On Blended Learning

Introduction

Swiss School of Management (SSM) Research Center, given its global outreach of research and educational programs, is redesigning many of its programs into blended learning, or in some instances distance learning programs. With our Dutch partners we have made big steps already in 2019, well before the Corona crisis.

Needless to say, the Corona crisis has catalyzed the need for distance learning, for negative reasons (‘we have no choice’). But interestingly, experiences have been overwhelmingly positive, and both students and universities start appreciating the benefits of learning online.

But what will happen after Corona? SSM will continue on the same track. Perfect time to share our views on blended learning, as we see it as an inevitable trend – for positive reasons.   

Blended Learning

There are many views and definitions of blended learning. Most boil down to blended learning as a combination of online and face-to-face learning experiences. That doesn’t do justice to the power of blended learning, as a type of education that optimizes the outcomes of educational systems by redesigning processes based on the changing needs of schools, teachers and students alike, and based on the opportunities offered by technology.

In our view, the power of blended learning is best illustrated by a simple example. Just have a look at how statistics used to be taught at universities, in social and economic sciences, in the 1980s versus 2021. No, not 2020, as many universities are still very traditional in their didactical approaches – not strange considering that many (experienced; knowledgeable; capable) teachers benefited from such approaches.

In the words of one representative of this group, we didn’t have computers and software back then, but we did have Noble Prize winners!

The same person showed us the book he and his fellow students used for learning statistics: Statistics, an Introductory Analysis, by Taro Yamane. Published in 1967. It was regarded as the bible for statisticians at the time. A reviewer of the book explained that before its publication, for most behavioral students, comprehension of statistics was discouragingly vague.

In the 1980s, education across the board was straightforward. There was a teacher specializing in statistics; a class of students who followed – or had to follow – the course. And a mandatory textbook. Yamane, for statistics. Calculations were done by hand or with calculators. Some students, in quantitative economics, had access to an early version of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The SPSS manuals by the way were legendary, and came with foldable reference cards (cheat sheets, would be the current term) which concisely summarized all you ever needed as a statistical expert. The person we spoke to, knew the contents of the reference card by heart. And still knows. 

Nowadays, tools for statistics are not only for a happy (or unhappy, depending on how you look at it) few. There’s Excel, there’s R, there’s Python, there’s so much. And our discussion partner has a hard time mastering them. He noticed that, when discussing regression analysis in class, most of his students easily learned how to apply it to his exercises, after watching some videos on YouTube. What value, if any, is he still adding?

We have come to the realization that education has changed. It’s not only about the value added of individual teachers, it’s about the value added of universities and schools. Most of the value that teachers used to add, can be found on the Internet. And it’s free. And it can be done from anywhere. And whenever the need arises.

Blended learning takes into account that the world is changing. Universities still add value, not despite of the Internet, but because of it. Suppose that we would leave it to individual students to rely on self-study only, and unguided. Like in, you want to know or learn something? Google it!

We brainstormed with our discussion partner who hasn’t sit still during his career. As a passionate researcher, he has collected and analyzed performance data of organizations across the world, making use of methods & techniques that have evolved after he received his academic degrees. Item Response Theory (IRT) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) are among the techniques he has been learning and applying, and although he still considers himself not the expert among experts, his (electronic) library is full of books, articles, data, scripts, examples that will take any newbie years to build. Of course, anyone new to SEM can find a video on how to press the buttons, but the selection of this technique vis-à-vis competing techniques, the pitfalls of using it, the critical interpretation and reporting of the outcomes, are not the things that show up in videos.

At SSM, our vision is that there’s a continuum of educational styles, ranging from traditional (teacher plus students plus classroom plus textbook) to Internet-based (everything is there, Google it!). Somewhere between these extremes there’s an optimal mix.

Crucially important is that the mix of elements are aligned. In our experience, many schools use e-learning platforms like Moodle, as a place to upload study materials, for students to download and read. Often, this resembles traditional learning in which notes and textbooks are replaced by PowerPoints and e-books and pdf-documents.

True blended learning to us, is like a three-layer pyramid. The middle layer smartly connects teacher-student interaction (flip-the-classroom style) to online resources. The added value of the school and the teacher, consists of selection (of materials), structure (a roadmap for going through the materials), and learn-to-learn.

In our new blended learning statistics course, we introduce R as the tool to use. The main text is an interactive HTML-file. Students can play with normal distributions with different means and standard deviations. Or can make histograms interactively. Some knowledge is assumed, but there are links to Internet sources or other courses for students who need more information on any given topic. In advanced courses there are links to basic courses, for refreshing one’s memory – but they can be skipped: learning on demand. 

The organization of study materials allows teachers and students to focus on applications of techniques in class, and teachers learn about new tools and techniques without feeling ashamed. Online and offline instructions learn students to learn. For example, R consists of thousands of packages, and new ones are added on an almost daily basis. Students are challenged to explore new tools and techniques in R-packages or other software, to the benefit of themselves, their teachers and the school. Blended learning implies an ecosystem, rather than a teacher-student hierarchy.

Blended learning is often regarded as IT-driven. It’s not. It is content driven, and there are great tools that can be used at little cost. With our Dutch partner LGSB we have used one particular tool that allows us to implement blended learning in line with our views on what blended learning should be. Importantly, the system has to be easy to use, and easy to adapt. Because the world will be different in 2022.

About SSM Research Center

SSM Research Center is a private institution for higher education focusing on implementing digital learning methods and didactical models. With fully accredited doctoral programs – a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) – and a high-tech e-learning platform we conduct research that matters. The platform contains complete innovative MBA, DBA and PhD programs. We (co)develop modules as online content for programs of SSM, and of other universities.