunities presented by online and distance learning [ 2 , 3 ].
• Evaluating the various assessment and evaluation methods employed in online education, considering their validity, reliability, and alignment with learning outcomes [ 4 ].
• Discussing the importance of supporting student well-being and academic success in the digital environment, addressing the social and emotional aspects of remote learning [ 3 ].
• Examining the professional development opportunities and resources available for educators to enhance their skills in online teaching and adapt to the changing educational landscape [ 4 ].
• Addressing equity and accessibility considerations in online and distance learning, developing strategies to ensure equitable opportunities for all learners and mitigate the digital divide [ 1 , 2 ].
• Identifying key lessons learned and best practices from the experiences of educators and students during the pandemic, providing insights for future educational practices [ 1 , 4 ].
• Discussing the potential for educational innovation and transformations in teaching and learning practices in the post-pandemic era, considering the lessons learned from the rapid transition to online and distance learning [ 4 ].

1.3. Significance of the Study

• To provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the pandemic on education. UNESCO (2020) reported that the widespread school closures caused by the pandemic disrupted traditional education practices and posed significant challenges for students, educators, and families [ 1 ]. As such, understanding the multifaceted impact of the pandemic is crucial for effective decision making and policy development.
• To highlight innovative approaches to online teaching and learning. Hodges et al. [ 4 ] emphasized the importance of instructional design principles and the use of educational technology tools in facilitating effective online education [ 4 ] by examining strategies employed by educators during the pandemic. This review paper aims to identify successful practices that can be applied in future online and blended learning environments.
• To explore the role of technology in supporting remote education. The rapid transition to online and distance learning has required the use of various technological solutions and platforms. With reference to this subject, Hodges et al. (2020) discussed the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning, highlighting the importance of leveraging technology to create engaging and interactive virtual classrooms [ 4 ].
• To address equity and accessibility considerations. The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities in access to education and technology. On this line, UNESCO (2020) emphasized the need to address equity issues and bridge the digital divide to ensure equitable opportunities for all learners. This review paper examines strategies and interventions aimed at promoting equitable access to online and distance learning.
• To provide insights for future educational practices by analyzing experiences, challenges, and successes encountered during the transition to online and distance learning. This review paper aims to provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers. So, lessons learned from the pandemic can inform the development of effective educational policies, teacher training programs, and support systems for students.

1.4. Methodology of Search

2. impact of the covid-19 pandemic on education, 3. transitioning from traditional classrooms to online and distance learning, 4. challenges faced by educators during the lockdown period, 5. strategies for effective online teaching and learning, 6. technological solutions and platforms for remote education, 7. promoting student engagement and participation in the virtual classroom, 8. assessments and evaluation methods in online education, 9. supporting student well-being and academic success in the digital environment, 10. professional development for educators in online teaching, 11. addressing equity and accessibility in online and distance learning, 12. lessons learned and best practices for future educational practices, 13. innovations and transformations in education post-pandemic, 14. policy implications and recommendations for effective online education, 15. ethical considerations in online and distance learning, 16. innovations and practical applications in post-pandemic educational strategies.

• Impact Analysis Tools: Develop analytical tools to quantify the educational disruptions caused by the pandemic, focusing on metrics like attendance, engagement, and performance shifts due to remote learning.
• Online Pedagogy Workshops: Create workshops for educators to share and learn innovative online teaching strategies, focusing on interactivity, student-centered learning, and curriculum adaptation for virtual environments.
• Tech-Integration Frameworks: Develop frameworks for integrating and evaluating the effectiveness of various technological solutions in remote education, including LMS, interactive tools, and AI-based learning supports.
• Engagement-Boosting Platforms: Create platforms or tools that specifically target student engagement in virtual classrooms, incorporating gamification, interactive content, and real-time feedback mechanisms.
• Assessment Methodology Guides: Develop guidelines or toolkits for educators to design and implement valid and reliable online assessments aligned with learning outcomes.
• Well-being Monitoring Systems: Implement systems to monitor and support student well-being in digital learning environments, incorporating mental health resources and social-emotional learning components.
• Professional Development Portals: Develop online portals offering continuous professional development opportunities for educators, focusing on upskilling in digital pedagogy, content creation, and adaptive learning technologies.
• Equity and Accessibility Strategies: Formulate and implement strategies to ensure equitable access to online and distance learning, addressing the digital divide through resource distribution, adaptive technologies, and inclusive curriculum design.
• Best Practices Repository: Create a repository of best practices and lessons learned from the pandemic’s educational challenges, serving as a resource for future educational planning and crisis management.
• Post-Pandemic Educational Innovation Labs: Establish innovation labs to explore and pilot new teaching and learning practices in the post-pandemic era, emphasizing the integration of traditional and digital pedagogies.

17. Conclusions: Navigating the Path Forward in Online Education

Author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Sato, S.N.; Condes Moreno, E.; Rubio-Zarapuz, A.; Dalamitros, A.A.; Yañez-Sepulveda, R.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era. Educ. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

Sato SN, Condes Moreno E, Rubio-Zarapuz A, Dalamitros AA, Yañez-Sepulveda R, Tornero-Aguilera JF, Clemente-Suárez VJ. Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era. Education Sciences . 2024; 14(1):19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

Sato, Simone Nomie, Emilia Condes Moreno, Alejandro Rubio-Zarapuz, Athanasios A. Dalamitros, Rodrigo Yañez-Sepulveda, Jose Francisco Tornero-Aguilera, and Vicente Javier Clemente-Suárez. 2024. "Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era" Education Sciences 14, no. 1: 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

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An educator’s reflections on “a new normal” for schools.

August 21, 2020 by Justin Birckbichler

In this post, educator and instructional technology coach, Justin Birckbichler, shares his thoughts on the “new normal” that schools across the country are facing. 

In Virginia, where I work as an instructional technology coach, all schools completely shut down for in-person instruction in March due to the pandemic. While the state gave an option to reopen schools in the fall, my district chose to begin this school year in an all-virtual manner. Given that the current situation has only gotten worse since spring, this was clearly the safest choice. Despite knowing this was the best option from a seemingly impossible decision, I’m still left with a hard to describe feeling.

While I don’t have my own classroom anymore, I do have the pleasure of connecting with over 650 kids each and every day. Although the vast majority of them don’t quite grasp my job – I’m either the science, computer, TV, or maintenance guy, depending who you ask, none of which are my official job title – I like to think they know that I’m there for them. I already miss seeing every single kid from the beginning of the day to the end, but it’s not about me.

For many of these kids, school is a safe, special, and important place for them… even if they don’t always show it in the “best” ways. The ones who will fight you hardest are the ones who secretly love being there most. Through the shutdown, throughout the summer, and beginning this year, my thoughts have been with these students – my current Lions, as well as my former Cardinals, Bobcats, and Bears. Wow, I really need to learn to stay in one school for a while.

However, we have a unique opportunity here to make a commitment to being there for the kids. Undoubtedly, it sucks that they’ve missed out on face-to-face instruction for over six months and counting now, but realistically they will be fine in the long run. When was the last time you added fractions with unlike denominators, or had to know the French nobleman who aided the Continental Army? We’ll work out the logistics of distance/e-learning in time, but we can start on the far more important mission immediately.

We can’t change the decision to be virtual or this scale of virus (although wearing a mask will help). But what we can change is how we use this time to impact our students’ lives on a far greater scale.

What we must do (and now is a good time to say that this is solely my views and are not necessarily reflective of the opinions of my school, district, or state) is use this time to connect with the kids on a daily basis. When I missed three months of school as I underwent chemo in 2017 , I wrote back and forth on Google Classroom with each of my kids every single day. I learned more about those kids through that three months of writing than I did in an entire year of some previous classes. I made video calls and phone calls to keep up with them. These were moments that the students and I truly treasured, even when one student exclaimed, “Wow Mr. B you’re really fat now and have no hair!” Yes, Neil, that’s what chemo does.

Though I wasn’t physically present with them, I never felt like I was missing out on anything because I was there in the only way I could – and we worked together to make it count.

The point of this post is to focus on what matters. It’s not how we feel about it. Yes, we’re upset and sad. It’s not about the teaching and curriculum that’s being missed. Yes, these skills are important and it’s literally our job to provide them with the required knowledge. But what truly matters is growing strong connections and creating safe spaces for our students.

Ten years from now, they’re not going to remember how they did on their end of year tests or what they learned in class… unless it’s that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell – that’s important and they will remember that forever.

They will remember how we rallied around them to make them feel loved and supported even when we couldn’t physically be there.

So I will wrap up this “teacher as a martyr post that Justin usually hates” and get off my soapbox by saying I know educators are all upset about the decisions of their respective districts. There’s really no right answer and not everyone will be pleased with whatever choice is made. 

But we must – and I repeat, must – do everything in our power to make sure that our students know just because school will look drastically different than in any previous year, our love, support, and care for them will never change.

Be sure to check our blog for new posts from our amazing community every week!

Kids Discover

Justin Birckbichler Justin Birckbichler is an Instructional Technology Coach in Spotsylvania, VA and a Google for Education Certified Innovator. In his work, he is very passionate about forming strong relationships with students, purposeful technology integration, and thinking outside the box. Connect with him on Twitter at @MrBITRT and read his blog at blog.justinbirckbichler.com. Outside of the education world, he’s is a testicular cancer survivor and spreads awareness at www.aballsysenseoftumor.com.

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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 15 February 2018

Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies

• Charles Dziuban 1 ,
• Charles R. Graham 2 ,
• Patsy D. Moskal   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6376-839X 1 ,
• Anders Norberg 3 &
• Nicole Sicilia 1  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  15 , Article number:  3 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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This study addressed several outcomes, implications, and possible future directions for blended learning (BL) in higher education in a world where information communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly communicate with each other. In considering effectiveness, the authors contend that BL coalesces around access, success, and students’ perception of their learning environments. Success and withdrawal rates for face-to-face and online courses are compared to those for BL as they interact with minority status. Investigation of student perception about course excellence revealed the existence of robust if-then decision rules for determining how students evaluate their educational experiences. Those rules were independent of course modality, perceived content relevance, and expected grade. The authors conclude that although blended learning preceded modern instructional technologies, its evolution will be inextricably bound to contemporary information communication technologies that are approximating some aspects of human thought processes.

Introduction

Blended learning and research issues.

Blended learning (BL), or the integration of face-to-face and online instruction (Graham 2013 ), is widely adopted across higher education with some scholars referring to it as the “new traditional model” (Ross and Gage 2006 , p. 167) or the “new normal” in course delivery (Norberg et al. 2011 , p. 207). However, tracking the accurate extent of its growth has been challenging because of definitional ambiguity (Oliver and Trigwell 2005 ), combined with institutions’ inability to track an innovative practice, that in many instances has emerged organically. One early nationwide study sponsored by the Sloan Consortium (now the Online Learning Consortium) found that 65.2% of participating institutions of higher education (IHEs) offered blended (also termed hybrid ) courses (Allen and Seaman 2003 ). A 2008 study, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education to explore distance education in the U.S., defined BL as “a combination of online and in-class instruction with reduced in-class seat time for students ” (Lewis and Parsad 2008 , p. 1, emphasis added). Using this definition, the study found that 35% of higher education institutions offered blended courses, and that 12% of the 12.2 million documented distance education enrollments were in blended courses.

The 2017 New Media Consortium Horizon Report found that blended learning designs were one of the short term forces driving technology adoption in higher education in the next 1–2 years (Adams Becker et al. 2017 ). Also, blended learning is one of the key issues in teaching and learning in the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s 2017 annual survey of higher education (EDUCAUSE 2017 ). As institutions begin to examine BL instruction, there is a growing research interest in exploring the implications for both faculty and students. This modality is creating a community of practice built on a singular and pervasive research question, “How is blended learning impacting the teaching and learning environment?” That question continues to gain traction as investigators study the complexities of how BL interacts with cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of student behavior, and examine its transformation potential for the academy. Those issues are so compelling that several volumes have been dedicated to assembling the research on how blended learning can be better understood (Dziuban et al. 2016 ; Picciano et al. 2014 ; Picciano and Dziuban 2007 ; Bonk and Graham 2007 ; Kitchenham 2011 ; Jean-François 2013 ; Garrison and Vaughan 2013 ) and at least one organization, the Online Learning Consortium, sponsored an annual conference solely dedicated to blended learning at all levels of education and training (2004–2015). These initiatives address blended learning in a wide variety of situations. For instance, the contexts range over K-12 education, industrial and military training, conceptual frameworks, transformational potential, authentic assessment, and new research models. Further, many of these resources address students’ access, success, withdrawal, and perception of the degree to which blended learning provides an effective learning environment.

Currently the United States faces a widening educational gap between our underserved student population and those communities with greater financial and technological resources (Williams 2016 ). Equal access to education is a critical need, one that is particularly important for those in our underserved communities. Can blended learning help increase access thereby alleviating some of the issues faced by our lower income students while resulting in improved educational equality? Although most indicators suggest “yes” (Dziuban et al. 2004 ), it seems that, at the moment, the answer is still “to be determined.” Quality education presents a challenge, evidenced by many definitions of what constitutes its fundamental components (Pirsig 1974 ; Arum et al. 2016 ). Although progress has been made by initiatives, such as, Quality Matters ( 2016 ), the OLC OSCQR Course Design Review Scorecard developed by Open SUNY (Open SUNY n.d. ), the Quality Scorecard for Blended Learning Programs (Online Learning Consortium n.d. ), and SERVQUAL (Alhabeeb 2015 ), the issue is by no means resolved. Generally, we still make quality education a perceptual phenomenon where we ascribe that attribute to a course, educational program, or idea, but struggle with precisely why we reached that decision. Searle ( 2015 ), summarizes the problem concisely arguing that quality does not exist independently, but is entirely observer dependent. Pirsig ( 1974 ) in his iconic volume on the nature of quality frames the context this way,

“There is such thing as Quality, but that as soon as you try to define it, something goes haywire. You can’t do it” (p. 91).

Therefore, attempting to formulate a semantic definition of quality education with syntax-based metrics results in what O’Neil (O'Neil 2017 ) terms surrogate models that are rough approximations and oversimplified. Further, the derived metrics tend to morph into goals or benchmarks, losing their original measurement properties (Goodhart 1975 ).

Information communication technologies in society and education

Blended learning forces us to consider the characteristics of digital technology, in general, and information communication technologies (ICTs), more specifically. Floridi ( 2014 ) suggests an answer proffered by Alan Turing: that digital ICTs can process information on their own, in some sense just as humans and other biological life. ICTs can also communicate information to each other, without human intervention, but as linked processes designed by humans. We have evolved to the point where humans are not always “in the loop” of technology, but should be “on the loop” (Floridi 2014 , p. 30), designing and adapting the process. We perceive our world more and more in informational terms, and not primarily as physical entities (Floridi 2008 ). Increasingly, the educational world is dominated by information and our economies rest primarily on that asset. So our world is also blended, and it is blended so much that we hardly see the individual components of the blend any longer. Floridi ( 2014 ) argues that the world has become an “infosphere” (like biosphere) where we live as “inforgs.” What is real for us is shifting from the physical and unchangeable to those things with which we can interact.

Floridi also helps us to identify the next blend in education, involving ICTs, or specialized artificial intelligence (Floridi 2014 , 25; Norberg 2017 , 65). Learning analytics, adaptive learning, calibrated peer review, and automated essay scoring (Balfour 2013 ) are advanced processes that, provided they are good interfaces, can work well with the teacher— allowing him or her to concentrate on human attributes such as being caring, creative, and engaging in problem-solving. This can, of course, as with all technical advancements, be used to save resources and augment the role of the teacher. For instance, if artificial intelligence can be used to work along with teachers, allowing them more time for personal feedback and mentoring with students, then, we will have made a transformational breakthrough. The Edinburg University manifesto for teaching online says bravely, “Automation need not impoverish education – we welcome our robot colleagues” (Bayne et al. 2016 ). If used wisely, they will teach us more about ourselves, and about what is truly human in education. This emerging blend will also affect curricular and policy questions, such as the what? and what for? The new normal for education will be in perpetual flux. Floridi’s ( 2014 ) philosophy offers us tools to understand and be in control and not just sit by and watch what happens. In many respects, he has addressed the new normal for blended learning.

Literature of blended learning

A number of investigators have assembled a comprehensive agenda of transformative and innovative research issues for blended learning that have the potential to enhance effectiveness (Garrison and Kanuka 2004 ; Picciano 2009 ). Generally, research has found that BL results in improvement in student success and satisfaction, (Dziuban and Moskal 2011 ; Dziuban et al. 2011 ; Means et al. 2013 ) as well as an improvement in students’ sense of community (Rovai and Jordan 2004 ) when compared with face-to-face courses. Those who have been most successful at blended learning initiatives stress the importance of institutional support for course redesign and planning (Moskal et al. 2013 ; Dringus and Seagull 2015 ; Picciano 2009 ; Tynan et al. 2015 ). The evolving research questions found in the literature are long and demanding, with varied definitions of what constitutes “blended learning,” facilitating the need for continued and in-depth research on instructional models and support needed to maximize achievement and success (Dringus and Seagull 2015 ; Bloemer and Swan 2015 ).

Educational access

The lack of access to educational technologies and innovations (sometimes termed the digital divide) continues to be a challenge with novel educational technologies (Fairlie 2004 ; Jones et al. 2009 ). One of the promises of online technologies is that they can increase access to nontraditional and underserved students by bringing a host of educational resources and experiences to those who may have limited access to on-campus-only higher education. A 2010 U.S. report shows that students with low socioeconomic status are less likely to obtain higher levels of postsecondary education (Aud et al. 2010 ). However, the increasing availability of distance education has provided educational opportunities to millions (Lewis and Parsad 2008 ; Allen et al. 2016 ). Additionally, an emphasis on open educational resources (OER) in recent years has resulted in significant cost reductions without diminishing student performance outcomes (Robinson et al. 2014 ; Fischer et al. 2015 ; Hilton et al. 2016 ).

Unfortunately, the benefits of access may not be experienced evenly across demographic groups. A 2015 study found that Hispanic and Black STEM majors were significantly less likely to take online courses even when controlling for academic preparation, socioeconomic status (SES), citizenship, and English as a second language (ESL) status (Wladis et al. 2015 ). Also, questions have been raised about whether the additional access afforded by online technologies has actually resulted in improved outcomes for underserved populations. A distance education report in California found that all ethnic minorities (except Asian/Pacific Islanders) completed distance education courses at a lower rate than the ethnic majority (California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office 2013 ). Shea and Bidjerano ( 2014 , 2016 ) found that African American community college students who took distance education courses completed degrees at significantly lower rates than those who did not take distance education courses. On the other hand, a study of success factors in K-12 online learning found that for ethnic minorities, only 1 out of 15 courses had significant gaps in student test scores (Liu and Cavanaugh 2011 ). More research needs to be conducted, examining access and success rates for different populations, when it comes to learning in different modalities, including fully online and blended learning environments.

Framing a treatment effect

Over the last decade, there have been at least five meta-analyses that have addressed the impact of blended learning environments and its relationship to learning effectiveness (Zhao et al. 2005 ; Sitzmann et al. 2006 ; Bernard et al. 2009 ; Means et al. 2010 , 2013 ; Bernard et al. 2014 ). Each of these studies has found small to moderate positive effect sizes in favor of blended learning when compared to fully online or traditional face-to-face environments. However, there are several considerations inherent in these studies that impact our understanding the generalizability of outcomes.

Dziuban and colleagues (Dziuban et al. 2015 ) analyzed the meta-analyses conducted by Means and her colleagues (Means et al. 2013 ; Means et al. 2010 ), concluding that their methods were impressive as evidenced by exhaustive study inclusion criteria and the use of scale-free effect size indices. The conclusion, in both papers, was that there was a modest difference in multiple outcome measures for courses featuring online modalities—in particular, blended courses. However, with blended learning especially, there are some concerns with these kinds of studies. First, the effect sizes are based on the linear hypothesis testing model with the underlying assumption that the treatment and the error terms are uncorrelated, indicating that there is nothing else going on in the blending that might confound the results. Although the blended learning articles (Means et al. 2010 ) were carefully vetted, the assumption of independence is tenuous at best so that these meta-analysis studies must be interpreted with extreme caution.

There is an additional concern with blended learning as well. Blends are not equivalent because of the manner on which they are configured. For instance, a careful reading of the sources used in the Means, et al. papers will identify, at minimum, the following blending techniques: laboratory assessments, online instruction, e-mail, class web sites, computer laboratories, mapping and scaffolding tools, computer clusters, interactive presentations and e-mail, handwriting capture, evidence-based practice, electronic portfolios, learning management systems, and virtual apparatuses. These are not equivalent ways in which to configure courses, and such nonequivalence constitutes the confounding we describe. We argue here that, in actuality, blended learning is a general construct in the form of a boundary object (Star and Griesemer 1989 ) rather than a treatment effect in the statistical sense. That is, an idea or concept that can support a community of practice, but is weakly defined fostering disagreement in the general group. Conversely, it is stronger in individual constituencies. For instance, content disciplines (i.e. education, rhetoric, optics, mathematics, and philosophy) formulate a more precise definition because of commonly embraced teaching and learning principles. Quite simply, the situation is more complicated than that, as Leonard Smith ( 2007 ) says after Tolstoy,

“All linear models resemble each other, each non nonlinear system is unique in its own way” (p. 33).

This by no means invalidates these studies, but effect size associated with blended learning should be interpreted with caution where the impact is evaluated within a particular learning context.

Study objectives

This study addressed student access by examining success and withdrawal rates in the blended learning courses by comparing them to face-to-face and online modalities over an extended time period at the University of Central Florida. Further, the investigators sought to assess the differences in those success and withdrawal rates with the minority status of students. Secondly, the investigators examined the student end-of-course ratings of blended learning and other modalities by attempting to develop robust if-then decision rules about what characteristics of classes and instructors lead students to assign an “excellent” value to their educational experience. Because of the high stakes nature of these student ratings toward faculty promotion, awards, and tenure, they act as a surrogate measure for instructional quality. Next, the investigators determined the conditional probabilities for students conforming to the identified rule cross-referenced by expected grade, the degree to which they desired to take the course, and course modality.

Student grades by course modality were recoded into a binary variable with C or higher assigned a value of 1, and remaining values a 0. This was a declassification process that sacrificed some specificity but compensated for confirmation bias associated with disparate departmental policies regarding grade assignment. At the measurement level this was an “on track to graduation index” for students. Withdrawal was similarly coded by the presence or absence of its occurrence. In each case, the percentage of students succeeding or withdrawing from blended, online or face-to-face courses was calculated by minority and non-minority status for the fall 2014 through fall 2015 semesters.

Next, a classification and regression tree (CART) analysis (Brieman et al. 1984 ) was performed on the student end-of-course evaluation protocol ( Appendix 1 ). The dependent measure was a binary variable indicating whether or not a student assigned an overall rating of excellent to his or her course experience. The independent measures in the study were: the remaining eight rating items on the protocol, college membership, and course level (lower undergraduate, upper undergraduate, and graduate). Decision trees are efficient procedures for achieving effective solutions in studies such as this because with missing values imputation may be avoided with procedures such as floating methods and the surrogate formation (Brieman et al. 1984 , Olshen et al. 1995 ). For example, a logistic regression method cannot efficiently handle all variables under consideration. There are 10 independent variables involved here; one variable has three levels, another has nine, and eight have five levels each. This means the logistic regression model must incorporate more than 50 dummy variables and an excessively large number of two-way interactions. However, the decision-tree method can perform this analysis very efficiently, permitting the investigator to consider higher order interactions. Even more importantly, decision trees represent appropriate methods in this situation because many of the variables are ordinally scaled. Although numerical values can be assigned to each category, those values are not unique. However, decision trees incorporate the ordinal component of the variables to obtain a solution. The rules derived from decision trees have an if-then structure that is readily understandable. The accuracy of these rules can be assessed with percentages of correct classification or odds-ratios that are easily understood. The procedure produces tree-like rule structures that predict outcomes.

The model-building procedure for predicting overall instructor rating

For this study, the investigators used the CART method (Brieman et al. 1984 ) executed with SPSS 23 (IBM Corp 2015 ). Because of its strong variance-sharing tendencies with the other variables, the dependent measure for the analysis was the rating on the item Overall Rating of the Instructor , with the previously mentioned indicator variables (college, course level, and the remaining 8 questions) on the instrument. Tree methods are recursive, and bisect data into subgroups called nodes or leaves. CART analysis bases itself on: data splitting, pruning, and homogeneous assessment.

Splitting the data into two (binary) subsets comprises the first stage of the process. CART continues to split the data until the frequencies in each subset are either very small or all observations in a subset belong to one category (e.g., all observations in a subset have the same rating). Usually the growing stage results in too many terminate nodes for the model to be useful. CART solves this problem using pruning methods that reduce the dimensionality of the system.

The final stage of the analysis involves assessing homogeneousness in growing and pruning the tree. One way to accomplish this is to compute the misclassification rates. For example, a rule that produces a .95 probability that an instructor will receive an excellent rating has an associated error of 5.0%.

Implications for using decision trees

Although decision-tree techniques are effective for analyzing datasets such as this, the reader should be aware of certain limitations. For example, since trees use ranks to analyze both ordinal and interval variables, information can be lost. However, the most serious weakness of decision tree analysis is that the results can be unstable because small initial variations can lead to substantially different solutions.

For this study model, these problems were addressed with the k-fold cross-validation process. Initially the dataset was partitioned randomly into 10 subsets with an approximately equal number of records in each subset. Each cohort is used as a test partition, and the remaining subsets are combined to complete the function. This produces 10 models that are all trained on different subsets of the original dataset and where each has been used as the test partition one time only.

Although computationally dense, CART was selected as the analysis model for a number of reasons— primarily because it provides easily interpretable rules that readers will be able evaluate in their particular contexts. Unlike many other multivariate procedures that are even more sensitive to initial estimates and require a good deal of statistical sophistication for interpretation, CART has an intuitive resonance with researcher consumers. The overriding objective of our choice of analysis methods was to facilitate readers’ concentration on our outcomes rather than having to rely on our interpretation of the results.

Institution-level evaluation: Success and withdrawal

The University of Central Florida (UCF) began a longitudinal impact study of their online and blended courses at the start of the distributed learning initiative in 1996. The collection of similar data across multiple semesters and academic years has allowed UCF to monitor trends, assess any issues that may arise, and provide continual support for both faculty and students across varying demographics. Table  1 illustrates the overall success rates in blended, online and face-to-face courses, while also reporting their variability across minority and non-minority demographics.

While success (A, B, or C grade) is not a direct reflection of learning outcomes, this overview does provide an institutional level indication of progress and possible issues of concern. BL has a slight advantage when looking at overall success and withdrawal rates. This varies by discipline and course, but generally UCF’s blended modality has evolved to be the best of both worlds, providing an opportunity for optimizing face-to-face instruction through the effective use of online components. These gains hold true across minority status. Reducing on-ground time also addresses issues that impact both students and faculty such as parking and time to reach class. In addition, UCF requires faculty to go through faculty development tailored to teaching in either blended or online modalities. This 8-week faculty development course is designed to model blended learning, encouraging faculty to redesign their course and not merely consider blended learning as a means to move face-to-face instructional modules online (Cobb et al. 2012 ; Lowe 2013 ).

Withdrawal (Table  2 ) from classes impedes students’ success and retention and can result in delayed time to degree, incurred excess credit hour fees, or lost scholarships and financial aid. Although grades are only a surrogate measure for learning, they are a strong predictor of college completion. Therefore, the impact of any new innovation on students’ grades should be a component of any evaluation. Once again, the blended modality is competitive and in some cases results in lower overall withdrawal rates than either fully online or face-to-face courses.

The students’ perceptions of their learning environments

Other potentially high-stakes indicators can be measured to determine the impact of an innovation such as blended learning on the academy. For instance, student satisfaction and attitudes can be measured through data collection protocols, including common student ratings, or student perception of instruction instruments. Given that those ratings often impact faculty evaluation, any negative reflection can derail the successful implementation and scaling of an innovation by disenfranchised instructors. In fact, early online and blended courses created a request by the UCF faculty senate to investigate their impact on faculty ratings as compared to face-to-face sections. The UCF Student Perception of Instruction form is released automatically online through the campus web portal near the end of each semester. Students receive a splash page with a link to each course’s form. Faculty receive a scripted email that they can send to students indicating the time period that the ratings form will be available. The forms close at the beginning of finals week. Faculty receive a summary of their results following the semester end.

The instrument used for this study was developed over a ten year period by the faculty senate of the University of Central Florida, recognizing the evolution of multiple course modalities including blended learning. The process involved input from several constituencies on campus (students, faculty, administrators, instructional designers, and others), in attempt to provide useful formative and summative instructional information to the university community. The final instrument was approved by resolution of the senate and, currently, is used across the university. Students’ rating of their classes and instructors comes with considerable controversy and disagreement with researchers aligning themselves on both sides of the issue. Recently, there have been a number of studies criticizing the process (Uttl et al. 2016 ; Boring et al. 2016 ; & Stark and Freishtat 2014 ). In spite of this discussion, a viable alternative has yet to emerge in higher education. So in the foreseeable future, the process is likely to continue. Therefore, with an implied faculty senate mandate this study was initiated by this team of researchers.

Prior to any analysis of the item responses collected in this campus-wide student sample, the psychometric quality (domain sampling) of the information yielded by the instrument was assessed. Initially, the reliability (internal consistency) was derived using coefficient alpha (Cronbach 1951 ). In addition, Guttman ( 1953 ) developed a theorem about item properties that leads to evidence about the quality of one’s data, demonstrating that as the domain sampling properties of items improve, the inverse of the correlation matrix among items will approach a diagonal. Subsequently, Kaiser and Rice ( 1974 ) developed the measure of sampling adequacy (MSA) that is a function of the Guttman Theorem. The index has an upper bound of one with Kaiser offering some decision rules for interpreting the value of MSA. If the value of the index is in the .80 to .99 range, the investigator has evidence of an excellent domain sample. Values in the .70s signal an acceptable result, and those in the .60s indicate data that are unacceptable. Customarily, the MSA has been used for data assessment prior to the application of any dimensionality assessments. Computation of the MSA value gave the investigators a benchmark for the construct validity of the items in this study. This procedure has been recommended by Dziuban and Shirkey ( 1974 ) prior to any latent dimension analysis and was used with the data obtained for this study. The MSA for the current instrument was .98 suggesting excellent domain sampling properties with an associated alpha reliability coefficient of .97 suggesting superior internal consistency. The psychometric properties of the instrument were excellent with both measures.

The online student ratings form presents an electronic data set each semester. These can be merged across time to create a larger data set of completed ratings for every course across each semester. In addition, captured data includes course identification variables including prefix, number, section and semester, department, college, faculty, and class size. The overall rating of effectiveness is used most heavily by departments and faculty in comparing across courses and modalities (Table  3 ).

The finally derived tree (decision rules) included only three variables—survey items that asked students to rate the instructor’s effectiveness at:

Helping students achieve course objectives,

Creating an environment that helps students learn, and

Communicating ideas and information.

None of the demographic variables associated with the courses contributed to the final model. The final rule specifies that if a student assigns an excellent rating to those three items, irrespective of their status on any other condition, the probability is .99 that an instructor will receive an overall rating of excellent. The converse is true as well. A poor rating on all three of those items will lead to a 99% chance of an instructor receiving an overall rating of poor.

Tables  4 , 5 and 6 present a demonstration of the robustness of the CART rule for variables on which it was not developed: expected course grade, desire to take the course and modality.

In each case, irrespective of the marginal probabilities, those students conforming to the rule have a virtually 100% chance of seeing the course as excellent. For instance, 27% of all students expecting to fail assigned an excellent rating to their courses, but when they conformed to the rule the percentage rose to 97%. The same finding is true when students were asked about their desire to take the course with those who strongly disagreed assigning excellent ratings to their courses 26% of the time. However, for those conforming to the rule, that category rose to 92%. When course modality is considered in the marginal sense, blended learning is rated as the preferred choice. However, from Table  6 we can observe that the rule equates student assessment of their learning experiences. If they conform to the rule, they will see excellence.

This study addressed increasingly important issues of student success, withdrawal and perception of the learning environment across multiple course modalities. Arguably these components form the crux of how we will make more effective decisions about how blended learning configures itself in the new normal. The results reported here indicate that blending maintains or increases access for most student cohorts and produces improved success rates for minority and non-minority students alike. In addition, when students express their beliefs about the effectiveness of their learning environments, blended learning enjoys the number one rank. However, upon more thorough analysis of key elements students view as important in their learning, external and demographic variables have minimal impact on those decisions. For example college (i.e. discipline) membership, course level or modality, expected grade or desire to take a particular course have little to do with their course ratings. The characteristics they view as important relate to clear establishment and progress toward course objectives, creating an effective learning environment and the instructors’ effective communication. If in their view those three elements of a course are satisfied they are virtually guaranteed to evaluate their educational experience as excellent irrespective of most other considerations. While end of course rating protocols are summative the three components have clear formative characteristics in that each one is directly related to effective pedagogy and is responsive to faculty development through units such as the faculty center for teaching and learning. We view these results as encouraging because they offer potential for improving the teaching and learning process in an educational environment that increases the pressure to become more responsive to contemporary student lifestyles.

Clearly, in this study we are dealing with complex adaptive systems that feature the emergent property. That is, their primary agents and their interactions comprise an environment that is more than the linear combination of their individual elements. Blending learning, by interacting with almost every aspect of higher education, provides opportunities and challenges that we are not able to fully anticipate.

This pedagogy alters many assumptions about the most effective way to support the educational environment. For instance, blending, like its counterpart active learning, is a personal and individual phenomenon experienced by students. Therefore, it should not be surprising that much of what we have called blended learning is, in reality, blended teaching that reflects pedagogical arrangements. Actually, the best we can do for assessing impact is to use surrogate measures such as success, grades, results of assessment protocols, and student testimony about their learning experiences. Whether or not such devices are valid indicators remains to be determined. We may be well served, however, by changing our mode of inquiry to blended teaching.

Additionally, as Norberg ( 2017 ) points out, blended learning is not new. The modality dates back, at least, to the medieval period when the technology of textbooks was introduced into the classroom where, traditionally, the professor read to the students from the only existing manuscript. Certainly, like modern technologies, books were disruptive because they altered the teaching and learning paradigm. Blended learning might be considered what Johnson describes as a slow hunch (2010). That is, an idea that evolved over a long period of time, achieving what Kaufmann ( 2000 ) describes as the adjacent possible – a realistic next step occurring in many iterations.

The search for a definition for blended learning has been productive, challenging, and, at times, daunting. The definitional continuum is constrained by Oliver and Trigwell ( 2005 ) castigation of the concept for its imprecise vagueness to Sharpe et al.’s ( 2006 ) notion that its definitional latitude enhances contextual relevance. Both extremes alter boundaries such as time, place, presence, learning hierarchies, and space. The disagreement leads us to conclude that Lakoff’s ( 2012 ) idealized cognitive models i.e. arbitrarily derived concepts (of which blended learning might be one) are necessary if we are to function effectively. However, the strong possibility exists that blended learning, like quality, is observer dependent and may not exist outside of our perceptions of the concept. This, of course, circles back to the problem of assuming that blending is a treatment effect for point hypothesis testing and meta-analysis.

Ultimately, in this article, we have tried to consider theoretical concepts and empirical findings about blended learning and their relationship to the new normal as it evolves. Unfortunately, like unresolved chaotic solutions, we cannot be sure that there is an attractor or that it will be the new normal. That being said, it seems clear that blended learning is the harbinger of substantial change in higher education and will become equally impactful in K-12 schooling and industrial training. Blended learning, because of its flexibility, allows us to maximize many positive education functions. If Floridi ( 2014 ) is correct and we are about to live in an environment where we are on the communication loop rather than in it, our educational future is about to change. However, if our results are correct and not over fit to the University of Central Florida and our theoretical speculations have some validity, the future of blended learning should encourage us about the coming changes.

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The authors acknowledge the contributions of several investigators and course developers from the Center for Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida, the McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University, and Scholars at Umea University, Sweden. These professionals contributed theoretical and practical ideas to this research project and carefully reviewed earlier versions of this manuscript. The Authors gratefully acknowledge their support and assistance.

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Embracing Change: Creating a New Normal

September 11, 2020 - 5 minute read

Due to COVID-19, we have been thrust into a world of online learning, remote working, and socially distanced living. As I write this, I sit in my family room at my makeshift desk, finishing a full day of virtual meetings, emails, and online chats.  My husband is on the couch, preparing his online acting and directing courses. My children are in their bedrooms, completing online college courses.  This shift to remote working and learning has brought some unforeseen benefits. We have gained more time in our days with no commute to work or school.  We can integrate our work responsibilities with home responsibilities throughout the day.  We have increased flexibility with our personal schedules.  Yet, we also miss the face-to-face connections with students, colleagues, and friends, and the opportunity to teach in a physical classroom setting, engaging in face to face collaboration. Our in-person world has become a virtual world.  I wonder how this new normal will forever shift our social norms.  Will we really go back to the way things were before COVID-19?  

Change  

For many of us, the transition to online teaching and remote working happened in a matter of days.  It was traumatic, jarring, and chaotic. As human beings, we often find change difficult.  Change interrupts well-established patterns of behavior and calls for new patterns to be developed (Ford, Ford & D’Amelio, 2008).  Resistance to change is a well-documented phenomenon. Sometimes we fear the unsettling chaos that can come with change.  Sometimes we fear not being the expert and starting over as a novice.  Sometimes, we simply prefer what is familiar (Ford, Ford & D’Amelio, 2008).  While organizational change can be disruptive and chaotic, it can also be a valuable, creative process.  The truth is, if your organization is to survive, change is inevitable.  Negative entropy is an organizational theory that describes how systems are naturally prone to disorder and demise, yet, through evolution and adaptation, organizations can work to slow this process and ensure their viability (Mumby & Kuhn, 2019).   Established systems are valuable since they organize our work, streamline processes, and ensure quality.  However, when we allow our status quo systems to create silos and insulate us from the needs of outside constituents (our students), it stagnates innovation and seals our fate of becoming irrelevant.  Change is difficult but needed.  It upsets the flow of operations but opens the opportunity for improvement.  It can bring chaos, but it can also bring progress. For me, the planner, organizer, detailed person, I run from change.  Nevertheless, when I love the system more than I value meeting the changing needs of those I serve, I have lost touch with what my work is really about – serving others. 

When to Change

It takes wisdom to know when to bring change to an organization. It requires looking externally at the needs of your students and families.  How have their lives changed since March 2020 when COVID-19 disrupted our lives? Do families prefer online learning because of self-paced learning and flexible schedules?  What do students need now after months of social isolation?  Will families expect more choices in their child’s education? These are all possibilities.  Listening to students and families, evaluating their feedback, and being open to adapting will be a valuable way to serve students and families.   It also requires looking internally at the capacity for change within your school and assessing the needs of your team to support change.  Balancing the external needs of students and families and the internal needs of the team is a critical step in determining the time for change. 

How to Change

It takes wisdom to assess and implement a successful process for change.  It is crucial to include multiple perspectives, since many details need to be examined.  The impact on individual members should be considered and a plan for support provided. The leader should initiate open, transparent communication with the team to articulate the need for change, and demonstrate a sense of calm, purposeful direction that leads the team through the process (Bague, Cava & Hopkinson, 2020).  Change is risky and messy.  It should not be undertaken without intentional consideration of all the elements and support provided for those adjusting to a new reality, but navigating through it can yield great, innovative results. 

Open to Change

The beauty of change is that it brings new possibilities.  The innovation and development in online teaching has exploded.  As with anything implemented in response to a significant and sudden crisis, not all online education has been excellent.  We need to start searching for the gems and build on those positives.  I want to tell you that I have a roadmap for the post COVID-19 student, but I do not.  What we can do is keep evaluating, questioning, and searching for ways we can adjust our teaching to meet the needs of our students and families.  The world has been shaken up dramatically and how the pieces all settle is yet to be determined, but I predict it will be different.   Will you be ready and willing to change?

Bague, H., Cava, J., & Hopkinson, M. (2020).  "Applying Past Leadership Lessons to the Coronavirus Pandemic". McKinsey Insights , March 25, 2020.

Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D’Amelio, A. (2008).  "Resistance to Change: The Rest of the Story".   Academy of Management Review , Vol. 33, No. 2,  364-377.

Mumby, D. K., & Kuhn, T. R. (2019) Organizational Communication: A Critical Introduction (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-1-4833-1706-9

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Student Reflections During the Pandemic: An Opportunity for Educators to Create a “New” Normal

As this challenging academic term begins, and some students are learning remotely, while others are heading back in person, we urge educators to pause and reflect on what worked — and didn’t — during remote learning last spring. While we eagerly await the moment when all schools can safely resume in person, we strongly caution against reverting back to the “normal” way of doing things. “Normal” was not working for so many students prior to COVID-19.

Since this remote learning experiment of 2020 upended typical school schedules and traditional approaches to teaching and learning, educators now have an opportunity to leverage key lessons and insights gained during this time to build a new normal that better supports student well-being, equity, and engagement with learning for all students during the next semester and beyond.

At Challenge Success , a school reform nonprofit affiliated with Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, we know that any school change process should begin by listening to the stakeholders who matter most — the students. So we reached out to some of the high school students who have participated in the Challenge Success School Program and asked what worked (or not) during remote learning and what they would like school leaders to know about their experiences last spring.

Their reflections, summarized below, are consistent with our SPACE framework and with the student-centered approaches and practices that research shows most effectively support student well-being and engagement with learning. We offer these as guiding principles for educators to use as they consider what schools might look like this fall, regardless of where school is happening.

1. Prioritize human connections and relationships.

During remote learning, daily check-ins from teachers via video, phone, or even hand-delivered letters were a lifeboat for many students. We heard from several teens that they were grateful for teachers who opened up Zoom rooms before or after class to hang out with students and ask about how they were handling life during the pandemic. The students also loved getting to peek into the lives of their teachers and coaches in their home environments with their own pets or children jumping into the video screen.

For students who were not able to join remote classes due to a lack of internet access or devices, or because they had to take on additional jobs and home responsibilities during this time, teachers found other creative ways to connect. Many reached out via text and arranged phone calls and even some home visits with proper social distancing to chat one-on-one. Matt, a 10th grader from Texas, reflected, “Our teachers did a great job of checking in with us to see how we were doing. I like how they really cared about our well-being and our stress levels, but I don’t think a crisis should be necessary to do this.”

Cultivating a climate of care that prioritizes strong relationships between students and teachers as well as peer-to-peer connections is critical now and in the future. Research shows that students who feel a sense of belonging and connection to both adults and peers in the school community are more engaged with learning. Students yearn to be seen, heard, and valued as whole people with lives beyond the classroom. We know that when students believe they have at least one adult at the school who cares about them and knows them well, they are more likely to thrive in school and out.

Unfortunately, creating and sustaining strong student-teacher relationships can be difficult. Even before remote learning began last spring, the large class sizes, hectic pace of the school day, and impossibly busy student and teacher schedules often impeded the type of personal connections we know are critical to student success. Schools should strive to make relationships a top priority and build in time and resources to ensure that teachers and students can connect in meaningful ways on a regular basis.

2. Redesign the school schedule to allow more hours for sleep, playtime, downtime, and family time (PDF).

The scramble to create a remote learning schedule provided an unexpected opportunity to rethink the structure of the school day. Many schools, out of necessity, offered fewer synchronous class meetings and more time for independent, asynchronous learning. Others that were able to offer more synchronous learning to students, decided to shift from a traditional 7 or 8 period day to a modified block schedule where students took half of their classes twice a week over four days leaving one day for dedicated office hours with teachers or online tutoring time.

One of the biggest and most consistent silver linings we heard from students was that the new schedules allowed teens to get more sleep. We know from the Challenge Success survey of over 200,000 students that high school students average about 6.5 hours of sleep per night – significantly less than the 8-10 hours they need to thrive. As Nate, 11th grader from Massachusetts, shared, “Since getting more sleep, I found I was much more efficient with my school work. I could do an English essay in two hours that would have taken me six hours when I was tired.”

Though many students missed their extracurricular activities in the spring, some found that the reduction in structured activities, along with the shorter school day, and lack of commute, resulted not just in more sleep, but in more playtime, downtime, and family time (or PDF as we call it). Research shows that time spent on PDF serves as a protective factor in keeping kids mentally and physically healthy.

Several teens told us that they finally had time to read for pleasure, play guitar, exercise, paint, or simply “do nothing” while they were sheltering in place. Being able to break up the day with exercise or other activities between classes helped to clear their minds and prepare for more learning. And for some students, this shift of pace was eye-opening. As Zack, an 11th grader from Massachusetts, reflected, “One of my big takeaways from this time is that I need time to relax. Before this, I was always going and going. I’m so used to being ‘on’ all the time, doing something. After this, I’ve realized I need some time to relax. I picked up fishing and now I love going fishing. I think that a lot of students will find that they actually need time to relax.”

When a typical student’s day pre-pandemic might have started before 7am and ended after 11pm due to school, sports, other extracurriculars, paid work, commuting, family obligations, and homework, many teens quite literally had no time for any of these essential “PDF” activities. Schools and families ought to question if the old “normal” is what we all want our students to return to this year. Though students and their parents ultimately decide how they spend their time outside of school — and many students do not have the option to scale back time spent doing paid work or supporting family obligations — schools can play a critical role in creating a schedule that honors the need for sleep and more free time for students. Later start times, longer passing periods and lunch breaks, more time for tutorial or advisory, and block classes where teachers and students can engage in deeper learning, are all elements that Challenge Success recommends that schools consider as they plan the schedule for the new school year.

3. Build in more flexibility to curriculum and assignments.

Annalise, a 10th grader from Massachusetts, reflected that “One great thing about distance learning was the flexibility.” Having more autonomy over when she got her work done and when she turned it in led to less stress. Soren, an 11 th grader from California, agreed: “With distance learning, whatever you need to do for yourself, you have that freedom to do – go for a run or take a break outside. The slower pace of life allowed me to learn on my own terms which definitely had benefits in terms of mental health and general well-being.”

Many students told us how much they appreciated the increased flexibility during remote learning to get assignments done on their own schedule. They liked that more teachers posted assignments a week or two in advance, which allowed students some control over their schedules and helped them to balance homework, jobs, and other responsibilities. In a pre-COVID world, some students didn’t find out their homework for the night until class that day. During remote learning, the students appreciated being recognized as whole people with varying home lives and multiple commitments and needs.

Flexible approaches to whole class instruction can also benefit students. We heard from one student that during a class held on Zoom, the teacher shared a lesson and then dismissed students as soon as they could demonstrate that they understood the concept. The teacher was able to work with a smaller group of students and use alternative approaches to teach those who were still working towards mastery. We know that differentiating instruction in this way was happening in many classrooms prior to remote learning, but as schools consider new ways of structuring classes in the future, they may want to build in even more time for small group work and review opportunities.

Schools can further support students by explicitly teaching time management and executive functioning skills. Flexible or self-determined due dates allow students a real-world opportunity to practice these skills. Educators can encourage students to self-advocate and reach out to their teachers when they are juggling multiple deliverables or when their health or well-being (or that of a family member) might necessitate even more flexibility. Creating conflict calendars where faculty members coordinate dates for major tests, projects, and school-wide events can also help to reduce student overload and increase student engagement and achievement on assignments.

4. Consider that “less is really more” and focus on transferable skills.

As the minutes spent per week in each class were reduced for many schools during remote learning, teachers were forced to strip their lesson plans down to the essential elements students should learn. While reducing content can feel uncomfortable to teachers and can cause worry about how to get through the required material, it can also provide an unexpected opportunity to focus on the enduring understandings we want students to master. Students are more likely to learn and retain skills and concepts when they are not overwhelmed by the load and pace of work being assigned.

Gabe, a 10th grader from Texas, reflected, “In chemistry, we didn’t cover as many topics each week during remote learning as we did during the normal school year, but I feel like I got a fuller understanding of the concepts that were being taught. My teacher used a ‘flipped classroom’ approach where we independently watched 20-minute videos he created on a specific topic and answered homework questions. We then used class time to ask the teacher questions. The whole process felt much more efficient.”

Shifting the focus from coverage to competency can provide both teachers and students space in the day to engage more deeply in the learning process and build more meaningful connections between concepts. When teachers prioritize transferable skills, students practice applying what they have learned to novel situations and ultimately build mastery.

Educators have an exciting opportunity now to redesign lessons and pare learning goals down to those that are essential in each subject area. Even when students face comprehensive end-of-year exams, for example, in advanced placement courses, a deeper focus on key concepts and critical thinking skills, such as use of evidence to back a claim, logical reasoning, and clear communication, may prove more beneficial to students than covering in a more cursory way all of the possible content that might show up on the test.

Before COVID-19, we regularly surveyed students about what, if anything, caused them the most stress. The number one answer was usually “workload.” Many students also reported that they perceived much of their homework to be busywork and that it did not help them to learn the material. When teachers focus on what matters most, they can reduce unhealthy workloads and can help students see the meaning behind what they are learning each day.

5. Offer more student-selected, authentic learning experiences.

As Lauren, a 10th grader from Virginia, described a website she developed for a nonprofit during remote learning, her whole face lit up with joy. Her teacher was looking for volunteers and knew Lauren had an interest in coding. With this project, she got to learn by doing. She shared, “I learned so much in [those] last two months that I never would have been able to learn in the classroom. Being able to deep dive into web development has been amazing for me. I’ve loved connecting with real-world groups and actually doing an assignment that is contributing to something.”

Allowing students to have voice and choice with their assignments and incorporating opportunities to address real-world problems or create products for authentic audiences can motivate students to do higher quality work. As Soren noted, “I have been able to use a wider variety of resources to learn concepts, while still gaining the same information. I’ve been more interested in learning because it is more personal.”

Eliot, a 10th grader from Texas, described an assignment where students were asked to investigate how the CDC uses mathematical models to chart the spread of COVID-19. Showing the practical relevance of a particular math unit made it much more interesting to the students than teaching it as an isolated concept. Eliot summed it up well, “When work feels meaningful and relevant, I am more engaged.”

Amber, an 11th grader from Virginia, was given some assignments that were optional and ungraded. For some students, this policy, along with alternate forms of assessment such as open note tests, peer review, and increased opportunities for revision and redemption, helped teens to engage in learning for the sake of learning, not just for the grades. Other students found the lack of extrinsic motivation very challenging and were not completing their work. Educators can use this as an opportunity to talk to students about why learning matters for the long-term and collaborate with students to design lessons that they are motivated to complete. Amber suggests that her teachers look at which assignments students did during this time period – and which they left undone; “If [teachers] can learn from the projects that students choose to do, this will help our learning experience be more about the learning rather than a boring assignment we do just for the sake of doing it. If there’s one thing I hope educators take away from this time, it’s to bring the love for learning itself back into the curriculum.”

All five of these guiding principles are validated by research and are likely not new ideas to most educators. But hearing them directly from students during this potentially transformational moment for our educational system serves as an important opportunity for reflection. We encourage schools to invest time in these first few weeks of school to listen deeply to the students. Conduct a survey to find out what worked and did not work for them during remote learning. Gather a small group of students for a fishbowl and dive deeper into their reflections about this unique time. Shadow students by following their synchronous and asynchronous learning schedules. Conduct an “I Wish” campaign asking students to share what they wish teachers knew about this unique school experience. Then, embrace those learnings as you redesign and reimagine what you can offer students that best supports their journey to become balanced, healthy, and engaged learners — wherever that learning is happening.

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder of Challenge Success and a Senior Lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, where she specializes in student engagement, curriculum studies, qualitative research methods, and service learning. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. Dr. Pope lectures nationally on parenting techniques and pedagogical strategies to increase student health, engagement with learning, and integrity. 

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Guest Essay

An Infantilizing Double Standard for American College Students

By Rita Koganzon

Dr. Koganzon is an associate professor in the School of Civic Life and Leadership at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the themes of education, childhood, authority and the family in political thought.

Picture two 20-year-olds. One is a full-time college student and the other is a full-time waiter. Both go out one night to drink and have a good time.

If the underage student is caught drinking by the campus police, he’ll most likely get a free ride home in the college’s drunk van, while the imbibing underage waiter is more likely to be charged with a misdemeanor. If, the next morning, the waiter fails to show up to work or confuses orders, he cannot expect to remain employed long.

But the hung over university student who sleeps through his classes and turns in incoherent assignments faces a sunnier prospect: Thanks to grade inflation, A-range grades constitute an astounding 79 percent of all grades given at Harvard and Yale , with other universities not too far behind .

Universities don’t openly describe students as children, but that is how they treat them. This was highlighted in the spring, when so many pro-Palestinian student protesters — most of them legal adults — faced minimal consequences for even flagrant violations of their universities’ policies. (Some were arrested — but those charges were often dropped .) American universities’ relative generosity to their students may seem appealing, especially in contrast to the plight of our imaginary waiter, but it has a dark side, in the form of increased control of student life.

If universities today won’t hold students responsible for their bad behavior, they also won’t leave them alone when they do nothing wrong. Administrators send out position statements after major national and international political events to convey the approved response, micromanage campus parties and social events , dictate scripts for sexual interactions , extract allegiance to boutique theories of power and herd undergraduates into mandatory dormitories where their daily lives can be more comprehensively monitored and shaped. This is increasingly true across institutions — public and private, small and large — but the more elite the school, the more acute the problem.

A result of this combination of increased lenience and increased control is a kind of simulacrum of adult independence that in reality infantilizes students and protects them from responsibility — for both their good choices and their bad ones. On one hand, there is almost no chance that a Stanford student will face serious consequences for underage drinking at a party. The first three violations of the school’s alcohol policy result in consequences no more severe than mandated participation in an in-house educational program. On the other hand, under rules requiring extensive monitoring and an elaborate registration process for social gatherings, finding a party to attend in the first place at Stanford might be even more difficult than being punished for drinking at one.

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