Using blended learning to drive faculty development (and vice versa)

Abstract

The virtues of blended learning include convenience for students, expanded enrollments, physical plant efficiencies and community building. Blending has a special virtue in involving mainstream faculty in online instruction, a critical step on the way to full integration of ALN in the academy. Students registered higher levels of interaction and perceived learning in blended courses than in either classroom-based or fully online courses. Faculty are being asked to change from modes of delivery that have proved successful for them to modes they see as new and untried, and they are understandably reluctant. Collaborative models for engaging faculty will 'work