Designing for the changing role of the instructor in blended learning

200 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 47, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2004

Designing for the Changing Role of the Instructor inBlended Learning

—MICHAEL M. DANCHAK, MEMBER, IEEE, AND MARIE-PIERRE HUGUET

Abstract—This paper is an analysis of the challenges of dealing with the human and technical aspects ofblended learning. It presents a case study of how one course has evolved over the years, presenting not onlythe lessons learned and the changes made at each stage, but the rationale for those changes. Looking atlearning as the combination of information and interaction, the paper describes how the instructor went frombeing the Sage on the Stage to being the Sage in the Cage, to being the Guide on the Slide, to finally being theGuide on the Side. It also documents how the course went from being technology driven to learner driven,and the evolution of an activity cycle. The paper ends with a rationale for design changes and implicationsfor current and future designs.

Index Terms—Course design, distance learning, e-learning.

Through a variety of delivery technologies, theRensselaer Polytechnic Institute brings graduatecourses, certificates, degree programs, and workshopsto working professionals who pursue continuingeducation while remaining fully employed. Eachsemester, nearly 1000 professionals from leadingcorporations all over the world pursue their graduatedegrees with Rensselaer’s Professional and DistanceEducation program.

Since its inception in 1987, the program has grownand evolved with technology. We have added liveand delayed video streaming and the support of acourse management system, WebCT, to the originaldelivery media mix of satellite, videoconferencing, andvideotapes.

Although most of our courses combine face-to-faceand distance delivery, we have a few courses thatare delivered entirely online, blending synchronousand asynchronous components. This paper describesthe evolution of one of them, graphic user interface(GUI) Building, and what it means to design forthe changing role of the instructor in blendedlearning. The principles derived from this evolutionare applicable to any web-based program designedfor working professionals, including technicalcommunication. Our hope is that others involved inweb-based instruction can learn from our successesand, more importantly, from our failures.

Manuscript received June 2, 2003; revised March 5, 2004.M. M. Danchak is with the Department of Computer Science,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180 USA(email: [email protected]).M.-P. Huguet is with the Department of Professionaland Distributed Education, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,Troy, NY 12180 USA (email: [email protected]).

IEEE DOI 10.1109/TPC.2004.833684

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

Our model for learning is: learning =

information + interaction. According to Mayer,“learning is a sense-making activity in whichthe learner seeks to build a coherent mentalrepresentation from the presented material” [1, p. 49].The interaction with information is the sense-makingactivity that results in learning. Information involvescontent selection as well as content delivery. In otherwords, choosing what to present is as important ashow it is presented. Much of the online researchrelated to technical communication emphasizesthe information or “information objects” aspect oflearning [2], [3].

Moore and Kearsley describe interaction as the various“conversations” a learner has with the instructor,other learners, and the content [4]. Althoughsome authors advocate adding a learner–interfaceinteraction to account for the presence of technology,we feel that good computer interfaces should betransparent, meaning that the learner should not beaware of interacting with the computer as a separatetask [5]. Hence, this interaction, if it exists, shouldsoon disappear with better interface designs. Theuniqueness of the work reported here is the heavyemphasis on interaction and how to change the roleof the instructor from, as described by Leonard, “theprimary intermediary between the learner and thelearning experience” to that of “a catalyst, a coach,and a program manager directing projects” [6, p. 13].Unfortunately, he did not detail how to do this—hencethe need for this work.

Related to information and interaction is the time thatthese occur, either synchronously or asynchronously.Synchronous activities require everyone (instructorand students) to come together at the same time(but not necessarily in the same space), such as fora lecture. Asynchronous activities, such as email,

0361-1434/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE

DANCHAK AND HUGUET: DESIGNING FOR THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE INSTRUCTOR IN BLENDED LEARNING 201

do not occur at the same time but within a span oftime. This concept was formalized in the Rensselaer80/20 Model in which we determined that somelevels of asynchronous (80%) and synchronous (20%),activities were desirable in all courses, but the actualpercentages may vary [7].

Working adult professionals have learnercharacteristics that are different from children.Knowles claims that children are dependent learners,have little real-world experience, are told what tolearn, are subject-centered, are externally motivatedto learn, and their readiness to learn comes withage [8]. Adults are self-directed; have real-worldexperience; need to know why, what, and how; areproblem centered and internally motivated to learn;and their readiness to learn comes from need [8].

Another fundamental principle we adopted at theoutset was that of learning styles and a learning cycle.Kolb, among others, has shown that individuals learnin different ways [9]. Some need concrete experienceswhile others are more comfortable with abstractconcepts. It is not practical to tailor a single lectureexclusively to the learning styles of each participant.However, you can include activities that will appealto each style and organize these activities in a cycle;essentially giving something to everyone.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EVOLUTION

In order to track the evolution of the course, wechose the three separate graphical descriptorsshown in Fig. 1: technology usage, activity cycle,and instructor role. The technology usage in acourse can be described using a table that relatesthe elements of learning to the synchrony of thoseactivities. What does one do, and when? Informationcan be presented to learners in a number of ways,including lecture and reading assignments. L–Irepresents learner–instructor interaction, L–Lindicates learner–learner interaction, and L–Crepresents learner–content interaction (assignments).Ideally, Fig. 1 is used to determine which technologyis best suited for each element. However, as will beshown, the technology often drives this allocation.

The second descriptor is the activity cycle. Thisillustrates the student activities during a typicalperiod, such as a week. These should be plannedactivities rather than serendipitous ones. Theactivities are done both synchronously andasynchronously, so as to capture the total learningtime, rather than just the contact hours we are soused to discussing. Students spend a substantial partof any course working outside the classroom. Thisout-of-class time could be more efficiently utilized.The last descriptor illustrates how the instructorrelates to the students. Much has been written aboutthe Guide on the Side versus the Sage on the Stage.Although there are no universally accepted ways todescribe this, we chose to show this pictorially, lettingthe sketches speak for themselves. The Sage on theStage puts the instructor at the center of all activities,especially in the lecture mode. Students receivewisdom from the instructor’s lips or it is gone forever.The Guide on the Side advocates more of a coachingrole for the instructor but puts much of the onus forlearning on the learner.

CASE STUDY: GUI BUILDING

GUI Building is a professional master’s level coursein computer science. The course assumes that agraphical user interface has already been designed fora given application and concentrates on the problemsand alternatives of implementing that design, suchas coding the solution so that it can be translated todifferent languages and writing systems, also called“internationalization.” Another important concept isthe model-view-controller (MVC) architecture, whichseparates the storage of the program data from thecode that displays and modifies that data.

GUI Building was first offered in the fall of 1994and was repeated five times since then. Althoughthe detailed content has changed somewhat overthe years, the organization has changed radically,accommodating new technologies and teachingmethods. The paragraphs below describe, in detail,how the course was designed and delivered in fourdifferent years. The major changes came about inthe last three offerings. In each case, we describethe technologies used, the learning events that made

Fig. 1. Graphical descriptors showing technology usage, weekly student activities, and the relationship betweeninstructor and learner during a course.


up the course (the activity cycle), and the role of theinstructor.

GUI ’98 and Prior: The Sage on the Stage Thefirst offering of GUI Building was in the fall semester1994. The initial course was offered to a local classface-to-face while it was offered as a video conferencefor remote students. The class met one evening aweek for three hours. All homework assignments weredone individually. Aside from the distance aspect,this is a traditional design (Fig. 2).

Standard lecture was used to deliver the content,with some L–I interaction in the form of questionsasked by either party. No explicit L–L interactionswere planned. Students were pretty much left on theirown after formal class time, although the instructorwas available during office hours or telephonedquestions. The role of the instructor in this design isthe traditional Sage on the Stage.

The same design was used in the spring 1996and the fall 1998 semesters, although the contentwas updated over the years. There was no webaugmentation of the course, since web-based toolswere starting to become widely available. This offeringcould be considered the baseline design for ourcomparison.

GUI Building was not offered in the academic year1999–2000, although there were some influentialevents that occurred during that year. One event wasthe adoption of WebCT as the campus-wide coursemanagement system. While WebCT was used mostlyto augment face-to-face courses that year, much waslearned about better organizing out-of-class activitiesand researching the design of web-based courses.One of the authors (Danchak) also became involved ina research program related to the Rensselaer 80/20Model along with ways to better include the affectivedimension in web-based courses [7].

The final influential event during that time was theintroduction of a product called LearnLinc (LearnLincis a trademark of EDT Corporation). This tool wasdesigned to facilitate synchronous interaction over theintranet, allowing internet audio and video along withtools for whiteboards, questions and answers, and

application sharing. One of the authors (Danchak)volunteered to develop a web-based software designcourse: Object Oriented User Interface Design,or OOUID (his first web course ever) using thistechnology. Rather than meeting weekly, the courseconvened at six milestones in the student projects,using LearnLinc. The remainder of the course usedstandard web postings and reading assignmentsalong with instructor-generated content to augmentthese assignments.

Lessons learned from this first attempt at e-learningwere painful. First, students expected a certainamount of instructor “presence.” They did notappreciate the instructor’s efforts in organizing thematerials because they were used to seeing theinstructor during the lecture. Students typicallyconsider content delivery, not content selection, asthe primary instructional role in traditional classes.Additionally, they did not appreciate being freedfrom a fixed schedule; they wanted to have theenforced discipline of regular class meetings. We alsolearned that you need solid audio in order to interact.Otherwise, everyone is continually saying, “Can youhear me,” rather than discussing content. Internetaudio was definitely not ready for prime time. Lastly,the lack of interaction was very bothersome to theinstructor. There was no way to determine who washaving difficulty until the milestones were reached. Itwas with this experience that the next instantiation ofGUI Building was designed.

GUI ’00: The Sage in the Cage The next version ofGUI Building was offered in the fall 2000 semesterand represented a radical departure from the baselinein that the course was now predominantly web-based.However, much was learned from OOUID and appliedto the design of this offering.

Two major lessons from OOUID were incorporatedin this design. At this time, Rensselaer wasexperimenting with video streaming for delivery ofcontent. This was done both live and on demand. Theformer emulated a video conferencing environment,while the later was more like videotape, but withvalue added in the form of postprocessing. The tapedlecture was digitized and then synchronized with the

Fig. 2. Fall 1998 Offering: Allocation of technology to tasks, activities, and the role of the instructor in a traditionaldistance learning design.


instructor’s slides so that students could see bothat the same time. Fig. 3 illustrates the RensselaerUnibrowser [10], which is basically four HTML framesin a single browser window, each showing differentcontent.

Fig. 3. Rensselaer Unibrowser showing the frames usedfor various functions.

The Video Stream Frame contains the instructor’svideo-streamed lecture. This is synchronized so thatthe visuals used for the lecture appear in the ContentFrame (upper right) at the proper time. Students canalso fast-forward, rewind, and select parts of thelecture according to indexed slides. The Interactionframe posed questions for student response duringthe video stream. After responding to the question,the student would see the instructor’s answer. Infact, the student response was never retrieved inthis course offering, although it appeared so to thestudent, showing that interactivity could be achievedwith low technology methods. Java Applets werealso embedded in the frame at various times toprovide hands-on interactivity related to the materialpresented. The Communications Frame allowed thestudent to send email to the instructor, the producer,or the technical staff.

To get solid audio, a telephone bridge was establishedfor meetings and these audio meetings alternatedweekly with text chat sessions. These are labeledsync sessions in Fig. 4. The purpose of the sessionswas to discuss problems and provide clarification.Without access to two telephone lines, a studentcould not use the telephone and connect to theinternet simultaneously. Although content could bepresented, it suffered without supporting visuals.Notice that the sync sessions occurred at the end ofthe weekly activities.

The course design attempted to make up for theshortcomings experienced in the OOUID course.Interestingly, it became more like a face-to-face designin that lecture was added back. Each week there wasa video-streamed lecture that lasted approximately15–30 minutes and basically summarized theconcepts. Students were asked to first watch the videostream and then go to the online module for thatweek. This module specified readings and links to theweb and contained instructor-generated supplementalmaterial. The module was also organized so that twodiscussions were embedded at convenient points.The student was asked to join the discussion den(bulletin board) for asynchronous interaction withother students on the question posed.

Here, the instructor was still very much at the centerof all learning activities. The video stream merelyreplaced the formal face-to-face lecture. The postednotes were basically another form of lecture, but ina more efficient format. This design might be labeledSage in the Cage because of the constraints of videostreaming.

Student assignments were pretty much the same asthe baseline design in fall 1998. Each week therewas a homework assignment and a semester-longproject that had three milestones. These were all doneindividually.

The major shortcomings of this offering were too muchlecturing, too much compartmentalization, and toolittle interaction. It soon became evident that lecturing

Fig. 4. Fall 2000 Offering: A first attempt at a web-based course based primarily on asynchronous activities.This is a typical web-based course design.


did not necessarily add instructor presence. Eventhough the Unibrowser provided different activities,the result seemed too much like a passive videotapedlecture. The instructor was still the center of attentionand very much in control of all facets of the course.

A second problem was the compartmentalization of allaspects of the course. To view a specific video stream,the student would select it from a video stream listdisplayed on a separate web page. To do the onlinemodule, the student would again select from a list ofmodules. If quizzes were used, the student would goto the quiz area. In other words, there were differentparts of the course spread throughout the website,but they were not adequately integrated.

The problem with the interactivity was that it wasfaked. Although the students were asked questionsduring the video stream and saw the correct answer,they could not see responses from the other students.The Interaction Frame did show some promise, butmore had to be done there.

GUI ’01: Guide on the Slide The shortcomings ofGUI ’00 were evident and there was a feeling thatperhaps we were on the wrong track. Rensselaer didpioneering work in the concept of studio courses, forwhich it received the Theodore Hesburgh Award in1996 [11]. This concept replaced two large 50-minutelectures and a three hour laboratory with studiosof about 60 students that met face-to-face twiceweekly for two hours in uniquely designed roomsthat fostered interaction between students and withinstructors. We observed several studio sessions withdifferent instructors to better appreciate the conceptand see what could be useful in our online coursedesign. The characteristics of the studio model canbe summarized as:

(A) Mini-lecture (<15 minutes) rather than 50 or80 minutes.

(B) Variation in venue. The students faced theinstructor during the mini-lecture and thenrotated 180� to do the hands-on exercisesusing laboratory equipment.

(C) Collaborative learning. Students worked inteams during the exercises and were awardedpoints for collaboration.

(D) Variation in depth. The mini-lecture andexercises started simple and becameprogressively more complex as the studiocontinued.

(E) Use of the Kolb learning cycle [9]. The overallorganization of the session required studentsto struggle with concepts and share opinionsbefore being lectured on the theoreticalconcepts and asked to do exercises.

(F) Instructor/coach gauges understanding bylistening to team discussions and askingprobing questions.

The redesign of GUI ’01 was also influenced by thework of LaRose and Whitten, who advocated closerintegration of tools, such as quizzes, with the actualcontent of the course. Many of the current coursemanagement tools provide discussion boards andquizzes, but the student must leave the content areain order to use these functions. While suitable forformal graded quizzes, this does not lend itself wellto pop questions [12]. The Interaction area of theUnibrowser better integrated questions with the videostream, but standard HTML still needed somethingbetter than that provided by the course tools. Thisled to the creation of a software application we calledQuikQuiz [13].

Even in large lectures, good instructors constantlyconnect with students, often by asking pop questions.This formative evaluation technique attempts to gaugethe understanding of the students but is not usuallygraded. In addition to feedback, it increases the effectand interactivity. In the 1990s, this technology wascalled a student response unit (SRU). We reinventedthe idea for the web, as shown in Fig. 5.

When the student clicks a button on an HTMLpage, a Java Applet pops up in a small separatebrowser window with a quiz question, as shown inthe left-hand panel of Fig. 5. The student entersher/his answer (center panel) and submits it. He orshe then immediately sees the instructor’s responseby clicking on the answer tab in the applet (rightpanel). At the instructor’s discretion, the student canalso see the responses submitted thus far by all theother students. The student then closes the Applet

Fig. 5. QuikQuiz student view of a discussion question. The question posed is to the left, the middle shows a typicalresponse, and the right shows the instructor response and the response of other students.


and continues the lesson from the point after theQuikQuiz button. At any time, the instructor can viewthe student responses through his/her own browserwindow, each response stamped with a name, date,and time. QuikQuiz also allows multiple choicequestions with the same functionality; the sharedresponses are shown using a bar chart.

Armed with both new knowledge and tools, we set outto design the 2001 version of GUI Building, shownin Fig. 6. Students were assigned to teams for thediscussion questions as well as the homework andsemester project in order to duplicate real world worksituations.

To mimic the mini-lecture of the studio model, wedivided the video-streamed introduction into smallersegments, each lasting approximately ten minutes.The week would begin with an instructor-led chatsession that answered administrative questions aswell as clarifying content questions from the previousweek. While keeping the chat room browser windowopen, students would go to the warm up webpagewhich first presented a thought question about thematerial to be discussed, followed by a QuikQuiz.After responding and seeing other student responses,the student would click on a video-stream button thatwas embedded in the same HTML page. This opened anew browser window that played the video-streamedoverview or summary. Other supporting material forthat week followed the video-streaming button on theHTML page.

The warm up was designed to take about 15–30minutes. The student could also ask questions relatedto the warm up by returning to the chat room. Anunanticipated benefit of the QuikQuiz was discoveredvery early in the semester: the instructor couldimmediately see student responses to the question.Using the private message feature of the chat, he orshe could send students a congratulatory messageif they did well or ask if they understood why theirresponse was not correct. In essence, we were lookingover their shoulder and were able to provide feedbackin real time. Once all the students finished the warm

up, they could leave the chat session. The entiresynchronous session lasted about one hour.

The two exercises that remained in the cycle weredone asynchronously, with a time limit of the followingweek. Each exercise followed the same design as thewarm up, utilizing the Kolb learning cycle. Fig. 7

Fig. 7. GUI 2001 course content page with buttonsconnecting to the (A) QuikQuiz and (B) video stream.

shows a typical exercise page, with a QuikQuiz(indicted with A) and a video-stream button (indicatedwith B) at the beginning. This design was used tobetter integrate the functionality, as mentionedearlier. At the end of the first exercise was a smallprogramming assignment that utilized the principlesdiscussed that week; it was done individually.There was also a posted discussion question for ateam response and collaborative homework due thefollowing week.

As shown in Fig. 6, there was an attempt to movethe instructor out of the center of attention. Thevideo streams were intended to be more motivationaland organizational rather than educational. Somecontent was presented in the stream, but the intentwas to provide an overview and address the affectivedimension of teaching rather than the cognitivedimension. Keeping with our naming scheme for the

Fig. 6. Fall 2001 Offering: This design tried to reduce the amount of lecture and increase the amount of coachingdone by the instructor. The goal was to make a more learner-centered design.


instructor’s role, we might call this the Guide onthe Slide design because the instructor is trying torelinquish the sage role but has not quite succeeded.

The major lesson learned in this offering was thatwe were on the right track but still had muchroom for improvement. Integrating content, quizzes,and video-stream links make for much betternavigation and context and addressed the issuesraised by LaRose and Whitten. The QuikQuiz had theunanticipated benefit of synchronous interaction andfeedback. While not part of the intended design, wewere pleased with this feature and felt it substantiallyadded to the instructor’s presence.

On the minus side, the discussion board failedmiserably in most cases. Subsequent researchshowed that we were asking test questions ratherthan authentic questions [14]. By this, we meanthat the questions asked had correct answers, eventhough there could be some variation. After coveringthe spectrum of reasonable responses, students soonbegan saying “I agree with Joe,” meaning they agreedwith a response posted by another student. What weneeded were authentic questions; questions that hadno right answer but caused students to reflect andconsider different perspectives. This was a subtle shifttoward student-centered learning. In instances wherethe question was accidentally authentic, we did get agood exchange of views and thoughtful debate. Doingthis in a technology course is often a challenge. Weconcluded that the question must have some valuedimension in order to encourage debate. A factualresponse is not going to do that.

The modules also had too much content to becomfortably read online and were often redundantwith other available sources. Just because theinstructor wrote it did not make it better. Using thehyperlinking attributes of the web provides the sameor better information and requires interaction andcontent filtering. This engages learners and putsthem more in control. It also can present differentperspectives on the same topic.

Another problem was the tone of the written material;it sounded like a lecture but did not have thebenefit of vocal and facial cues. Research into thisarea uncovered the work of Derek Rowntree, whostated, “do not imagine them as part of a lectureaudience—nor as textbook readers whose teacher ishovering somewhere in the vicinity. Imagine insteadthat you are tutoring one individual learner forbetween one and two hours” [15, p. 82]. A studentcoming in during office hours is not usually lecturedto. The instructor usually tries to determine whatthe students already know and what they do not,and focuses on the latter. Rowntree calls this “thetutorial.” This model was a primary element in thedesign of the next version of GUI Building.

GUI ’02: Guide on the Side Fig. 8 illustratesthe design elements for this course offering. Closecomparison shows that there was very little changein technology from the fall 2001 version. We furtherlimited the video streams, since this is often a sourceof frustration for the student. With less than optimalbandwidth, video streaming becomes painful. It isalso questionable as to how much it adds to learning.The effectiveness of lecture, in any form, has beenchallenged [16]. We did retain the video-streamedoverview in the warm up web page, but its functionwas more affective than cognitive. Motivation andinstructor presence is perhaps as important asthe cognitive aspects of a course. The instructor’srole here may truly be the Guide on the Side. Theintended impression is that, while there are a numberof students, each student is interacting with theinstructor on a one-on-one basis. This version of thecourse was selected as a “WebCT Exemplary Course”in 2003.

As mentioned previously, we used hyperlinks to onlineinformation where it existed rather than reproducingthat information. More often, the problem was toomuch information of varying quality. We also calledthe events lessons rather than modules and mademajor changes to the look, feel, and navigation of thewebsite. These changes are reflected in Fig. 9.

Fig. 8. Fall 2002 Offering: This latest attempt moved the instructor to the side by using a one-on-one tutoringconcept for the content design.


While we do not have sufficient space to mentionall the graphics changes, we will highlight items Athrough E of Fig. 9. Item A is a navigational schemethat allows the student to easily access all the lessonsfor that week and to return to the page that listsall lessons. Item B is a download link for a portabledata format (PDF) version of the same lesson. ItemsC and E are the links to QuikQuiz and the videostream, respectively (the latter is only on warm upweb pages). A student responds to the QuikQuiz andsees both the instructor’s answer and the answer ofthe students who have responded thus far.

Item D is a new feature sparked by the tutorialmodel. The text following the button congratulates thestudents who answered correctly and tells everyonethat there is a more detailed explanation available.The student can choose to follow the link or not.Clicking this explanation brings up a new page with amore in-depth explanation, as shown in Fig. 10.

Not shown in Fig. 10 is a return button at thebottom of the page. Clicking that button returns thestudent to the point of the explanation link on theprevious page, but the content in the explanationreplaces the explanation link. This was done so thatinformation viewed by the student is always availablewith a minimum of navigation. The explanationconcept was introduced to provide adaptability of

Fig. 10. More detailed explanation to the solution ofthe QuikQuiz.

Fig. 9. Web page from GUI ’02 offering illustrating (A) new navigation features, (B) PDF files format, (C) QuikQuizbutton, (D) a link to a more detailed explanation of the QuikQuiz solution, and (E) a link to the video stream.


content, but at the user’s choosing rather than someartificial intelligence algorithm. If the tutor is notthere to decide whether to provide a more detailedexplanation, perhaps the student could choose basedon her or his comfort level.

The tone of voice used in the text, as advocated byRowntree, was also more personal and closer to theway an instructor would talk to one student ratherthan to many [15]. This explains the dotted andsolid lines in the instructor-student relationshipdiagram of Fig. 8. The intent is to show that whilethere are a number of students in the course, theimpression should be that the instructor is talking toone student—the tutorial concept. Sketches of theinstructor, shown in both Figs. 9 and 10, reinforce theinstructor presence initiated in the video streams. Thetutor is, in fact, a real person and has real features.

As usual, the lessons learned in the fall 2002 semesteroffering were many and valuable. Overall, we felt thedesign was good and on the right track. The tutorialconcept set the right tone and started to engagestudents despite the fact that the tutor was notpresent. One desire is to improve the text chat in thesynchronous meeting with audio chat. There are moretools available today to support this and higher speedinternet access (>56 kbps) is becoming the norm, atleast for our population of students. The other lessonslearned included the facts that we needed better useof discussion, more interactivity, and more adaptivity.

Good discussion still eludes us. A fundamentalquestion is why we use discussion at all! Here,we have to admit to following the herd. Almost allweb-based courses we looked at included discussionboards; it seemed de rigueur. In retrospect, however,we feel that discussion is just another form ofinteraction and should be used judiciously. In manyweb-based courses, the discussion may be the onlyform of interaction available. We have the luxury ofhaving content with a factual aspect as well as avalue aspect, and that factual aspect dominates thecontent. In GUI ’03, we plan to focus on improvingthis technique.

Interactivity and adaptivity complement each other.We definitely have opportunities to include more

Java Applets that demonstrate the principles we areteaching. These can entertain and teach if designedcorrectly. Adaptivity allows different students to seedifferent lessons. Currently, we ask the student todecide what to view. However, it is possible to inferuser characteristics and make the selection for himor her. While that is a long-term research project, weare investigating existing adaptive techniques, suchas cascading style sheets and JavaScript that couldbe used in GUI ’03.

SUMMARY OF AND RATIONALE FOR CHANGES

The instructor role sketches show how the designof this course changed over the past few years. Westarted with the traditional Sage on the Stage in1998, emphasizing lecture and the instructor as thesubject expert. Bourne et al. would describe the nextincarnation as the Sage in the Box [16]. We modifiedthat to Sage in the Cage because of the constraints.We took tools that were available from coursemanagement systems and tried to apply them as bestwe understood. The course attempted to replicate aface-to-face course, but substituting technology forthe classroom. Since we deal with adult learners, wechoose to use those learner characteristics, followingthe work of Knowles [8]. A summary of our principles,derived during this evolution, is shown in Table I.These are the lessons learned from this endeavor.

By the time we delivered GUI ’01, we knew thatdesigning the course using existing technology wasnot giving us what we wanted. We already addedQuikQuiz, not to just to have more technology, butto satisfy a teaching need that was not being met byexisting tools. Adopting the tutorial concept in GUI’02 was a major change, driven by learners. The toneof the text and the use of explanations changed thefocus from instructor to student. The instructor wasnow really functioning more as the Guide on the Side,but we attempted to convey the impression that thestudent was interacting on a one-on-one basis withthe instructor, much as if the student came to officehours for help.

Hence, we went from a technology-driven to alearner-driven approach because student feedback

TABLE ILessons learned from the evolution of the course over the four years it was offered


was not commensurate with our goals of a dynamic,interactive class. The convenience of asynchronouslearning often encourages the student to overlook theshortcomings of the learning design. When we changethe focus from technology to learning, perhaps we canhave courses that are convenient and effective.

Interestingly, we also went from a few learningactivities (lecture, reading, homework) to many(lecture, reading, chat, exercises, discussion, etc.).Orey calls this “blended learning” [17]. He uses asalad bar metaphor where students are provided withmany different, and sometimes overlapping, learningactivities, and they choose the activities that bestincrease their learning. This trend is evident evenin web-enhanced courses, where outside materials(discussion, etc.) are used to enhance a face-to-facecourse. The more opportunities a student has tolearn in different ways, the better. Multiple waysof presenting information and multiple means ofinteractions help students construct the necessarymental representations that we call learning.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE DESIGNS

Future design must continue to be concerned withinstructor presence, interaction, and student-centereddesign. Since students learn in different ways, wemust provide multiple learning activities from whichthe learner can choose. We also need to includepersonalization—techniques that accommodateindividuals rather than the masses. These desires aredriven by the learning and aided, not dictated, by the

technology. Adaptive hypermedia may allow that tohappen in the near future.

The next version of the course will use CD-ROM forvideo rather than video streaming over IP. We alsoplan on using more animations with voice-over for theexplanations. This follows strong recommendationsby Mayer [1]. Replacing text chat with audio chatwould definitely be an improvement. We would alsolike to return to the question of using a trainedfacilitator rather than a domain expert to better utilizethe discussion features of the course managementtool. Finally, we still feel that more interaction, viaJava Applets or java server pages (JSP), is an absolutenecessity.

The design, and redesign, of this course may neverbe finished. There is always something more to bechanged or added, especially as we learn more abouthow people learn online. However, we think the nextincarnation of the course will be closer to our ideal,at least until the technology catches up with ourlearners.

We believe the principles described in this paper canbe used to design web-based courses for workingprofessionals in any domain. Starting with learnercharacteristics and the learning cycle, instructorscan use our principles to accelerate their success inweb-based learning and contribute other principlesthat go beyond this work. Collectively, we may beginto address the challenges posed by Leonard in 1999[6].

REFERENCES

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Commun. Quart., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 49–59, 1999.[3] M. J. Salvo, “Critical engagement with technology in the computer classroom,” Tech. Commun. Quarter., vol.

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[6] D. C. Leonard, “The web, the millennium, and the digital evolution of distance education,” Tech. Commun.Quart., vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 9–20, 1999.

[7] M. M. Danchak, W. C. Jennings, A. D. Johnson, and K. A. Scalzo, “Teaching and learning in a technologicalworld: The Rensselaer 80/20 model for the working professional,” Frontiers Educ., pp. 12A204–12A210, 1999.

[8] M. S. Knowles, E. F. Holton, and R. A. Swanson, The Adult Learner, 5th ed. Houston, TX: Gulf, 1998.[9] D. A. Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs,

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[13] M. M. Danchak and J. T. Pedersen, “QuikQuiz: Complementing WebCT tools for more learner interaction,”in Proc. E-Learn 2002; World Conf. E-Learning Corp., Gov., Healthcare, Higher Educ., Montréal, Canada,2002, pp. 1374–1377.

[14] M. M. Danchak and K. Kenyon, “Threaded discussion as a tool in the asynchronous technology classroom,” inProc. Frontiers Educ., Boston, MA, 2002, pp. T1E14–T1E18.

[15] D. Rowntree, Teaching Through Self-Instruction. London, U.K.: Kogan Page, 1986.[16] J. R. Bourne, E. McMaster, J. Rieger, and J. O. Campbell, “Paradigms for online learning: A case study in the

design and implementation of an asynchronous learning networks (ALN) course,” J. Asynchronous LearningNetworks, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 38–56, 2002.

[17] M. Orey, “One year of online blended learning: Lessons learned,” in Proc. Annu. Meeting Eastern Educ. Res.Assoc. Sarasota, FL, 2002, pp. 314–318.

Michael M. Danchak (S’74–M’74) is a Professor of Computer Science with a research focus on adaptive hypermedia for education.

He has extensive distance-learning experience and received the WebCT Exemplary Course Award for his course “GUI Building”

in 2003.

Marie-Pierre Huguet is a full-time Course Developer who provides instructional design support to faculty teaching at a distance.

She is also a Ph.D. student in curriculum and instruction with a research focus on instructional design theories. She has been the

course developer for GUI Building for the past three years.

Documents

Designing for the changing role of the instructor in blended learning