Blog #4: Blended Learning Approach in Teacher Education: Combining Face-to-Face Instruction, Multimedia Viewing and Online Discussion

Khine, Myint Swe and Atputhasamy Lourdusamy. “Blended Learning Approach in Teacher Education: Combining Face-to-Face Instruction, Multimedia viewing and Online Discussion.” British Journal of Educational Technology. 34.5. (2003) 671-675.

Having looked at wikis and blogs, I thought I’d step back to look at a more general study of blended learning, especially in context of teacher training. Khine and Lourdusamy’s article is also of interest as it deals with the National Institute of Education, “the sole teacher training institute in Singapore” (671). I had also been inspired by Oravec’s comment that “Because the weblog genre is simple in structure, it may lend itself easily to cross-cultural educational initiatives” (Oravec 618). So, it made sense to look at blended learning in other cultures.

The article looks at a 13-week course called “Teaching and Classroom Management,” which incorporates a multimodal approach to teacher training using a textbook along with content delivered on a CD-Rom, 6 weeks of face-to-face tutorial sessions, in-classroom practice teaching, along with online peer-to-peer interaction via a discussion board. Granted, the use of wikis and blogs was not specifically addressed, but the concept of peer-to-peer asynchronous interaction seemed to overlap.

Whereas content of this class had been traditionally communicated via traditional face-two-face lectures, this time around, the content would be found on a CD-Rom with “relevant classroom episodes, interviews with teachers, policy documents, reports and newspaper clippings on disciplinary problems in Singapore schools” (672).

Having taken Kathie Gossett’s New Media courses, I applaud the multimodal delivery of this content. However, it was never fully explained as to what “relevant classroom episodes” meant, or in what format was the interview content (video or audio only?). I still think the article is of interest because of this approach to teacher training. However, the summarization of the results seems to leave out a lot of potential links between causes and results.

The team doesn’t really mention the power of the first 6-weeks of face-to-face training. The class of roughly 20 students watched the CD-Rom module, and then participated in group activities and discussion time. The fact that the face-to-face sessions were scheduled in the first 6-weeks might have set up a strong camaraderie among the students, and yet that is never really pointed out.

“92% of the trainees agreed that the module was enhanced by the use of materials found on the CD-ROM” (674) and that “what seems to have been valued most in this exercise is the benefit of learning from peers” (675). But exactly how was this concluded? Are Khine and Lourdusamy merely going by survey results or was there a way they were able to measure these results via other instruments?

The authors claim the “appropriate use of technologies can make learning more interesting and enriching for students” (671), but again, how are they defining “interesting” and “enriching?” The students in this course are adult teachers, but could this approach be used in other learning contexts with younger pupils? This article leaves me with more questions than answers, and yet that really doesn’t bother me. The article (probably unintentionally) prompts me to think about possible methods in which further study could attempt to answer these questions.