Pre-Conference+Proposal



BENCHMARKING BLENDED LEARNING - Mary

The Sloan Consortium and its volunteer members have been engaged as leaders in blended learning since 2003. Beginning with the development of a working definition that is used by institutions world-wide, the work also resulted in a book on blended learning research, a special edition of JALN on blended learning, numerous online workshops and six annual international workshops dedicated to blended learning. At the Sloan Consortium Blended Learning Conference and Workshop in April 2010, a group of early innovators and active developers of blended learning came together to identify the ‘big issues’ surrounding blended learning. As the discussion evolved, it became clear that blended learning is becoming the mainstream among a variety of organizations. Consequently, the group determined the need to begin assembling various models of blended learning and categorizing those models for potential replication by other organizations.

This pre-conference workshop will share the results of that meeting and subsequent work over the summer and fall of 2010. Using a WIKI tool, participants in this workshop will work in small groups to expand the big issues document and identify models of blended learning pulling from their own institutions and blended efforts. A summary of the work will then be shared with participants post conference.

Learning Outcomes:

Framework of blended learning Bibliography of models of blended learning Identification and discussion of ‘big issues’

Version II - Tony

BLENDED LEARNING: FRAMEWORKS, MODELS, AND BIG ISSUES The Sloan Consortium and its volunteer members have been engaged as leaders in blended learning since 2003. Beginning with the development of a working definition that is used by institutions world-wide, its work also resulted in a book on blended learning research, a special edition in the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (JALN), numerous online workshops and seven international workshops focusing blended learning. At the Sloan Consortium Blended Learning Conference and Workshop held in April 2010, a group of early innovators and active developers of blended learning came together to discuss its evolution as an instructional modality of choice in mainstream education. As the discussion evolved, it became clear that what was needed was an effort to collect and categorize models of blended learning and to determine how these models addressed some of the big issues (e.g., time to degree, conservation of classroom space, local outreach, assessment) facing education today.

This pre-conference workshop will share the results of that meeting and subsequent work over the summer and fall of 2010. Using a WIKI tool, participants in this workshop will work in small groups to expand the big issues document and identify models of blended learning pulling from their own institutions and blended efforts. A summary of the work will then be shared with participants post conference with the expectation of establishing a working group in this area.

Learning Outcomes:

Framework of blended learning Bibliography of models of blended learning Insights into how blended learning is addressing education’s ‘big issues’