Teaching in a Blended Learning Environment (T-BLE) is a four-week immersive blended course for instructors who are already teaching in the classroom and are considering moving to a blended environment.
Hear from past participants about their experience with T-BLE:
“T-BLE helped me to think about what blended learning means, and the range of roles it can play in teaching; but the key thing that the course changed in me was that I developed an understanding of the importance and role of active learning, across what I now understand to be the full spectrum of blended delivery. My teaching style has always been intuitively active, but T-BLE helped a lot with connecting my intuitions to the literature on teaching and learning in this area. In practice I find my teaching style now incorporates even more active elements; these include rich media online CLAS group activities, but also such simple things as changing my written summary points at the end of a lecture into summary questions.”
– Strang Burton, Instructor, Department of Linguistics
“I had always been interested in blending my courses and discussed it at length with my colleagues. However, given my relative lack of experience with the online tools that are available to instructors, and my lack of understanding of what is best completed online vs. face to face, I procrastinated my own professional development due to the anxiety I experienced when trying to envision something new. The T-BLE course not only reduced this anxiety, but pushed me to roll up my sleeves and actually work with a variety of online tools. The continual support I received from the facilitators mitigated much of the frustration that comes with trying something new. In three short weeks, I felt that I was able to envision how all of my course could be successfully blended and gave me confidence in tackling the task of flipping my course materials online. Now, I am able to contribute to conversations about innovation much more easily and productively with my colleagues, and have a newfound passion for learning more about how technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning experiences in the classroom. In my personal experience, the T-BLE was the start of a whole new and life-long approach to teaching!”
– Daniel Riccardi, Lecturer, Vantage College
“I attended the T-BLE course in the summer of 2017. In our discussion of goals for taking the course I repeatedly said that my course (FNH 403 Food Law, Regulations and Quality Assurance) had been moved to a terrible time slot (M,W,F at 8 AM), a terrible room (lecture room seats hard for group work) and increased class size. My goal was to move some of those 8 AM classes to a blended format.
The T-BLE course has given me the courage to replace some face to face time with other activities. We feel an obligation to provide the 3-hour class and 1-hour tutorial every week but I’ve determined that two of the things we have done have been better than previous years lecture formats.
The students have now had one Monday 8 AM “off” and they watched a video, read an article and did a quiz before class on Wednesday. It worked well. There was group motivation to get it done because the first group to have every one finish received Jeopardy points (prize at end of term).
This week I am replacing an in-class labelling tutorial with the same tutorial released through Canvas as an assignment. Each group has all week to prepare the answers. They search through the regulations and answer questions that are typical of what you do in the food industry when preparing a food product label. It is sort of scavenger hunt where they determine things like food additive permitted use levels, Nutrition Facts table preparation from laboratory analyses, component ingredients in ingredient statement etc. I have told them that I will be available by virtual office on Friday 8-10 if they need help. They must submit it by 4 but it appears to me that many of the groups already have it done and it is only Tuesday! Usually the classroom is chaotic during this tutorial as students share the few hard copies of regulations I bring with me as well as use on-line materials.
Because I have taught this course for 15 years I can gauge the work level is still okay with reduced face to face time. I think that might be my concern when developing blended aspects of a course.”
– Nancy Ross, Sessional Lecturer, Food, Nutrition & Health Program
The Winter 2018 cohort of T-BLE will run from March 1 to April 3. Applications are now open.
