Blended Learning in a Digital Age December 2014 Kat Robb Blended Learning in a Digital Age December 2014

Context Pre-sessional EAP course for multilingual undergraduates and graduates who will study at university. Students have 5 weeks to learn the features of academic English at university level before beginning their courses. Successful completion of the course must be obtained in order for admission to be granted.

Course details Students are formatively assessed in 5 areas - study skills, reading, writing, speaking and listening. There are fourteen 1.5 hours teaching sessions per week. Homework is checked open class due to time constraints. Total students: 630 - Class size: 16 students

Learning issues Poor interactive skills both open class and in group situations restrict communication of ideas. Students are unable to adopt and detect critical thinking skills. 3. Independent study skills are weak. Production of academic writing is problematic and of poor quality.

Proposal To increase inquiry and foster deep learning by developing a blending learning solution to support the pre-sessional course and help students increase their awareness of acadmic English. To improve the quality of the learning experience on-site and enable students to engage with the course content more effectively by combining f2f learning with a blog that runs simultaneously with the pre-sessional course.

How Programme 2 sessions per week for tutorials when students can also engage with the blog in the presence of the teacher. Teacher engages with students daily via blog uploading learning material, providing feedback and encouraging contributions. Create a community of inquiry to build student-student rapport and encourage collaborative learning. Course credit will be given for online participation within the area of study skills.

Procedure On the first day of the course, the teacher takes the class to an onsite computer cluster to demonstrate and explain the functions of the blog and ensure all students register. Teacher posts discussion threads and lesson information on a daily basis. Students are expected to engage with the blog every day and become “prosumers”, (producers and consumers). Students’ contributions are globally assessed within the study skills grade.

Pedagogical Approach - Community of Inquiry Model Garrison & Anderson

“Community recognises the social nature of education and the role that interaction, collaboration and discourse play in constructing knowledge. Inquiry reflects the process of constructing meaning through personal responsibility and choice” (Garrison) Blog Students Teacher

Courseware - Social Software A blog which focuses on the features of academic English and heightens students’ awareness of them. It encourages collaborative learning and group interaction and “enables the affordances of idea sharing and interaction” while harbouring the growth of critical thinking. (McLoughlin & Lee) It is divided into the same skills areas as the course so students can develop specific skills. The blog is public so students can also engage and contribute when the pre-sessional course ends.

Learning objectives and expectations Thinking time for brainstorming and sharing ideas asynchronously. Responding to discussion threads without open class inhibitions. Practise feeling comfortable and more confident to share ideas. Model examples of academic texts will help students understand the lexiogrammactial features.

Anticipated problems High expectations in terms of teacher availability for queries and feedback. Sense of isolation and difficulty in building up student-student and teacher-student rapport with consequent de-motivation. Lack of enthusiasm to engage with blog in the same way as f2f sessions.