Blended Online Distance Education

Blended or hybrid courses combine online and face-to-face class time in a structured manner. Although there are varying mixtures of content delivery and interactive activities in this approach, the logical extension is something called the “flipped classroom.” The flipped classroom model involves courses that move the traditional lecture, or content dissemination, away from face-to-face hours and into online delivery outside of class time. The face-to-face class time is used for practice and actual application rather than for introducing the content being studied. The instructor then has time to help students face-to-face with specific problems. Flipped classrooms have been in existence since around 2000, but they have recently been gaining popularity in both higher education and K-12 institutions.

The Khan Academy, with over 3,400 videos covering multiple subjects, has been a leading force in the popularization of the flipped classroom concept. The Khan Academy videos are free and available to anyone. The most common usage within education circles is for the videos to form much of the online lecture or content-dissemination portion of a course, either replacing or augmenting material from the course instructor. Although Khan Academy videos have mainly targeted K-12 math content up to this point, new revenue investment is leading to expanding content outside of mathematics and into postsecondary-level content.

There are many other examples of blended and hybrid approaches. The common theme is to make face-to-face class time more effective, using it to provide much of the instructor feedback and interactive skills portion of a class while pushing content delivery into more-efficient online tools.