Would you like to have better discussions, greater participation, and more student-to-student interaction in your courses? Would you prefer to have more flexibility in organizing office hours, active-learning assignments, small-group work, and experiential activities? Would you like to be able to use myCourses to its full potential? If so, you ought to consider blending your courses.
More and more courses at RIT and other institutions are being offered in a blended-learning format. As the name suggests, the goal of blended learning is the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences. A blended course might hold class once or twice each week (instead of two or three times each week), and could include pre-class online discussion (to enable students to come to class better prepared) as well as post-class virtual team activities (to allow members to collaborate in an anywhere, anytime mode).
In fall 2003, the Online Learning Department launched at Blended Learning Pilot Project to foster blended learning at RIT. At the pilot’s conclusion in spring 2005, 69 faculty members had designed and taught 115 blended courses. Due to the great success of the pilot, in fall 2005 Online Learning initiated an ongoing Blended Learning Program to support first-time blended faculty, foster collaboration and sharing among all faculty teaching blended courses, explore new pedagogical and research strategies, and disseminated best practices to the broader RIT community.
Within the Blended Learning Program, a one-time $500 stipend for course development will be given to RIT faculty, full-time or adjunct, whose project is approved and supported by Online Learning, and who agrees to:
To learn more about blended learning at RIT, and to apply for a stipend and course design support, contact program coordinator Michael Starenko at mssetc@rit.edu or 585.475.5035.