BlendKit Blended Course Reflection

Reflecting upon BlendKit 2014 blended course, new perspectives were gained regarding how blended courses could benefit students, as well as instructors when delivering required continuing education and licensure courses. In forming a suitable question for basing further blended course development, the following question may aid in the development process: in what ways can a blended course development approach improve effectiveness and efficiency for delivering high quality educational experiences within the real estate industry?

Implementing this question, the first benefit that my be realized is the dual allowance for learning synchronously and asynchronously by students. The opportunity for students to learn multiple and alternative may promote higher levels of cognitive learning. In addition, permitting remote participation may be more convenient at times for students, especially for those who work full-time jobs and have family responsibilities. On the contrary, those students who may have the need to directly interact with their instructors benefit from the in-class sessions eliminating the possible feeling of totally being disconnected.

From an instructor's perspective, blended course delivery may offer an increased amount of time for managing courses and responding to students' need due to the decreased amount of time required in a classroom. Moreover, integrating a blended mode may also aid in the implementation of a flipped classroom scenario. By assigning reading and work assignments for homework, students may be more attentive within the classroom since they are given the opportunity to work on their assignments before meeting in-class. Because more in-class time is available, alternative learning experiences may take place such as role playing, games, and other in-class group activities.

In conclusion, the implementation of blended courses may provide a significant impact to my future development and delivery of instructional courses. As identified in my original question, effectiveness and efficiency are two important keys to the ongoing success for my current course covering cybercrime and upcoming courses on internet privacy and cybersecurity. With this in mind, I envision offering these three courses in blended mode along with online versions at the start so that I can make proper adjustments for effectively and efficiently delivering higher learning experiences to my future students.

--Corey

Quality Assurance in Blended Learning

Focusing on this week's readings from my blended learning course, many questions need to be not only investigated, but also answered regarding my upcoming development and delivery of blended instructional courses. First, the question of following standardized rules and procedures for creating and instructing blended learning courses exist due to its location within the early stages of a product's life cycle. Second, instructional effectiveness was also questioned and must be addressed. The need for learners to transfer newly gained knowledge to real world applications is a critical issue for developing credibility of blended learning. Finally, a conclusion is offered for perhaps providing insight on how I may resolve issues and questions pertaining to standards and instructional effectiveness for blended learning courses.

In the reading, the lack of a formalized, authoritative body to oversee standards of blended learning was declared and discussed which translates into that the blended learning discipline is in the infantile stage and still evolving. This point was an important concern for me since I have previous experience in researching authority bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN), and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) regarding the standardization of internet protocols, web development, and cyber infrastructure. The commonality between all three of these organizations mentioned is that they are formed as nonprofits, but more importantly, tax exempt public charities for the purpose of serving the general public. With this in mind, the formation of a nonprofit organization may be a possible solution for moving forward and developing standardized blended learning course development, best practices, and open source tools which also do not exist, but were mentioned as a major problem within the discipline. Furthermore, the question of efficiency and collaboration may also be resolved if a consortium of organizations networked together to share information and strategies under the helpful hand of a neutral and public serving nonprofit organization for advancing blended learning.

Besides the need for standards and a governing body, instructional effectiveness was a a major point realized from the week's reading. In my attempt to provide effective blended learning courses in real estate science and other disciplines, I plan to develop Google Docs forms for students to submit their feedback. Both formative and summative, student feedback during and after course delivery will be a key component for my instructional development because of their alternative perspectives will render new information outside of my instructional role. The other key component for my continued growth in delivering effective blended courses will be the requesting and collecting of peer review feedback. Peer review feedback may also provide ideal and timely information for improving blended learning course delivery since others may have already encountered the same issues within their courses.

In sum, my approach for developing and delivering blended learning courses covering real estate science will be a consistent, researched approach for helping students build new knowledge. Nevertheless, it is important as an instructor and researcher to stay abreast of the latest scientific research findings concerning blended learning by reading peer reviewed articles found in academic journals. Moreover, I will also pay close attention to other academic instructors' views and methods by perhaps subscribing to mailing lists, joining forums, and attending workshops involving blended learning best practices. Lastly, the academic community within the University of Central Florida will continue to be a main resource for me to lean on as I continue to develop and deliver blended online courses.

--Corey