1. Switching to a Blended Learning
Format
What to expect when you are planning to blend
your learning program!
By
Kasi Bedell

2. What to Expect
● Blending your current face-to-face program
with distance learning is a big step. It will
require careful planning. If you take into
consideration the following recommendations,
you will be successful in your transformation.
● We will explore pre-planning, how to enhance
your current program, the change in your role
as a trainer and how to encourage
communication during the training.

3. Pre-planning
● It is important to do some intensive pre-planning before planning your new
blended learning program. It will be necessary to understand the
community that is formed during distance learning before adding it to face-
to-face learning. The community will be composed of the students, teacher
and instructional resources(Simonson,Smaldino,Albright & Zvacek,2012).
● Keeping this in mind and focusing on these three components during the
pre-planning will help you to successfully plan out the blended program.
● Let's take a look at each component!

4. Students
● In 2007-2008 around 4.8 million undergrad students took at least
one distance course(US Department of Education).
● If this was 4-5 years ago imagine the influx of students taking online courses. Let's
face it if it was not for students there would not be a need for distance learning. So
it is very important to research your students doing so will yield a more productive
learning environment(Smaldino et. al.,2012). Learn your students, how many are
there, what are their general learning characteristics, what are their expectations,
attitudes, interest and you will also need to know their nature. What is the age
range, where are they from, urban, rural, educational background, current
knowledge and the cultural,social and economic backgrounds. As a trainer your
ultimate goal is to create a successful learning environment, getting to know your
students and how they can affect it will help you do this.
● Ways to do this: Pretest, portfolios reviews, meetings, surveys and
interviews(Simonson et. al.,2012).

5. Instructor
● As the instructor of a blended class there is a
lot of things that will change.
● During the pre-planning stage the most important things to do
are, revise your traditional classroom materials. Plan activities
based on the knowledge of your students that facilitate
engaging communication. Learn how to construct a
supportive, social environment(Simonson et. al.,2012).
● Do this by knowing your students and developing
individualized instruction(Simonson et. al.,2012)

6. Instructional Material
During the Pre-planning stage of instructional
material, the most important thing to do is
determine your goals. Do they match the
objectives for instruction? Once you
determine this you should move onto the
technology that you will use to present the
instructions. Keeping in mind the most
important aspect are the students and catering
to their learning needs.

7. Enhancing Your Original Content
With the onslaught of technological tools that can be used in
distance education you will find that proper use will easily enhance
your original teaching material.
● The correct use of learning tools will help overcome the ambiguity and barriers to
student persistence often found in distance learning(Nash, 2005).
How to do this: Use Interactive multimedia tools. During the pre-planning stage it
is best to research and determine which tools will provide the best learning
environment for your students.
It is best to find tools that will enhance the students communication skills, engage
them in interactive learning and provide a supportive, communal learning
environment.
● Examples:
● Flickr- a photo sharing site. A media sharing site like this can enhance weekly content by allowing
students to provide and access content from all over the world.
● Blogs-enhance communication by allowing students to access information anytime and give their
opinions. Participate in discussion boards.
● Podcasts- enhances weekly lectures by downloading files that can be used to provide additional
information and assignments(Technology of Distance education,2013).

8. Encourage Communication Skills
● Communication is the key to any successful
relationship.
It is imperative to encourage communication among your students.
When pre-planning pick technology, activities, and objectives which
will encourage communication. Make yourself readily available as a
trainer and encourage your students to be proactive in
communication by providing access and proper tools.
● Good tools to use:
Blogs- the discussion boards are great for communication.
Social sites- these give you communication in real time.
Podcast- These allow for audio and visual

9. Blending
Blending your current course with distance
learning can be rewarding if you take the time
to do some pre-planning. Keep in mind the
new community that you will be creating,
students, teacher and tools. Understand how
your role as a teacher will change and
incorporate ways to encourage
communication within your community.

10. References
Multimedia Program: The Technology of Distance Education. Retrieved
from: www.waldenu.edu. 8-2013
Nash,Susan.Learning Objects, Learning Object Repositories,and Learning
Theory: Preliminary Best Practices for Online Courses. Retrieved from:
http://www.ijello.org/Volume1/v1p217-228Nash.pdf. 8-2013.
Simonson, Michael., Smaldino,Sharon., Albright, Michael., Zvacek, Susan.
Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Learning.
Pearson Education Inc. Boston. 2012.
Simonson, Micheal.Video. Distance Education: The Next Generation.
retrieved from:www.waldenu.edu,2013.
United States Department of Education