Education 2.0 & 3.0

Blended learning isn’t new to higher education, but the coronavirus pandemic has fueled a rapid expansion as colleges combine the flexibility of online instruction with the benefits of face-to-face interaction.

Increased reliance on blended learning highlights the need to optimize a delivery mode that’s unfamiliar to many instructors. 

The University of Central Florida, an early adopter of online education, was quick to recognize the benefits of a blended approach, says Kelvin Thompson, executive director of UCF’s Center for Distributed Learning. At UCF, hybrid courses consistently yield better outcomes than purely face-to-face or online courses, he says, including higher grades, fewer withdrawals and greater student satisfaction.

With both government and students focusing on value for money and a quality student experience, it is essential that universities and colleges are directing their resources appropriately to deliver the best learning experiences to students.

Creating a successful learning experience is at the heart of instructional design and delivery. “In addition to academic instruction, one of a classroom’s teachers most important roles is to help students develop the critical thinking, collaboration, and self-reflection skills necessary to foster a better society” (Blacke, 2015, para. 1). Encouraging students to explore the topics of power and privilege resulting from social classifications and their impact on the thoughts and actions of themselves and others is an important step toward encouraging social justice. However, creating a classroom environment that facilitates and supports discussions about sensitive topics can be challenging.

LearningExperienceDesign.com describes Learning Experience Design (LX Design) as, “the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal oriented way.”

This page from sixredmarbles.com takes a more utilitarian approach, explaining that LX Design is “a synthesis of instructional design, educational pedagogy, neuroscience, social sciences, design thinking, and UI/UX”.