Missed Opportunities: How Universities are Failing to Maximize the Potential of Blended Learning Approaches

The American higher-education system is in crisis. 

46% is our crisis. 

46%. The amount of students who are expected to drop out of 4-year public universities before ever completing their degree¹; and 46%, the number of students who last year reported increasingly low levels of satisfaction with the quality and value of their college education.²

 

This is no invisible trend. The dropout rate has gotten attention from media sources like the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, and Reuters, and universities nationwide, seeing their own withdrawals increase and satisfaction reports sinking, are responding with initiatives like the University of North Texas’ very own “Succeed at UNT” (re)vision, which aims to inspire students to keep on truckin’ through Six simplified and optimistic Steps for Success: 

            Show up. Find support. Take control. Be prepared. Get involved. Be persistent.

 

Okay, UNT. So you recognize that students are feeling disengaged and overwhelmed, and have put an admirable effort into an appeal for the student population to motivate themselves through these hardships—but this approach implies that the result (giving up on your education) is simply the student's choice, and not a shared responsibility between student and instructor. There is discrepancy between this attitude and a general agreement by researchers (Billings, 2010, Garrison and Vaughan, 2008, and Umback and Wawrzynski, 2005, to name just a few) that instructor effectiveness is a strong deciding factor in student satisfaction, persistence, and performance. 

So I challenge us to consider this: How might the university itself, its programs and its faculty, be contributing to the mass disengaging and overwhelming of its students? And how might we share in the responsibility—as is really our duty as teachers and members of the institution—to keep students interested in participating in their education? 

According to the 2013 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report from Noel-Levitz, the highest concentration of educational dissatisfaction came from students aged twenty-four or younger. The population that Garrison and Vaughan call “Net Geners” (86), are the students that we are losing—likely because  the Net Geners have deeply cognitive connections to the use of technology that has implications for their learning styles and the ways in which they connect with the world (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008). If we are not connecting with these students on their level—that is, with an equally integrated and comprehensive understanding of technology, then we are allowing gaps in communication styles to prevent us from genuinely reaching them. This isn’t to say schools are completely behind the times; on the contrary, most schools are making an effort to respond to the changing trends by spicing up their online presence, making more of their resources virtually accessible, and offering more and more online or “blended” courses. 

The question isn’t whether schools have neglected to update, but whether they have actually updated effectively.  Garrison and Vaughan (2005) found that past efforts to adapt generally took on an “add-on,” rather than a critical approach to modernizing educational practices, and that’s largely why they missed the mark. Blending the learning approach, they charge, cannot be based simply on the medium of communication or even the nature of the learning environment. In fact, Garrison and Vaughn (2005) claimed students are suspicious of institutions adopting the use of technology just for technology’s sake, and such practices are likely to decrease student satisfaction even more. Rather they are proponents of a movement establishing new overall models that are more purposeful, collaborative, and genuinely interactive, and technology utilization that is culturally relevant to this generation. I believe that a truly relevant blended learning course is incomplete unless it draws upon all the available mediums for engaging students online. 

Too often we tend to apply the terms “Blended” and “Next Generation” to courses that incorporate only academic-specific learning management systems, like Blackboard, into the mix. Traditional LMS have their uses, particularly because they are built for our and are increasingly customizable to meet such needs as assignment-submission and assessment, but they will always be on separate ground from what technologies the student is truly comfortable with and interested in using on a daily basis—what might be considered students’ own territory. We limit our potential to engage students when we put the entire burden on them to meet us on our decidedly un-neutral territory: lecture halls and learning management systems. To genuinely connect with the student and stimulate true engagement, we must be willing to reach them on their own ground as well. 

Readers, I think you know where I am going with this. What is Net Gener turf? The technologies that they engage with on a daily basis, the technologies that have largely contributed to this changing cognitive state to which we are now hoping to adapt—arguably this age’s defining institution: Social Media.

It's no secret that social media is changing things on a big, big scale. Nearly everyone has had some exposure to new media technologies, and likely that exposure time adds up to a significant portion of your day. For some, Social media has impacted how we socialize, how we frame and organize information, even, as Garrison and Vaughan suggested, even how we think. For being such a prominent force in the world, it is surprising that higher-education institutions are not capitalizing on the great potentiality social media has for academic applications.  Today I propose a deeper look at just one example out of many social media technologies, Facebook, and offer suggestions as to how we might take advantage of these medias for purposes of improving students’ learning experience, in the hopes of stimulating future  investigation into the critical utilization of these and other social medias in higher-order teaching methods.  

Garrison and Vaughan give us a number of principles and strategies for effectively implementing blended learning methods that we can directly correlate to the applicable functions and characteristics that Facebook offers as a blended learning tool. They began with establishing one fundamental, guiding philosophy: That the ideal learning framework is one that establishes and functionally utilizes a Community of Inquiry (CoI) to accomplish higher quality learning and engagement. To Garrison and Vaughan, the blended learning structure is the ultimate vehicle for incorporating and successfully executing this framework, largely because of certain implications that blended learning structures have for CoI core elements, social connection and cognitive presence. 

Perhaps it is obvious why I would choose to bring Facebook into the conversation. It is the most far-reaching social media site around, and often the first one that comes to mind when one even hears the term “social media.” Chances are, most of your students have a Facebook or at least some awareness that it exists and how it works, so this is going to be the most practical option when it comes to student accessibility. It is also reasonable to assume that if students voluntarily integrate Facebook as a part of their lives, they have demonstrated some active interest in Facebook as a medium. It is likely easier to capture their interest using Facebook as a medium than through other digital channels (like traditional LMS), and easier to sustain that interest and encourage prolonged participation on Facebook as well.

(It is appropriate at this point to acknowledge that, naturally there will be students in every group to whom these assumptions do not apply. The probability is, however, that this will apply to most students, especially traditional students that are younger and likely products of the Net Generation, who are the most likely not to be reached by traditional methods.) 

One of the themes that Garrison and Vaughan consistently proposed was the importance of stimulating a connectedness, a sense of community, in students if one expected them to evolve into the higher-thinking elusive Community of Inquiry. To do this, one’s method has to be capable of fostering a social element and sense of cohesion. 

Facebook is naturally attuned to just this purpose, in a way that LMS like Blackboard cannot even hope to compete.  Facebook is real, genuine social space for many students. Importantly, students feel at ease communicating through Facebook, a familiar territory, and may find it easier to blur the institutionalized lines between “academia” and “everything else” on this media with which they are so comfortable. Ask students to do the same on Blackboard, to foster connections and interactions that are appropriately ‘social,’ and they will likely have a much more difficult time mentally moving from one realm to the other. Social elements on school ground still feel ultimately like school-elements, and risk inhibiting or creating feelings of discomfort or displacement conflicting with the intended reaction. But put a group on Facebook, where they already feel socially at home, and watch as a bonding and cohesion are created and students feel enabled to talk amongst each other freely, in a context that is relevant to them.

Why should we care about enabling social presence between students? 

Garrison and Vaughan explained that developing personal relationships is not only a key element to the Community of Inquiry framework, but is also necessary for students to commit to and pursue academic goals and that success is made more likely when students gain a sense of belonging in their communities of inquiry and feel free to express themselves openly, without the risk or pressure of doing so behind the looming walls of the academic institution.  

Another argument for the implementation of Facebook as an instructional tool is the role that it may play in encouraging students to take on more personal responsibility for their education. This is one of the prime objectives—and advantages—that Garrison and Vaughan observe in adopting blended learning approaches; that students who take on more accountability for their own outcomes will be more actively involved and ultimately more satisfied with their experience. It can be difficult to encourage students to take on that accountability though, especially if we are requiring them to participate in spaces where they traditionally have played a passive role—like the classroom—or channels with which they are unfamiliar and risk feeling confused and helpless—like clunky or complicated LMS. It’s a fairly simple proposition: Say for example that one goal you have is for students to use each other as a resource for answering questions about assignments and deadlines. Is a student group more likely to take this initiative over Blackboard, or in a Facebook group page? Students are not disinclined to use available resources. On the contrary, they want to use resources that they feel comfortable with.  

Allow me to draw your attention to a final common pattern in leisurely Facebook use that we can easily adopt for the purposes of learning: Facebook sharing. It’s become an increasingly prevalent function; when we see an interesting or emotionally contingent story, an inspiring quote, a news story, event, or meme that particularly moves us, we share it. 

(A few examples from my own feed…)

This has become like second nature for many of us, especially those of us who use Facebook regularly. Often, when we come across something about which we have something to say, Facebook is the first place we go.  Think about the potential these findings might have for starting a conversation, though—particularly those critical discourses that are so central to the CoI framework of learning. How something like this:

might trigger a conversation with clear connections to higher-education learning concepts in which students are actually, genuinely interested in participating. Post the same story on Blackboard and students will be able to come up with some sort of response, but not necessarily with the same instinctive verve as they might if they saw this previewed on their Timeline. Almost assuredly the conversation would take on a less complex structure of responses and dialogues on a LMS, as well. Whereas conversations on Facebook are often prolonged, with several people chiming in and responding to one another in an extended process before the discourse fizzles out, students are trained and far more inclined on channels like Blackboard to post one (generally socioegocentric) comment and never instigate the true backs-and-forths of meaningful dialogue. 

So if your goal is to facilitate learning through student dialogue, you might consider Facebook. If your goal is to stimulate personal responsibility in your students, you might consider Facebook. If you are looking to provide students with resources they can connect with, make it possible for them to seek help and support that will keep them engaged in the long run---you might consider Facebook. If you, like Garrison and Vaughan, see the importance in enabling students to make social connections with one another, or establish spaces in which students can share and contribute freely—yet again, you might consider Facebook.

Blended Learning is the new hotness. Institutions nationwide are recognizing its potential for improving the quality and effectiveness of learning and are adopting blended learning strategies en masse. Why then, when you would think it intuitive for a number of reasons not even remotely limited to those listed above—when you would think it common sense to create more opportunity to reach students on their own familiar ground—why then are universities still generally failing to make genuinely integrated use of what would seem the most obvious blended learning space of all: Social Media. 

If you are reading this, I challenge you to consider the social media technologies that are available—Facebook if you like, but there are dozens of others that may be more suitable to your needs—and how you might be able to make its particular patterns and trends work for you, and be an invaluable tool for bringing genuine support and learning closer to the students. Do it for them. Do it the 46. 

-CC

References

Billups, Felice D., "Measuring College Student Satisfaction: A Multi-Year Study of the Factors Leading to Persistence" (2008). Higher Education. Paper 5.
http://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/highered/5

Garrison, D. R., & Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Blended learning in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Wiley & Sons.

²Noel-Levitz (2013). 2013 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report. Coralville, Iowa: Author. Retrieved from www.noellevitz.com/Benchmark.

¹ Symonds, W.C., Schwartz, R. B. and Ferguson, R, (2011, February). Pathways to

Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century. Report issued by the Pathways to Prosperity Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2011/Pathways_to_Prosperity_Feb2011.pdf