Serendipity35

I came across the Chronicle headline "Study Finds Hybrid Courses Just as Effective as Traditional Ones" and had to read the article.

Many colleges these days are trying hybrid or blended models of teaching in which students spend some time in a classroom but do some work online, and a new study suggests that students learn just as well as they do in a traditional course.

The study examined two health courses taught at the University of Missouri, one delivered the old fashioned-way and one in a hybrid format. The researcher, Shawna Strickland, director of the Respiratory Therapy Program at the university's School of Health Professions, said that students in both groups performed equally well.

There is some good discussion there from readers about the study. Many comments are critical, and a number bring up the often mentioned "no significant difference" studies that have already been done. Why do these studies continue to be done? Do we think the results are changing? I suspect it's because many educators just can't accept that there is no significant difference.

I taught for a few decades in the traditional classroom. I have taught or designed online courses for the past eight years. Starting in 2003, I helped introduce and design a number of hybrid courses at NJIT. Those efforts led, amongst other things, to the launch of NJIT's Weekend University hybrid program. In 2004, I presented on a panel at Seton Hall University called  "Online, Collaborative and Enhanced Modes of Course Redesign" and there was a lot of interest in the hybrid model.

Given a choice, I still prefer the traditional classroom. It's how I grew up as a student and as a teacher, and I love the interaction and spontaneity of that world. Still, I see a need for fully online courses and degrees and I believe they can be successful.

As part of my current work at Passaic County Community College, we are redesigning twenty courses in different disciplines to be writing-intensive. Most are traditional courses, but some are fully online. All the F2F courses are being redesigned to be "web-enhanced." We launched the first 3 of those courses this month, and the professor who teaches the one that is online requested that my staff help him offer an optional F2F session the first week of the semester. He never mentioned "hybrid" but that's what he talked to me about wanting to do as much as possible.

There's a website at NoSignificantDifference.org created as a companion piece to Thomas L. Russell's book, The No Significant Difference Phenomenon. The book is a comprehensive research bibliography of 355 research reports, summaries and papers that document no significant differences (NSD) in student outcomes between alternate modes of education delivery. So the research is out there - but looking specifically at hybrid classes has not been given as much attention.

A comment by Eli Walker lists some questions that would need to be considered, but were not included in the article:
1. How large was each class (i.e. sample)? 20 students, 40, 60?
2. Were both classes taught with the same text, same syllabus, assessments, etc.?
3. How was the Web Enhanced material presented? Was the web enhanced material simply put in a Class Management System and left there for the learners to find by themselves, or did the instructor refer to the notes, presentations, research, and other resources found in the CMS?
4. What materials were available in the web enhanced class? Was there media to address diverse learning preferences (auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.)?

I agree with his opinion that "Presented correctly, Web Enhancing any course can bring dynamics into the classroom superior to the standard lecture oriented, instructor centered, instruction."

As for hybridization, in my 2003 workshops for instructors who wanted to pilot hybrid courses at NJIT, I used this quote:

"Within five years, you'll see a very significant number of classes that are available in a hybrid fashion," says John R. Bourne, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Franklin W. Olin college of Engineering who is editor of the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. "I would guess that somewhere in the 80-90-percent range of classes could sometime become hybrid. And he says he expects to see more students choose to take online courses even if they live on campus.
"Hybrid Teaching Seeks to End the Divide Between Traditional and Online Instruction" March 22, 2002, Chronicle of Higher Education

The five years have passed. Have a significant number of classes on your campus become available in a hybrid format?