Bringing active learning into a hybrid course.

Abstract

Hybrid courses, which combine both online and classroom components, offer a number of benefits, including flexibility, independence, and convenience. In addition, the hybrid course offers numerous opportunities for active learning to be introduced in both the classroom and online environments. This paper suggests ways in which instructors may emphasize such active learning, particularly through the use of writing assignments and discussion postings in the online environment.

Introduction

As institutions of higher education work to increase the flexibility and convenience of their offerings in an effort to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body, many have turned to various forms of distance learning (Waschull, 2001). Today, distance learning is often accomplished through the use of online courses, in which the contents of the course are delivered through web pages that are visited by students (Waschull, 2001); students and professors may interact in person only once or twice, if at all. Such online classes can offer numerous benefits, including promoting student participation in the learning process and increasing students' ability to self-direct their own learning (Knowles, 2001). Most important, however, may be the increased accessibility that online courses provide for students who may be working full-time and/or meeting various other personal and professional commitments.

However, there has been a great deal of concern regarding whether such online courses are appropriate for training students pursuing a career in the mental health professions, largely because an understanding of human relationships is crucial to success in such professions. Many feel that the "loss of face-to-face interaction" could have a detrimental impact on the "experiential learning," "relationship building," and "socialization into the profession" that are traditionally central to the training (Knowles, 2001, p.172-173). Such concerns are certainly not limited to those teaching in psychology or human services; many disciplines view classroom discussion and interaction as crucial to increasing students' understanding of material and their exploration of differing viewpoints.

In an effort to combine the convenience of an online class with the face-to-face interaction of a regular class, many programs have begun developing courses in a hybrid format that allows students to attend once-weekly class meetings and to access additional material and assignments on a class website. A hybrid course may be formatted in many different ways in terms of how both the online and classroom time is used, how the basic course information is transmitted, and how assessment is completed. One of the challenges of any hybrid course is how to maintain the students' active learning in both the online and the classroom portions of the course. This paper will discuss potential solutions to this challenge that were implemented in a hybrid undergraduate course in Therapeutic Interventions. This course was taught at a medium-sized university in the Southeastern United States; the student body is very diverse and composed of both traditional and non-traditional students. The hybrid course was comprised primarily of non-traditional and working students, although students of traditional age were also represented.

Active Learning

Meyers and Jones (1993) provide an excellent definition of active learning when they state:

   Active learning provides opportunities for students to talk and
   listen, read, write, and reflect as they approach course content
   through problem-solving exercises, informal small groups,
   simulations, case studies, role playing, and other activities--all
   of which require students to apply what they are learning. (p. xi)

Therefore, active learning may include a wide variety of strategies, many of which are appropriate for classroom use (such as small group activities and strategies to make lectures more active), and many of which are appropriate for online use (such as writing activities and online discussions).

The research on active learning suggests that any active learning endeavor should work on moving students from the more passive perspective that they take during lectures (Mathie et al., 1993). Of course, there is much research to suggest that active learning procedures help increase learning and retention of class material (e.g., Meyers & Jones, 1993), but there is also some research that suggests that students may not appreciate these approaches as much as they do a traditional lecture approach, perhaps because they are unaccustomed to them or do not understand how they relate to class material. In a study by Lake (2000), students exposed to active learning approaches in their physiology class tended to learn more than their counterparts in a regular lecture section of the course, yet they rated the instructor effectiveness lower than did students in the lecture section; some students made comments expressing doubts that they had really been "taught" anything. Perhaps such student dissatisfaction can be avoided by emphasizing the relationship between the activity and the course content (Miller, Groccia, & Wilkes, 1996); thus, one of the goals in any hybrid course should be to ensure that students recognize how both the online and classroom active learning components relate to their course material and can improve their understanding of that material.

Active Learning in the Classroom

When a course meets only one day per week, instructors may feel pressure to use the classroom time to transmit all of the information essential to the course. This can result in students feeling that two days' worth of lecture were "packed" into one day. Such a structure is failing to take full advantage of the benefits of a hybrid format. Instructors should explore a variety of methods of transmitting the basic course information, which may include putting much of the content online and delivering some modified form of lecture during class time. In addition, the instructor may want to emphasize to students that they will be fully responsible for their assigned reading, whether or not that reading is specifically addressed in class. The instructor should also prepare students for the fact that classroom time will focus primarily on activities and discussions.

Although lectures may have some benefits, they often result in the loss of student attention as the lecture length increases (Ruhl, Hughes, & Schloss, 1987). One way to potentially avoid such inattention and to make lectures more active is through the use of techniques such as integrated lecture pauses, in which students work in pairs for several minutes to discuss the preceding lecture topic and edit or re-organize their notes as necessary (Ruhl et al., 1987). Another procedure, the feedback lecture, involves the instructor preparing specific questions related to the lecture topics. The instructor then pauses every 15-20 minutes to ask the question and allow students to either discuss the question in a pair or small group, or to free write on the topic for approximately 5 minutes (Bean, 1996).

If an instructor is working to increase active learning in the course, the majority of the classroom component will likely be devoted not to lecture, but to strategies such as small group activities or discussion, role playing, simulations, and other active pursuits. For those seeking ideas for active learning strategies that may be applicable to their course material, a variety of resources exist, both online and in print, that offer a multitude of specific activities and information about how the activities can be tailored to various subjects (e.g., Silberman, 1996). In my own hybrid course in Therapeutic Interventions, I used the classroom time each week for activities related to the particular counseling theory that the students" assigned reading had addressed. For example, when studying Psychoanalytic Theory, I created a series of short, scripted scenarios that dramatized defense mechanisms. Students volunteered to act out the scenarios in pairs, and the rest of the class was responsible for identifying which defense mechanism was being acted out. When studying Behavior Theory, students worked in groups to create an appropriate behavior-modification plan for a fictional client requesting help with weight-loss. Strategies such as this encourage the students to move beyond understanding a definition of a concept toward being able to apply their knowledge of a concept and identify when that concept is at work. The students in this course tended to respond enthusiastically to such activities, and several students commented after class that the activities were helpful in increasing their understanding of the material.

Active Learning in the Online Environment

Many instructors who use online components in their teaching may not view the online environment as particularly active, since students are completing the tasks individually in the privacy of their own home or office. In a recent project designed to increase the active learning taking place in the online environment, I chose to focus on writing as an active-learning task. I did so because the process of writing helps to clarify one's thinking, as Meyers and Jones (1993) note. When trying to help students increase the depth of their understanding of the material, appropriate writing assignments can "help students explore their own thinking about concepts and issues, thereby expanding their mental structures" (Meyers & Jones, 1993, p. 24). To help students accomplish this exploration, weekly writing assignments asked students to compare and contrast different counseling theories, synthesize information about several theories, and relate particular concepts to their own lives.

There has been a great deal of research into writing as active learning. Often, the writing activities are short, in-class exercises (as in Butler, Phillmann, & Smart, 2001), or they are personal, journal-style writings (as in Mayo, 2002). This research does suggest that writing assignments can be beneficial to retention of material and ability to apply material to everyday life. Because I found little research on somewhat longer, more structured writings as active learning, I decided that this strategy would be an interesting one to explore. Another component of the active learning in this class involved asynchronous' online discussion following the completion of the writing assignment. As with writing, talking about an issue can help a student clarify his or her thinking about the issue; thus, some educators have called talking with others "an integral part of learning" (Meyers & Jones, 1993, p. 24). Asynchronous online discussion (via a bulletin board) contains both components of "talking" and writing, as students can write messages to each other and respond to what other students have written. Therefore, online components such as discussion can promote Student participation in the learning process and increase students" ability to self-direct their own learning (Knowles, 2001).

In my hybrid course, students were asked to complete writing assignments throughout the semester. Each week, students were asked to write 1 1/2-2 pgs. on one or two questions/topics related to analyzing or synthesizing the material being covered in class. For example, one writing assignment asked students to "discuss some similarities and differences between Erickson's theories and Freud's theories, addressing in particular those Freudian concepts that Erickson retained and those that he adjusted or changed." Each student was to complete each assignment, but only 5-7 students had their assignments graded each week; students did not know when they submitted their paper whether or not they would be in the group to be "spot-graded". This avoided the large workload of grading that would be created if I had graded every student's writing every week. Each person did, however, receive feedback from me on his or her ideas (and writing) several times during the semester.

Students were also asked to discuss their perspectives on the writing assignment with their peers each week. As the professor, I often began the online discussion by posting several additional questions (related to the writing assignment) to which the students might want to respond in their posting. Discussion postings could continue until the next week's regularly scheduled class period, after which a grade for the previous week's discussion was also issued by the professor. The discussion was graded using the same spot-checking method as the writing, and the students were informed that the discussion postings would be graded for the quality and quantity of postings by each student. Although discussion could certainly be used without being made a component of the student's grade, students might be less likely to participate if they believed that participation in the discussion would not affect their grade in the course.

When I used this approach in my hybrid course, the students appeared to participate eagerly in the discussion and activities during the weekly class meetings. In addition, I found that most students successfully completed the weekly writing assignments and discussion postings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, the student evaluations for this course tended to focus more on the classroom component and the instructor's behavior in the classroom than on the online component. In fact, students made no specific comments about the online activities or assignments. However, their overall ratings of the course were positive and consistent with ratings for previous sections of this course. This suggests that, even in a class that meets only once a week, and despite the addition of regular writing and discussion assignments to be completed outside of the classroom, students may continue to focus much of their attention on things that take place in the classroom.

Conclusion

In any hybrid course, the professor must work to actively engage students in both the classroom environment and the online environment. In the classroom, using a range of both active and collaborative learning strategies can maximize the limited classroom time by increasing the students' understanding of how to apply the material they are learning. In the online environment, weekly writing assignments and discussion postings are one strategy that can be used to maintain the students' active involvement when they leave the classroom environment, as well as to reinforce the application component of the course.

References

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Butler, A., Phillmann, K. B., & Smart, L. (2001). Active learning within a lecture: Assessing the impact of short, in-class writing exercises. Teaching of Psychology, 28, 257-259.

Knowles, A. J. (2001). Implementing web-based learning: Evaluation results from a mental health course. Journal of Technology in Human Services, 18, 171-187.

Lake, D. A. (2000). Active learning: Student performance and perceptions compared with lecture. In J. A. Chambers (Ed.), Selected papers from the 11th International Conference on

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Meyers, C., & Jones, T. B. (1993). Promoting active learning: Strategies for the college classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Miller, J. E., Groccia, J. E., & Wilkes, J. M. (1996). Providing structure: The critical element. In T. E. Sutherland & C. C. Bonwell (Eds.), Using active learning: A range of options for faculty (pp. 17-30). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ruhl, K. L., Hughes, C. A., & Schloss, P. J. (1987). Using the pause procedure to enhance lecture recall. Teacher Education and Special Education, 10, 14-18.

Silberman, M. (1996). Active learning: 101 strategies to teach any subject. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Waschull, S. B. (2001). The online delivery of psychology courses: Attrition, performance, and evaluation. Teaching of Psychology, 28, 143-146.

Erica J. Gannon, Clayton College and State University

Erica J. Gannon, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Human Services