Your comprehensive guide to blended learning
What are the requirements for implementing blended learning and its dimensions?
Blended learning in question and answer
Blended learning, there are many names and methods of education used recently, including traditional education, which is the basis and oldest of learning processes, e-learning, self-learning or distance learning, in addition to digital learning.
Finally, blended learning, which is the subject of this article, we will get to know it in detail and mention the most important points related to it, so let us continue together.
Article content:-
- Definition of blended learning
- Properties
- implementation requirements
- Advantages and disadvantages
- Importance
- dimensions of blended learning
- species
What is meant by blended learning?
Blended learning or blended learning is a developed form of open education, as it is an educational program in which self-learning via the Internet is combined with traditional learning in a classroom with a teacher.
When the student joins the blended learning program, he gets part of his educational materials from the teacher or the university doctor, and he also gets the other part through his self-reliance and diligence, as he controls the time and place of completing the learning process and the speed of his progress in learning better than traditional education programs.
The word blended learning is a translation of the English term Blended Learning, which is a term used by Epic Company to describe the ways in which it relies on the use of computers in providing educational programs, and that was in 1999 AD.
After the development of technology and the reliance on modern technologies in the field of education, the term Blended Learning was used to describe the methods of adopting technology in providing regular education in the classroom.
It is worth noting that there are several translations that describe this term, including hybrid learning, blended learning, synthesized learning, and modeling learning, in addition to blended learning.
Proponents describe the blended learning system as an educational system that has two advantages: the ability to collect data and information about a student’s learning, as well as customize study materials and tests to suit his learning methods.
We can define blended education in short as combining several methods and patterns of education, such as traditional education with e-learning and self-learning, as it integrates the role of the teacher in the traditional classroom with the electronic teacher in the virtual classroom.
Where all the tools used in e-learning are employed, whether they are based on the Internet, computers, lectures or training sessions, which are in equipped halls such as computer labs.
The American Development Association defined it as the planned integration process to achieve both live interaction, synchronous and asynchronous cooperation, self-learning, and all tools that help improve performance, and the best keys and methods of integration are those that combine different methods in order to obtain the best possible results at the lowest cost.
What are the characteristics of blended learning?
Among its most important characteristics are:-
- Education shifted from the lecture method to student-centered education.
- Increase interaction between the student and educational content, between students and each other, and between teachers and students.
- Reaching and achieving the best results in terms of time and cost of development.
- Access to various information.
- Collecting evaluation mechanisms for both the teacher and the learner, in addition to the integrated training.
What are the requirements for implementing blended education?
There are a set of requirements that contribute to the application of blended learning, including:
- Provide educational curricula suitable for this type of education.
- Equipping laboratories and laboratories equipped with computers, and making the information network available to all students participating in the program.
- Providing both the teacher and the learner with the basic and necessary skills that help them use multimedia.
- Equipping the teacher to be a leader and guide to teach students by using computers, their applications, and the local and global information network, in addition to producing various educational materials suitable for the teaching process.
What are the advantages of blended education?
The advantages of blended learning are the following:
- Benefit from technological development and technical progress in use, design and implementation.
- Enables the student to acquire information and knowledge as much as he has skills and desire to learn.
- Reducing education costs compared to the e-learning system only.
- Meet the individual needs of learners and their learning styles, with different skills, levels, times and ages as well.
- Learners in the blended learning program are able to have fun in dealing with their colleagues and teachers as well, in addition to enhancing the human aspect and social relations between students and teachers and between the student and his colleagues.
- Blended learning is an ideal solution to the problems of the difficulty of teaching many educational materials using the electronic system only.
- The student can catch up on missed lessons online.
- Provides civilized communication between multiple and different cultures, in order to benefit from all new information related to different sciences.
- Blended learning increases the quality of the educational product, educational processes, and teachers’ competence, in addition to spreading human knowledge.
What are the disadvantages of blended learning?
There are many drawbacks and problems related to the blended education program, including:
- Its reliance on the Internet and modern technologies that did not exist in all parts of the world, as there are many areas that do not have Internet networks.
- Poor control level, attendance system, absence, correction and calendar.
- Sometimes encouragement and compensatory incentives are not always available.
- Its reliance on devices and smart phones, which require high costs and installation and maintenance work.
- The student needs to be aware of all modern technologies and technological developments and use them effectively and well.
- It depends entirely on the skills and knowledge of the student compared to the emotional side.
- Weak level of curriculum specialists in participating in developing electronic courses.
What is the importance of blended learning?
The importance of blended education lies in the fact that we cannot do without the traditional education system, just as we cannot do without applying technology in education and relying on e-learning.
The importance of blended learning is represented in the following points:
- It makes learners in constant contact with various sources of science and knowledge.
- It combines the advantages of e-learning with the advantages of traditional education as well.
- Improving the results of educational processes and making them better.
- It has the ability to increase the effectiveness of learning.
- Giving learners the opportunity to explore and view the academic content, and to determine the appropriate time and place for them to study it.
- It depends on the role of the active learner in obtaining information and learning by integrating collaborative and individual activities and projects.
- It meets the individual needs of students and their learning styles, as it achieves sufficient flexibility in that.
What are the dimensions of blended learning?
There are a set of dimensions that characterize blended learning in order to achieve its effectiveness, the most important of which are:
- Combining traditional education with online education: It combines classrooms and virtual classes.
- Live events: What is meant is the events in which the educational process takes place with the presence and leadership of the teacher and students also participate in it. It is a very important method because of its impact on students in terms of establishing confidence and attracting attention and discussion.
- Diversity and multiplicity of education strategies: – Where different forms and various educational strategies are used, such as traditional education halls, e-learning, distance education, and virtual education.
- Traditional and electronic cooperation: – Blended learning provides collaborative environments, where the teacher and learners can collaborate electronically through conferences, as this supports the factor of interaction and communication and achieves informational and knowledge sharing.
- Merger between electronic pages and the traditional book: Where the student studies in the paper book, then follows the Internet pages that are supported by animation and sound.
- Merger between formal education and non-formal education: Where traditional education and e-learning are combined through educational websites and platforms.
What are the types of blended education?
Educational institutions offer several types, including:
1- Flex Learning
Flexible education is characterized by the presence of an online educational platform or site, through which the courses are presented, and the teacher can also give face-to-face lectures with his students through it.
2- Face to face education
When using the face-to-face teaching system, the teacher teaches the students directly in the traditional classes with the addition of some online courses so that the student can study his lessons from his home.
3- Rotation Learning
What is meant here is to follow the student with the traditional teaching system by attending classes in the classroom with the teacher, in addition to relying on self-learning through the application of e-learning, and that is according to a specific academic schedule.
4- Self bland integration
The student in this type depends entirely on himself, although he can attend traditional classes and receive lessons from the teacher face to face, but the bulk of the curriculum is available on the Internet.
5- Online Lab
An online laboratory is a type of blended learning that relies on sending and delivering documents on the Internet to laboratories and laboratories in a school or university campus using efficient methods.
This is done through e-mail, discussion forums, conferences, and sound effects, in addition to pre-made and prepared video clips.
Through this article, we presented to you a detailed report on blended education. We hope that you liked the article, and we are pleased to share your opinion by leaving your comment.