Blended Learning in K-12/Blending online and face to face instructors and learners

Blending online and face to face instructors and learners

As stated in the introduction to this chapter, one of the criticisms of Blended Learning is that the definition lacks specificity. (Oliver and Trigwell, 2005) As a result, many of the characteristics of Blended learning look so similar to one another that it is impossible to tell them apart. The characteristics seem to have different terms that describe the same set of criteria. Such is the case for the blending of online and face to face instructors and learners.

After several rounds of discussion, the contributors of this chapter were unable to elucidate the difference between "Blending online and face to face instructors and learners" from "Blending synchronus and asynchronus learning" and "Online and offline Learning."

The only possible difference that we discussed is that in a Blended Learning environment, the line between instructor and learner might be blurred, so that the instructor is not just the person disseminating knowledge, but rather a member of the learning community, who contributes to the construction of knowledge, and takes away from the course re-imagined understandings of the content. In other words, as one Instructor who utilizes blended learning put it, the teacher should be "the guide on the side, instead of the sage on the stage." (Scagnoli, 2005)